July 2004 | Vol. 2004 No. 7

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Managing Accounts Payable

Managing Accounts Payable is the leading source of information for accounts payable professionals and those responsible for the function. Each monthly issue contains 5-7 articles, 6-10 short news clips, a manager's forum on the back page and calendar of upcoming seminars and conferences. The material comes from internal research, surveys, case studies, conference material and interviews.

Subscribers to the newsletter have the opportunity each year to participate in a benchmarking or operations survey. Participants receive the results for free. Topics covered in the newsletter include: invoice handling; check preparation, printing and filing; exception and Rush check processing; techniques for reducing duplicate payments; staff and career management; working with other departments, master vendor files; terms and discounts; T&E; VAT Reclaim, EDI; XML; technology; imaging p-cards; post audit firms; benchmarking; 1099s; check fraud; case studies; escheat or unclaimed property; and sales and use tax. Spot e-mail surveys are also conducted and reported on when issues such as the 9/11 tragedy occur.

The newsletter sponsors five accounts payable conferences each year. An annual buyers’ guide is included with a subscription.

July 2004 Table of Contents [ toggle snippets ]

MAP July 2004 (full PDF issue)
Five Internal Controls That Will Protect Your AP Department and Company;
1 Master Vendor File Procedures to Enhance Regulatory Compliance;
Continuous Monitoring Is the Best Answer to Today’s AP Problems;
New Per Diem Data Helps Manage T&E and Combat Potential Fraud;
Is Your AP Department Ready for ‘Check 21’?;
Accounts Payable Miscellany;
Hey! Did You Pay for That Item With Both a Check and a P-Card?;
Accounts Payable Calendar;
Accounts Payable Managers’ Forum
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Five Internal Controls That Will Protect Your AP Department and Company
Adequate internal controls in the AP process are critically important to protect against fraud. While the recent accounting debacles and the enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act have brought the issue home to roost, accounts payable professionals have long been aware of the importance of all sorts of controls. But exactly what controls are important for accounts payable? Speaking at the National Association of Purchasing Card Professionals’ annual conference, Brigham Young University’s Steven Sorenson broke down control procedures for accounts payable into five broad areas. He then gave suggestions for each type of control. Although he was speaking about purchasing cards, you will see that the controls he suggests are applicable to all accounts payable functions.
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Master Vendor File Procedures to Enhance Regulatory Compliance
Most accounts payable managers are well aware that having master vendor file practices is a key ingredient in preventing fraud and duplicate payments. But what many don’t realize is that there is another good reason for tightening up the controls around the master vendor file. Best practices in this arena will help companies comply with a growing number of laws and regulations. Speaking at a recent IOMA audio conference, Recap’s Jon Casher delineated these laws and demonstrated how compliance is achieved.
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Continuous Monitoring Is the Best Answer to Today’s AP Problems
Never has it been a more electrifying, albeit stressful, time to work in accounts payable. Technological advancements, departmental recognition, and a cautious business environment brought on by stringent economic conditions and fraudulent accounting all contribute to the excitement. The situation is enough to leave one reeling, under the best of circumstances.
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New Per Diem Data Helps Manage T&E and Combat Potential Fraud
One of the beauties of high-tech automated T&E systems is that they permit policy compliance to be routinely checked when an expense report is submitted. They then flag policy violations for the staff to investigate. Whether these violations are due to carelessness or fraud is irrelevant from the review standpoint. All this takes place without intervention (or work) from the accounts payable staff. Alas, only a small fraction of companies have invested in such systems, and the rest have to find ways to monitor the expense report process as well as policy compliance. To help readers with that problem, MAP presents information prepared by the trade paper Business Travel News (BTN), as well as some fraud numbers that will make most managers sit up and take notice.
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Is Your AP Department Ready for 'Check 21'?
The concept of check truncation has been around in the banking industry for decades. The reality of check fraud has been around for even longer, affecting an even greater population. While virtually everyone reading this knows about check fraud, a smaller portion of our audience understands truncation. That is all about to change with the enactment of the Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act. The act is quickly becoming known as Check 21. It becomes effective Oct. 28, 2004, so everyone associated with accounts payable needs to become familiar with these concepts—quickly.
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Managing Accounts Payable Miscellany (July 2004)
1. Electronic payments explode. 2. IRS issues new revenue procedure on business meal and entertainment expense deductions. 3. How do you get purchasing to fill out the POs correctly? 4. Sarbanes-Oxley humor in AP. 5. AP Insider contest winner. 6. Etc.
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Hey! Did You Pay for That Item With Both a Check and a P-Card?
P-cards are wonderful for a variety of reasons. They get the small-dollar invoices out of accounts payable, reduce purchasing costs, help get rogue spenders under control, and enable a number of productivity enhancements in the entire purchase-to-pay cycle. However, there is another dirty little secret about p-cards. Without proper controls in place, they also increase duplicate payments. Willa Conrad, senior accounts payable clerk for Cadman Inc., wrote to tell us how she handles this problem.
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Accounts Payable Managers' Forum (July 2004)
1. Centralizing AP effectively while improving customer service 2. Reducing turnover in AP
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