News Briefs (March 2006)

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Managing Accounts Payable

March 2006

TRY THE "FOUR-WAY" MATCH

If you have chronic overpayment problems on invoices for contracted services, try this: the "four-way" match. The fourth thing to match would be the terms in the contract. You simply add this procedure in the contract as part of the verification procedure. For example, this problem typically comes up with freight bills. In the freight contract, there would be payment terms, but these terms would often be missed on the invoice and…

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March 2006 Table of Contents [ toggle snippets ]

MAP March 2006 (full PDF issue)
Best Practices for Growing Your Company’s P-Card Program;
Policies and Procedures: New MAP Study Reveals Travel Reimbursement Rates;
How to Deal With 5 Common Vendor Payment Complaints;
GNC's Unclaimed Property Woes Point Up Red Flags to Avoid;
MAP Calendar (March 2006);
News Briefs (March 2006);
Questionnaire Gets AP Internal Controls Into Shape;
Accounts Payable Managers’ Forum (March 2006)
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Best Practices for Growing Your Company’s P-Card Program
More AP managers tell us that increasing the use of p-cards is the most successful AP strategy they use. How are they growing their p-card programs? To help define the best “best practices” for growing your p-card operations, we turned to two new studies—one from the Aberdeen Group and one from IOMA. We also turned to several experts including Ted Klein, who built GM’s p-card program and is an instructor for IOMA/TAPN’s certification program, and Michael O’Malley of GE Payment Services.
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Policies and Procedures: New MAP Study Reveals Travel Reimbursement Rates
Companies reimburse employees for reasonable out-of-town travel expenses—but they are kept under control. How? Through the use of various limits and provisions, such as “coach-only” air travel rules, the use of designated travel agencies, receipt requirements, and mandates to purchase the lowest-cost tickets available.
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How to Deal With 5 Common Vendor Payment Complaints
Vendor complaints are a fact of life in AP—but that doesn’t mean you can’t eliminate the aggravation they bring. All you have to know is how to either stop them from happening or how to respond in a way that makes the vendor happy.
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GNC's Unclaimed Property Woes Point Up Red Flags to Avoid
The parent company of General Nutrition Centers Inc. may have to swallow a bitter pill—the state of Pennsylvania claims the company must pony up millions of dollars in unclaimed property. The state’s treasury department conducted an audit when it smelled something fishy in the company’s unclaimed property reports.
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Accounts Payable Calendar (March 2006)
AP CERTIFICATION TRAINING The IOMA/TAPN AP Seminar & Certification Exam: The Best Training Program Available for Accounts Payable Pros Indianapolis, April 11 Atlanta, April 18 Kansas City (MO), May 19 Chicago, June 11 Other dates and locations Go to www.ioma.com/certification/aptraining.html. IOMA’S ADVANCED AP INSTITUTE, March 20-21, Dallas. Contact: IOMA Customer Service, 800-401-5937 Ext. 2; www.ioma.com/AP/. ORGANIZING AND MANAGING ACCOUNTS PAYABLE, March 22, Worcester, MA; other dates and locations. Contact: National Seminars Group, 800-258-7246; www.natsem.com. …
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News Briefs (March 2006)
TRY THE "FOUR-WAY" MATCH If you have chronic overpayment problems on invoices for contracted services, try this: the "four-way" match. The fourth thing to match would be the terms in the contract. You simply add this procedure in the contract as part of the verification procedure. For example, this problem typically comes up with freight bills. In the freight contract, there would be payment terms, but these terms would often be missed on the invoice and…
Close Snippit | Read Article
Accounts Payable Managers’ Forum (March 2006)
Problem: For Carol Webb, AP supervisor at MedQuist (Mount Laurel, NJ), nothing has brought about such radical change as a shift in systems from JD Edwards to SAP. She says mastering the SAP platform was a thorny enterprise because PO entry is “tricky” and the “help” topics use “strange language.” Also, a lack of training caused invoices to pile up.
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Questionnaire Gets AP Internal Controls Into Shape for the New Year
Now's the time to kick off the new year with a checkup on AP internal controls. Corporate financial misdeeds have routinely been in the news, so it has become more important than ever to have mechanisms in place to ensure adequate corporate governance. Since AP is the gatekeeper with respect to a company’s cash outflow, it is a key player in the internal controls arena.
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