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 […]
Introduction Utilizing an organizational design that includes the role of the global process owner for an end-to-end process area, such as Purchase-to-Pay, is considered a best practice by many companies. However, the manner in which global process ownership is configured and carried out can vary significantly between companies, with such issues as the level of […]
Introduction At major corporations across the globe, the Purchase-to-Pay process can be very complex; involving thousands of suppliers and employees who represent many different departments within the company. While the shift to an end-to-end process design has helped to break down the company silos, standardize operations, and streamline the overall process, ensuring that the “customers” […]
Introduction Segmenting Accounts Payable work activities to identify those that would be best supported by a call center or help desk has been a design element for the majority of Shared Services organizations, with resulting benefits including improved visibility of problems and issues, and higher levels of satisfaction from internal customers and external suppliers. However, […]
Energy costs are one of the largest expense categories a company has, which makes it a priority to understand and manage utility-related data. Yes, if the lights were out last month at one of your company locations, you probably need to pay the electric bill; however, the process of managing utility payments is more complicated […]