The most frequent benchmark request for information revolves around a difficult issue to quantify: the cost to process an invoice. As part of its biannual benchmarking survey, Managing Accounts Payable compiled this data, including only the accounts payable related costs. Corporate overhead is not included in the figures. The good news is that the median costs have increased a measly 7% since we started measuring this figure four years ago.
Just a few short years ago, p-cards were considered a leading-edge practice used at only a few innovative companies. Today, according to statistics from Managing Accounts Payable’s readers, just under 40% of companies already use them. But, as the statistics indicate, there are still a large number of companies ripe for the implementation of a p-card program. At many of these institutions, the ac-counts payable manager knows that a p-card program would save the company tons of money while simultaneously improving the efficiency of the department. Similarly at some companies with an existing program, the manager wants to increase the usage of the card, but is at a standstill when it comes to justifying the increase to management. The National Association of Purchasing Card Professionals (NAPCP) has developed a program that can be used to address these very issues.
The decision to stretch payments is one that faces virtually every company today. With cash flow under pressure, most companies have stretched payments out by one to four days over the past year. Once the decision to stretch has been made, the next assessment is how long should payments be withheld. If one day is good, is two better?—and then what about three? Firms in the electrical components and equipment area have pushed them out by then days on average. The assessment is often guided by the corporate culture of the company as well as what is generally being done in the industry.
Close to half (48.9%) of all large companies (those with more than 5,000 employees) now bench-mark their accounts payable operations, which is up roughly 10% over the number measuring performance two years ago. Smaller organizations on the other hand (those with less than 500 employees) are far less apt to benchmark.
As yearend approaches, and with it those dreaded staff salary reviews, now might be a good time to collect competitive compensation data for that all-important supervisory staff. To help, Managing Accounts Payable has obtained base salary and bonus data for the critical accounts payable supervisor position. It comes from Watson Wyatt Data Services in its 2002/2003 Geographic Report on Supervisory Management Compensation.
2009
