Introduction Many are familiar with the book, Reengineering the Corporation, by Hammer and Champy, published in 1993, which cited Ford Motor Company’s ability to eliminate 75% of their AP staff by implementing Evaluated Receipts Settlement (ERS) as an example of the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign companies must undertake to drive large scale improvement. While […]
Introduction Making improvements to working capital or cash flow requires a clear understanding of the details of current work processes, including fundamentals that include when payment terms begin, and the frequency and timing of payment runs. For example, saying your payment terms are 45 days means different things if the clock starts based on the […]
Introduction In the world of Accounts Payable processing for large companies with billions in annual revenue, streamlining processes and eliminating complexity wherever possible is critical. In some cases, the efforts required don’t seem to be justified based on the nature of the transactions performed. For example, the process for administering one-time payments to non-vendors is […]
Introduction Developing a solid relationship with key internal customers, such as Procurement, Finance, and IT, is important for the long-term success of any Accounts Payable organization. During a recent Peeriosity PeercastTM, we looked at the experiences of one of our member companies as they worked to enhance these important provider/customer relationships and how they measured […]
Introduction With the significant amount of fraud risk associated with the Accounts Payable process, having the proper controls and audit program in place is key to the overall health of this critical function. While there are both internal and external threats to your Accounts Payable organization, the external threat has become increasingly prevalent and sophisticated, […]
Introduction A variety of electronic payment options for suppliers have been around for a number of years now, but a significant percentage of vendor payments are still made by paper check. This is especially true in North America, which tends to lag behind the rest of the world in this area. Since the 1980s, when […]
Introduction In the United States, the Escheatment process, also commonly known as the Unclaimed Property process, consists of turning over unclaimed or abandoned checks, whose owners cannot be traced, to state authority. Every company is required to file unclaimed property reports with states annually and to make a good-faith effort to find the owners of […]
Introduction Even though Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology has been readily available for several decades now, a significant number of the major companies in the world do not currently utilize it. With the recent advances in this technology, which have increased its capabilities to correctly interpret and translate information to a digital format, OCR has […]
Introduction Since the 1980s, when considering improvements to the Accounts Payable process, companies around the world successfully deployed solutions that evaluate Accounts Payable as one component of the Procure-to-Pay process. This yielded improved efficiencies between functional areas and often eliminated the need for invoices entirely with pay-on-receipt processes. However, when it comes to making the […]
Introduction For Accounts Payable departments which are processing thousands of transactions every day, while it’s helpful that a high percentage of transactions are automated using ERS (Evaluated Receipts Settlement), where no invoice is required to generate payment), EDI (where invoice information is received electronically using defined formatting standards), or Purchasing Cards (where purchases are made […]