Accounts payable functions are usually listed as tasks, which is less useful than listing them as responsibilities, because the interesting question is not what has to be done but who does it. In a large organisation these are different people by design. In a small business they collapse onto one or two, and which collapses are acceptable and which are not is the thing worth knowing. This page lists the functions, says who should own each in a team of one to fifteen, and is direct about the two that must never be the same person, along with what to do when they unavoidably are.
The functions, as responsibilities
Receiving and recording invoices. Coding them. Maintaining the supplier master. Matching and resolving exceptions. Approving spend. Preparing and releasing payment. Reconciling the ledger. Reporting the aging.
Who should own each in a small team
Finance owns recording, coding, matching, reconciliation and reporting. The budget holder owns approval, because approving is asserting that the spend was committed and the thing was received. Payment release should sit with somebody outside the entry process, commonly an owner.
The two that must never combine
Supplier master maintenance and payment release. One person holding both can create a supplier and pay it. Where the team genuinely cannot separate them, an owner reviewing new suppliers and bank detail changes before the payment run is the recognised compensating control, and it has to be recorded to count.
Questions people ask about accounts payable functions
Can one person do all of accounts payable?
Operationally yes and it carries a known risk, which is why the compensating review exists. What is not acceptable is nobody outside the function ever looking at the payment run.
Should approvers code invoices?
They are often best placed to and rarely willing. Payables coding with the approver correcting puts the knowledge and the accountability in the right places.
Who owns the supplier master?
Finance, with changes reviewed by somebody else. It is the highest-risk record in payables and it is routinely treated as administrative.