Managing Accounts Payable

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April 2005 Table of Contents [ toggle snippets ]

• Sarbanes-Oxley Toolkit: Practices to Ensure Adequate Controls Related to the Processing of Invoices
• While no two accounts payable departments are constructed exactly the same, the one thing they all have in common is that every single AP department processes invoices. Thus, it is surprising that there are so many different ways that organizations process invoices, making it an area vulnerable to inadequate controls. Prior to the enactment of Sarbanes-Oxley, lack of adequate controls only opened the company up to fraud or duplicate payments—serious consequences to be sure. Now a company without adequate practices in this arena opens itself up to SEC censure. What follows is a list of steps that you can use to ensure that you have the proper invoice handling processes in place in your organization.
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• A Five-Pronged Approach to Grow Your P-Card Program
• Once they finally get their p-card program up and running, accounts payable managers often get a directive to expand it. Why? Usually it’s because management that was reluctant to give permission to use p-cards in the first place now wants to reap additional benefits. Sometimes they see it as a way to solve workflow capacity issues in accounts payable. And, let’s face it—the more low-dollar purchases are transferred from the invoice process to the p-card, the more efficient the accounts payable department will become. Speaking at an IOMA audio conference, the National Association of Purchasing Card Professionals’ Lynn Larson shared a five-pronged approach that can be used.
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• Accounts Payable Mgrs. Can Earn in Excess of $60,000
• Do you think that accounts payable managers employed by for-profit organizations earn a lot more than their peers at nonprofit organizations? If you answered affirmatively, you might be in for a rude awakening. While in most instances—but definitely not all—the for-profit world pays more than the not-for profit, the difference is not as substantial as you might think. The differential tends to manifest itself when the bonus issue is raised. This article takes a look at what accounts payable managers are being paid in both environments.
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• AP Certification: More Than Just a Piece of Paper to Hang on the Wall
• Is it worth putting the time and effort into studying for the accounts payable certification exam? Or is it simply another credential to add to your resume? We wondered if people felt they were really getting anything out of the program. To find out we looked through the comments and talked to a number of the 1,500 plus professionals who have participated. In addition to the obvious, here’s how they described the benefits of the program:
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• How to Take a Customer Service Approach in AP
• Although many people don’t realize it, one of the secrets of really successful accounts payable departments is spectacular customer service. Now, if your brow is furled and you’re thinking accounts payable doesn’t deal with customers, read on. Accounts payable’s customers are from within the company itself. In other words, they are the employees in departments that AP deals with on a day-to-day basis. What can you do if your department’s relationships with others in the company are less than ideal? The following strategies will help.
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• Coming in future issues of Managing Accounts Payable (0504)
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• Managing Accounts Payable Calendar (0504)
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• GSA Per Diems Help Establish Norms for T&E Monitoring
• Fairness and T&E rarely go together unless a company takes a strong stance to establish firm guidelines. One of the ways they frequently do this is to establish per-diems. These are rates that the company will allow a traveling employee to spend for food, lodging, and incidentals. Recognizing that it might cost a bit more to eat and sleep in, say, New York City than in Duluth, most companies delineate their allowable costs by city. Typically these are revised annually.
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• News Briefs (0504)
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• Accounts Payable Managers’ Forum (0504)
• Managing A/P’s work when there are employee absences Problem: Like most organizations, the Lincoln Electric Company’s disbursement and payroll department found itself hustling when staff members were out. It made Merry S. Quebodeaux, the manager of payroll/disbursements group, look for ways to automate processing.
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