{"id":3671,"date":"2018-10-29T18:42:25","date_gmt":"2018-10-29T18:42:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.peeriosity.com\/shared-services\/articles\/?p=3671"},"modified":"2022-09-05T18:52:32","modified_gmt":"2022-09-05T18:52:32","slug":"effective-strategies-to-enhance-ap%e2%80%99s-relationship-with-internal-customers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.peeriosity.com\/shared-services\/articles\/2018\/10\/effective-strategies-to-enhance-ap%e2%80%99s-relationship-with-internal-customers\/","title":{"rendered":"Effective Strategies to Enhance AP\u2019s Relationship with Internal Customers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 During a recent Peeriosity PeercastTM<\/sup>, 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 the success of those efforts.
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Company Experience<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

A Peeriosity member company which is a global manufacturer of food products recently shared their efforts in improving how their Accounts Payable organization<\/a> interacts with their major internal customers.\u00a0\u00a0 One of the first steps they took was to identify strategies to enhance Accounts Payable\u2019s relationship, which included transparency of information, optimizing working capital, building processes or systems to prevent early\/late payments or duplicate payments, creating a frustration-free experience, automation of specific activities, and centralizing work for standardization<\/a>.\u00a0 \u00a0While asking for feedback on how satisfied internal customers are is important, the first priority was to proactively enhance the relationship by taking a leadership position on issues that were the most important to their customer base.<\/span><\/p>\n

One example cited was a project where Accounts Payable worked closely with Procurement, Treasury, and Finance to negotiate new payment terms with their supplier base as part of an overall effort to increase DPO and working capital<\/a>.\u00a0 Some of the experiences and lessons learned from this joint effort included the following:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n