{"id":2636,"date":"2016-06-20T17:11:22","date_gmt":"2016-06-20T17:11:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.peeriosity.com\/shared-services\/articles\/?p=2636"},"modified":"2022-07-28T23:06:53","modified_gmt":"2022-07-28T23:06:53","slug":"truths-and-myths-about-reviewing-vendor-statements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.peeriosity.com\/shared-services\/articles\/2016\/06\/truths-and-myths-about-reviewing-vendor-statements\/","title":{"rendered":"Truths and Myths about Reviewing Vendor Statements"},"content":{"rendered":"

Decades ago, when Accounts Payable processors manually completed the three-way match of a paper invoice, purchase order, and receiving document, it was considered a courtesy for a supplier to provide a monthly statement of account activity, detailing outstanding invoices and credits.\u00a0 With the move towards automation and reduction in processing errors and mismatches, paper statements may be largely a relic of the past<\/a> that serve no useful purpose, other than to create additional work for companies that decide to look at them.<\/span><\/p>\n

Today, the dilemma is to decide what action to take, if any, with hard copy statements from suppliers.\u00a0 Should they be immediately discarded, should every item be diligently reconciled, or should some other approach be followed?\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Recently, Peeriosity\u2019s iPollingTM<\/sup> functionality was used to perform custom research in the Accounts Payable (P2P) research area<\/a> to understand the approaches that member companies take regarding statements from suppliers.\u00a0 Unlike traditional benchmarking, where companies complete large surveys at different points in time over multiple years, with results summarized, and with no visibility to individual responses, iPollingTM<\/sup> allows members to make direct comparisons between responses that are collected over a couple of days, with visibility to who responded, and with the option to follow up with any other respondents as needed for additional discussion.<\/span><\/p>\n

A top-level look at this issue indicates that only 11% of member companies review all vendor statements<\/a>, while 30% of the companies’ statements are not reviewed at all.\u00a0\u00a0 For the majority (59%) of member companies, the answer is somewhere in between, where statements are reviewed only for some vendors.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"scope<\/p>\n

With 70% of companies performing at least some level of review, the next logical question is to better understand exactly what is reviewed.\u00a0 Interestingly, for 30% of the companies, all payments and credits are reviewed regardless of age.\u00a0 For an additional 34% of companies, only payments that exceed a threshold of either 30 or 60 days are reviewed.\u00a0 Finally, at 36% of member companies only credits, where the supplier potentially owes the company money, are reviewed for possible action.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"if<\/p>\n

Here are some of the comments from responding companies:<\/span><\/p>\n