When accounts payable and purchasing departments work closely together, everybody wins. Not only
are there fewer internal problems, but the payment process is much smoother—a real benefit to accounts
payable. As companies take advantage of new electronic initiatives, the opportunities for the two departments
to integrate are more pronounced.
Most accounts payable managers understand the benefits of e-invoicing. Several of these professionals
have told MAP that their problem is convincing management to use the product. We asked four experts
about this issue. The key, as is evident in the responses, is to understand the problems accounts
payable is experiencing and then demonstrate how e-invoicing addresses those concerns.
Accounts payable executives are constantly faced with a Solomon-like dilemma. They have to weigh
the benefit of intensive manual, checking to catch errors against the cost of allocating scarce human
resources to those manual, seemingly non-value-added, tasks. One of those jobs is the matching of checks
to invoices. Is it worth the time and effort? That’s exactly what one intrepid accounts payable professional
asked in a recent exchange on IOMA’s accounts payable discussion group.
Many accounts payable professionals are now recommending an electronic payment initiative but are
not sure it would be cost-effective at their organizations. Now there is a way for you to do those calculations—
and perhaps even improve your own professional standing within the company at the same time.
The backbone of any accounts payable department is made up of the staffers who work tirelessly to
ensure that the firm’s payments are made accurately and in a timely fashion. In many organizations, the
bulk of this group is composed of clerical workers. Their performance can make or break an accounts
payable department as well as the finance organization. It is imperative that these workers be adequately
compensated or the stellar performers will find employment elsewhere. To help accounts payable managers
gauge the appropriateness of their salaries, MAP has obtained benchmark salary information for
accounts payable clerks.
2009
