Accounts payable professionals are about to start hearing a lot about EIPP (Electronic Invoice Presentment and Payment) the system of issuing invoices to B2B customers over the Internet and receiving payment on those invoices electronically. This collective term marries two that have been around for a while: Web invoicing and electronic payments through the ACH.
It is not surprising that a large number of accounts payable pros find themselves grappling with their evolving--and increasingly challenging--roles. One of the more problematical, albeit potentially thrilling, factors is that while the profession advances, the opportunities for those who successfully face the onslaught of challenges abound. Yet, dealing with change can be stressful.
Frequently, an invoice will show up in the accounts payable department with no identification as to who ordered the product. Occasionally, these invoices will float from desk to desk throughout the company before finding their way into accounts payable.
The events of 9/11 refocused attention on payments made to foreigners. U.S. companies are forbidden from making payments to certain groups and countries. Some accounts payable professionals assume that since they work for a domestic company, they do not have to be concerned about this. That thinking can get your company into trouble. Some terrorists groups and other restricted companies deliberately use domestic sounding names to get around these restrictions. Here’s an update on the information you need to know regarding payments to foreigners.
Do your suppliers send invoices all over the company? Do they sometimes send them to purchasing and other times address them to no one in particular? Do they fax them in and then expect you to match their faxes with their originals whenever they get around to sending it in? Do they not provide the appropriate documentation? These are just a few of the things that suppliers--otherwise considerate people--do that drive accounts payable professionals to the bottle. While expecting to ever get this problem completely under control is not reasonable, accounts payable professionals can take a simple approach to tame the savage invoice sender.
Remember the aggravation of first printing and then filing copies of checks with paid invoices and the associated backup? For some, this process is but a memory, but for others, it is anything but. This harsh fact was brought home when one accounts payable professional wrote on the IOMA accounts payable discussion group (www.ioma.com/forum) the following: "I was wondering if anyone else attaches copies of checks to the invoices they pay? I am trying to move our company away from this as I think it is a waste of time. Does anyone else agree or disagree?"
Sometimes the terms "duplicate payments" and "erroneous payments" are used interchangeably, although doing so is not quite accurate. While a duplicate payment is always an erroneous payment, not all erroneous payments are duplicate payments. Erroneous payments include all excess payments. While an accounts payable operation with fairly stringent controls will catch most duplicate payments before they occur, the door is left wide open for other types of erroneous payments.
You don’t have to be a top-flight economist to know that most accounts payable departments are experiencing phenomenal increases in productivity. These increases are well documented in IOMA’s AP benchmarking study and can also be seen nationwide where the U.S. economy experienced productivity increases of 2.7% last quarter following up on a whopping 9.5% increase in the previous three months. When economists are questioned about where this improvement came from, they identify one root cause: information technology.
2009
