[Webinar] Making the Strategic Shift Away from Paper

Accounts Payable Today: Making The

Strategic Shift away from Paper

Mary Schaeffer

Publisher & Editorial Director AP Now

Author Controller & CFO’s Guide to Accounts

Payable + 15 other business books

Agenda

Background: Setting the Stage

Strategic Shift: Payments

Strategic Shift: Processing

Strategic Shift: Personnel + Careers

Closing thoughts

© 2012 Accounts Payable Now & Tomorrow and

Mary S. Schaeffer 2

Setting the Stage


Mary S. Schaeffer 3


Mary S. Schaeffer 4

Business World is in a State of Flux

Brick and mortar to web based

Publications and advertising moving from print to online

Computers, software

Mainframe, networked PCs

Outright purchase of software SaaS

Cloud based applications


Mary S. Schaeffer 5

Accounts Payable Is Part of

that Transition

Three Stages:

Moving away from paper checks to electronic and p-

card payments

Moving away from paper invoices to an automated

processing

Moving away from transactional to analytical staff


Mary S. Schaeffer 6

Functionality:

Part of the Bigger Picture

Not an island

Must integrate into the bigger Picture

Purchasing

Tax

Accounting

Treasury

Audit

Take a customer service attitude

The Other Big Change

The ugly reality of:

Ruthless cost cutting

Expense reduction

Headcount scrutiny


Mary S. Schaeffer 7

Strategic Shift: Payments


Mary S. Schaeffer 8


Mary S. Schaeffer 9

One of the Biggest Headaches in

Accounts Payable

The Paper Check. It is:

Expensive

People intensive

UP issues

A Problem creator


Mary S. Schaeffer 10

Alternatives to the

Paper Check Nightmare

P-cards

ACH (electronic payments)



Challenges with the Payment Shift

Supplying the remittance data

Cash application on the part of the

vendor

Controls when ACH payments made

outside AP

Strategic Shift: Processing





Root Cause of Headache on the

Processing Side

Invoice

Processing



A Few of the Problems

People Intensive … expensive

Human keying errors

Invoices lost in the mail (really)

Invoices addressed to no one

Invoices floating around the company



And More Problems

The storage issue

Lost early payment discounts

Late fees

The he-said-she-said approval problem



Result of These Problems

Manual invoices processing is:

Expensive

Error prone

Introduces delays as errors create additional disputes which must be resolved



What to Do???

Solution: Automate

Where do you get started

But what about the expense?

What about the staff?



Dipping Your Feet

into the e-Waters

Accepting invoices by email

Accepting invoices by e-fax

Sending remittance information for ACH by

email

Online T&E



What about the Cost?

No huge up-front investments

Money

Manpower

Time

Pay as you go (SaaS)



Where Do The Savings

Come From?

The obvious

Reduced processing costs

Fewer people processing invoices

Lower storage costs for hard documents

Not so Obvious

• Fewer duplicate and erroneous payments

• Fewer errors

• Easier access to information

• Less time with Auditors



Can We Talk about the Cowboys/gals?

Visibility into maverick spend

Purchases at vendors who are not on the preferred vendor

list

Sometimes indicates possible fraud

Sometimes just got a better price

Items that shouldn’t have been purchased in the first place –

or by the person who did the purchasing

Best example: computer/technology purchases not made by IT

Dollar amount above approval levels

Can slip through in a manual process



Approvals Time

Legitimate Delays

Mail Time (Post office)

Interoffice mail time

If scanning, scanning delays

Vacation/unplanned absences

Unreasonable Delays

Approver has more important things to do

Approver doesn’t like reviewing invoices

The Other Big Fight: Who Gets the

Invoice First

Did we get the invoice yet?

First question on those ‘Where’s My Money Calls’

Accounts Payable or Purchasing???

Home office or the field?

Should AP be centralized or decentralized?

With an automated solution, everyone has visibility into the

data so it almost doesn’t matter





Automatic Escalations

• Approval time preset – say five days

• If no action taken, invoice ‘escalated’ to the next level

• If no action taken after agreed amount of time, say five days, escalated to the next level.



Big Benefit

Strategic – Accounts Payable

automation frees you and your

staff from mundane tasks, giving

you more time to focus on your

business.

Strategic Shift:

Personnel + Careers





The Elephant in the Room Issue

What about the staff

who used to process invoices?

Will different skillsets be required after

automation?

What can I do to get ready?



The Staff

Yes – fewer will be needed to handle invoice issues

Dispute resolution will become more important

Retrain to handle other value added tasks including:

Master Vendor file cleanup

Statement reviews for open credits

In-house duplicate payment recovery

Improved Regulatory compliance The IRS

States



Staff Not necessarily about headcount

reduction

About creating a more

effective AP function

Regulatory compliant

Fraud resistant

Staff can work on those back-burned

projects

If they have the needed skills

AP can take on additional

responsibilities



Skills Needed in an Automated AP World

Analytical rather than transactional

Dispute resolution

Good customer service

Knowledge Regulatory issues: 1099, 1042, Sales & Use

Tax, Unclaimed Property, Worker Classification etc.

Accounting (not just AP issues) and GL

Purchasing, Treasury

Writing, public speaking (PowerPoint)

Excel, Access, Pivot Tables

AP: Yesterday vs. Tomorrow



The AP Function of the Future

Changing

New skills will be needed if you wish to be a strategic part of this shift

Your Challenge:

Keeping up

Making sure you are ready



Thank you/Questions

Questions always welcome.

To share your thoughts and insights

Mary Schaeffer

[email protected]

302 836 0540

Sign up for our free weekly ezine at

www.ap-now.com/ezinesignup.html



mailto:[email protected]



http://www.ap-now.com/ezinesignup.html



About Mary Schaeffer

Mary Schaeffer is a nationally recognized accounts payable expert. Following a career in finance she turned to writing and consulting. For the last 15 years she has been researching and writing newsletters for the accounts payable profession. Currently she is the Editorial Director & Publisher of Accounts Payable Now & Tomorrow, (www.ap-now.com) a fee-based newsletter published by CRYSTALLUS, Inc.

She also handles most of the firms consulting assignments (focused primarily on AP issues) often working with other well-regarded professionals. Her blog, at http://ap-now.com/blog/ is read by over 15,000 professionals each month.

Ms. Schaeffer is the author of over 15 business books including The CFO and Controllers’ Guide to Accounts Payable and the recently published Fraud in Accounts Payable: How to Prevent It. John Wiley & Sons is the publisher of most of her books.

She also is a regular contributor to the AICPA’s Corporate Finance Insider.

Ms. Schaeffer has a BS in Math from York College (CUNY) and a MBA in Finance from New York University.

She can be reached at [email protected]



http://www.ap-now.com/



http://ap-now.com/blog/






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[Webinar] Making the Strategic Shift Away from Paper

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