In 1989, when Dolores Anderson walked into Piping Technology & Products’ Long Drive location for her first real job, the accounting office was literally a converted house. The company was smaller, invoices were on paper, and “paperless” wasn’t even a buzzword yet.
Today, as Dolores retires as Accounts Payable (AP) Supervisor, she leaves behind a very different operation: one that’s larger and rapidly going digital. Her career traces the transformation of accounts payable from paper files and 10-key calculators to cloud-based workflows that are a lot more complex.
This is her PT&P journey and how she’s preparing the next generation, with Accounting Clerk Aglae De La Garza, in association with longtime Accounting Team Member Virginia Parrish, to carry AP into its fully paperless future at Piping Technology & Products (PT&P).
Dolores’s view of accounts payable is simple:
Detail matters most. In AP, “it’s so easy to make a mistake,” she explains. “Being highly detailed: Looking at all the dots and everything is really important when you’re responsible for paying vendors correctly and on time.”
“The AP Team, with their attention to detail, is critical in ensuring that we’re paying the vendors accurately and on time. Their relationship with our vendors is valuable when we need an urgent supply of materials or services. They work with us because of our relationship and our track record of prompt payment.” –Tim Schmitt, Vice President of Finance
The team culture at PT&P has been a nourishing and trustworthy environment where Dolores has grown personally and professionally. She repeatedly emphasizes how much she will miss “the people I work with.”
In a small accounting office where everyone knows each other well, culture is a major part of long-term success and retention.
Passing the Mantle: Training the Next Generation
As she prepares for retirement, Dolores is focused on a smooth transition. She is actively training Aglae, who will take on key AP responsibilities and help lead the function into its next chapter, which includes:
- Attention to detail: Dolores stresses that this is the most important quality for anyone entering AP.
- Ownership of vendor relationships: Understanding that every invoice represents a real supplier relationship and a commitment.
- Adapting to digital tools: While Dolores had to learn each new system from scratch, Aglae will begin her AP career in an environment designed to be paperless and cloud-first.
Looking forward, Dolores is confident about where AP is headed: fully paperless and digital. While she admits the shift away from paper created some anxiety, especially after years of relying on physical documentation and filing, she now sees this as “definitely…the best way to go.”
Knowledge Transfer Across Generations
Dolores’s long tenure means decades of institutional knowledge: how things work, and where issues tend to arise. Training Aglae ensures that this knowledge doesn’t walk out the door with retirement, but is instead embedded into the next generation’s digital workflows.
Honoring the Past, Building the Future of AP at PT&P
Dolores’s story shows how a company recognizes that growth and commitment matter: honoring experience and, most importantly, investing in people.
As she retires after more than three decades, having grown from a one-person collections and order entry role to supervising AP for an expanded, multi-subsidiary operation, Dolores leaves PT&P’s accounts payable function on solid footing.
“We’re proud to have so many long-tenured employees who stay with us here at Piping Tech….across so many disciplines, our teams have chosen to grow with us: our average tenure is between 7-25 years, and that shows how much we’ve valued our people, over our 50 years as a company.” –Monique Woodard, Director of Human Resources
PT&P is a place where people build long, meaningful careers, as Dolores did. As we invest in the next generation of talent and modernize how we work, we’re looking for detail-oriented, curious professionals who want to grow with us in an environment that values mentorship. Explore career opportunities at PT&P and help shape the next chapter of our story.
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