Congratulations to the 2019 Arizona Industries for the Blind (AIB) Employee of the Year, Sebastian Restifo.
Sebastian works as an Accounts Payable Clerk within the Accounting Services Unit (ASU), and is recognized by the AIB Management Team for his “commitment towards our mission and AIB’s success, embracing AIB’s guiding principles – doing his best, doing the right thing and treating others as he would like to be treated.”
The AIB Employee of the Year Award identifies employees across the organization who demonstrate outstanding work habits, job knowledge, and interpersonal skills throughout the year. “Sebastian is highly motivated, he is nose-to-the-grindstone from the minute he comes in until he leaves for the day,” said Lorraine Hudspeth, CFO.
As an AP Clerk, Sebastian is responsible for ensuring that payments are processed and recorded in a timely manner. He handles a high volume of invoices from our BSC vendors and must dual-enter everything (once in Counterpoint and again in Visual). “And his performance is stellar,” said Hudspeth.
Due to his extensive knowledge of accounting practices, Sebastian is always looking for ways to reduce errors, finding ways to improve the process and save the organization money. Over the last six years, Sebastian has become an expert in Counterpoint and helps BSC personnel understand the need to record everything in the system and how what they do impacts inventory, costing, payables, etc.
“As we look to improve the bottom line, Sebastian has taken a proactive approach to the payables. He’s identified the vendors that give discounts and, rather than waiting for the weekly payment packet batch, he’s monitoring receipts and requesting early emailed packets for those vendors so we can take advantage of the discounts,” said Hudspeth.