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07.08.08 Take a P2P Slant for World-Class Results
For AP departments to achieve “world-class” status in terms of costs and efficiency, they need to look beyond the walls of AP and into the entire process, from initial purchase through to payment. “We have discovered there is a lot of value, particularly on the AP side, in looking at what is variously called an end-to-end, purchase-to-pay, or P2P, process,” said Kurt Albertson, director of advisory service for The Hackett Group, at our recent RECAP/IOMA AP conference in Ft. Lauderdale. Hackett benchmarks corporate functional operations, including at the process level, such as accounts payable, purchasing, and payroll.
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07.07.08 Mileage Reimbursement Tax Trap
The Internal Revenue Service recently increased the optional business standard mileage rates from 50.5 cents per mile to 58.5 cents per mile effective July 1. This is the rate you can reimburse employees on a tax-free basis for the business use of their personal cars. But employees may have a tax issue if employers reimburse for less than the standard rate.
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07.03.08 Work Flexibility and Staff Health
Workers who reported increased work flexibility from one year to the next had fewer absences for illness and improved job commitment, according to new research from the Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C. In addition, these workers were less likely to say that health problems affected their job performance.
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07.02.08 Fighting P-Card Fraud
Slightly more than one in ten (13 percent) of organizations that use purchasing cards (p-cards) report that they experienced attempted or actual payments fraud through the use of these cards, according to the 2008 Payments Fraud and Control Survey from the Association for Financial Professionals (AFP). This is a concern, especially if you are considering growing your p-card program.
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07.01.08 Five Key Procedures for Handling Invoices
We all know that no two AP departments are run exactly the same way. But the one thing they all have in common is that every single AP department processes invoices. The surprising thing, though, is that there are so many different ways that organizations process invoices. And this makes the process vulnerable to inadequate controls.
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06.30.08 Congress Enters 1099 Worker Fray
Legislation aimed at stopping employers from improperly classifying employees as independent contractors to avoid minimum wage and overtime obligations, employment taxes, and benefit contributions has been introduced in the House of Representatives.
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06.27.08 Test Your AP IQ: Unpaid Expenses
How familiar are you with AP rules, regulations, and best practices? Here’s a multiple-choice question to test your knowledge: What accounting term is used for an expense that has been incurred but not yet paid?
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06.26.08 Is Your Staff Uneasy? Could Be Gas
Soaring gas prices are causing more Americans to make sacrifices when it comes to driving, as well as affecting the way many feel about work. According to a new study of full-time employees by the Telework Exchange, 28 percent of respondents are already looking for jobs closer to home because of gas prices. Moreover, 89 percent of the 377 respondents say they would limit a job search because of potential commuting costs.
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06.25.08 Double-Digit Growth for Imaging Solutions
According to our research, slightly over half (51%) of AP departments we surveyed say they currently use imaging. Of those who do not currently use imaging, 44% said they plan on using it over the next 12 months. When you total up these two groups, almost three-quarters (73%) of the total respondents will have imaging in place in the near future. This is consistent with recent findings by Paystream Advisors that reveal that almost half the respondents to its recent survey stated that they were using imaging and workflow automation (IWA) solutions. more...
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06.24.08 FLASH: IRS Ups Mileage Rates Effective July 1
The Internal Revenue Service announced yesterday an increase in the optional standard mileage rates for the final six months of 2008, according to a news release [IR-2008-82] and an accompanying announcement [Announcement 2008-63].
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06.24.08 Secret of Good Customer Service
Often overlooked when discussing AP is the aspect of customer service. AP has two sets of customers: internal (departments, business units, etc.) and external (vendors). AP, as a service department, needs to be concerned about whether its customers are satisfied with the service it provides.
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06.23.08 New Proposed Regs on Biz Car Usage
When employees use business cars for personal use, the value of the personal use is generally considered taxable income to the employees. However, there’s no tax if the vehicle is a so-called “qualified nonpersonal use vehicle.” Under new proposed regulations from the Internal Revenue Service, "clearly marked" public safety officer vehicles would be added as a new type of qualified nonpersonal use vehicle. That means, for example, that public safety officers and other first responders would be able to take their vehicles home tax-free. What’s more, they don’t even have to be employed by a police or fire department to qualify for the tax-free treatment—as long as the vehicles are clearly marked. more...
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06.20.08 Test Your AP IQ: One-Card Program
How familiar are you with AP rules, regulations, and best practices? Here’s a question to test your knowledge: What is the primary advantage of a “one-card” program (combined procurement card, travel card, and sometimes a fleet card)?
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06.19.08 Recruiting Millenials Requires Adjusting
If you want to attract recent college grads to your AP department, you and your organization must adjust in several ways to the unique set of needs of these so-called "millenials" who are looking for their first job, a panel told attendees at the recent 2008 WorldAtWork Total Rewards Conference and Exhibition in Philadelphia. Millennials, also known as Generation Y, are generally defined as people born between 1981 and 1993.
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06.18.08 Souped-Up Scanning Tackles 6K Invoices a Day
Exel Transportation Services provides payment services for transportation brokerages. They were being overwhelmed by an average of 126,000 invoices a month—about 6,000 a day—so they upgraded their traditional invoice imaging process to “intelligent scanning.”
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06.17.08 AP Processes to Outsource
It’s no longer a question of “if” you should outsource, but “what” you should outsource and “how” you should do it. Not every AP department has the resources or expertise to do all of the functions it needs to—so that’s where outsourcing comes in. Outsourcing is defined simply as work done by a third party—the “source” of the work is “out” of the realm of the AP department.
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06.16.08 New IRS Worker Classification Initiative
The Internal Revenue Service is undertaking new employment tax enforcement initiatives, including closer attention to worker classification issues, Kathy Petronchak, IRS commissioner for the Small Business/Self-Employed Division, told attendees at the recent American Payroll Association 26th Annual Congress.
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06.13.08 Test Your AP IQ: Reimbursements to Spouses
How familiar are you with AP rules, regulations, and best practices? Here’s a question to test your knowledge: Acme Company reimburses spouses of executives when the couple travels on company business. Acme must report the spouses’ reimbursement on the Form 1099-MISC. True or False?
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06.12.08 Instant Messaging Decreases Interruptions
Are your AP workers being interrupted a lot with phone calls, e-mails, and people coming in to the AP department? Then try this: Have them use instant messaging software on the job.
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06.11.08 Biggest Barrier to E-Invoicing
Lack of knowledge about electronic invoicing is the reason most cited by AP pros for not moving forward with this technology. One-third of over 300 AP pros we recently polled said this was the biggest barrier, followed by “lack of priority” of investment in AP automation. more...
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06.10.08 Use the Mail for All Paper Checks
At a pre-conference workshop at our recent Paper-Free AP conference in Ft. Lauderdale, we asked attendees what percentage of their payments were made using paper checks. Surprisingly, the percentage was around 90 percent--much higher than the overall average of 70-75 percent. Well, maybe it wasn’t so surprising—these folks were attending our conference looking for ways to eliminate the paper.
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06.09.08 Control=Employee, Says the IRS
A medical professional is considered an employee—not a Form 1099 independent contractor--for employment tax purposes where the company directly supervises and controls her work, the Internal Revenue Service determined in Private Letter Ruling.
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06.06.08 Test Your AP IQ: Financial Statement Basics
How familiar are you with AP rules, regulations, and best practices? Here’s a multiple-choice question to test your knowledge: AP pros should have an understanding of basic accounting. Which organizational financial statement represents a snapshot of the organization’s financial condition at one point in time? more...
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06.05.08 High Cost of Unscheduled Absences
Unscheduled employee absences have a significant effect on workplace productivity and profitability, yet few organizations track such leave, according to a study recently released by the Integrated Benefits Institute, an employer membership health care research group in San Francisco.
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06.04.08 Want More E-Invoices? Just Ask
The benefits of electronic invoicing from AP’s perspective are clear: less manual data entry, fewer errors, faster payments—to name a few. The benefits are also clear to your mirror-image counterparts at your vendors—the accounts receivable folks. The AR people know that e-invoicing benefits their organization by eliminating all associated mailing costs (paper, postage, clerical time, etc.), gives them greater visibility into billing, and can help improve their DSO (Days Sales Outstanding), which is the flip-side of the DPO (Days Payables Outstanding) metric.
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06.03.08 Tracking a New AP Project
It’s a lot of work to get a new AP project planned and approved. But the work is just beginning because now you have to actually make it happen. And an important part of this is to track your progress, using software such as Microsoft Project to figure out your steps and your sequential deadlines for different tasks.
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06.02.08 Proposed Hike in Mileage Rates
Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) has introduced a bill (S. 3032) that would increase the standard mileage rate for 2008 tax deductions on automobiles used for business, medical, and moving purposes, and permanently increase the rate for charitable deduction purposes.
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05.30.08 Test Your AP IQ: Vendor Data
How familiar are you with AP rules, regulations, and best practices? Here’s a multiple-choice question to test your knowledge: Which of the following does the accounts payable department typically have the most problem getting from a vendor?
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05.29.08 More Employees Connect to Work On Vacation
With vacation season officially under way, some workers will be carrying along excess baggage on their summer trips--in the form of work responsibilities and anxiety over taking time off.
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05.28.08 41 Questions to Ask About a SEP Solution
A new white paper from PayStream Advisors gives an overview of the Supplier Electronic Payment (SEP) solutions on the market today. PayStream points out that a SEP solution is just one component of a larger Financial Supply Chain or Web Invoicing arrangement, which in an overall sense, includes the ability to send electronic POs to vendors and receive, validate and process invoices and payments electronically.
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05.27.08 Remove Barriers to Change
Why do people resist change? Rudy Noll, APM, CAPP, AP supervisor at Peoples Gas System gave some insights at RECAP's 12th Annual Enhancing AP Operations Conference and IOMA's 8th Annual Advanced AP Institute held recently in Ft. Lauderdale. He suggests some of reasons why employees are “change resistors” is that they don’t know what’s around the corner or they are not trained in “letting go.” Also, you’re asking them to change patterns that they have spent a great deal of time and effort developing. Plus, people would rather suffer in a known world than move out of that world, even for potential gain.
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05.23.08 Test Your AP IQ: Barriers to EDI
How familiar are you with AP rules, regulations, and best practices? Here’s a multiple-choice question to test your knowledge: Which of the following is NOT a barrier to using traditional Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)?
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05.22.08 Gas Prices Trigger Worker Stress
Pain at the pump results in more employee stress on the job, lower morale, and sometimes less productivity, Wayne Hochwarter, professor of management at Florida State University's College of Business in Tallahassee, said recently in announcing results of a new survey.
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05.21.08 Get a SAS 70 Seal of Approval
Using a third party for AP automation is getting more common. For example, an outsourcer may do your invoice scanning as part of your imaging setup. When you do this, you are still on the hook for it from an internal control standpoint. This is particularly important under the internal control requirements of Section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley. Your organization is still responsible for ensuring the control of a process regardless of whether it’s handled in-house or not.
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05.20.08 Time Differences With Global AP
Let’s say it’s Friday afternoon in the U.S. and you decide to call the AP manager in your invoice processing center in India. You place the call and you get her voice mail. A few hours goes by and you don’t get any return call. You wonder: Where is she? Well, unless she’s out partying, she’s home in bed. That’s because it’s past midnight in India.
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05.19.08 No 1099s On Contingent Promo Payments
Contingent promotional payments made by a retailer to customers are not subject to Form 1099 information reporting and withholding requirements, says a new private letter ruling from the Internal Revenue Service. more...
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05.16.08 Test Your AP IQ: Three-Way Match
How familiar are you with AP rules, regulations, and best practices? Here’s a multiple-choice question to test your knowledge: What is the source of the most bottlenecks in the three-way match process?
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05.15.08 Employee Retention is Top Priority
The majority of surveyed business respondents in various U.S. industries said employment retention is an important business priority, according to survey results released recently by TalentKeepers, a provider of programs to improve employee retention.
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05.14.08 T&E System is Most Essential Data Source
In the past, we have made the point that one of the biggest benefits of an automated system for reimbursing employees for travel and entertainment (T&E) expenses is the data that an automated system can provide. The information can be sliced and diced and used to analyze T&E spending and to negotiate discounts with airlines, hotels, and other T&E providers. Recent research from the Aberdeen Group confirms this. more...
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05.13.08 Check Run Frequency
There’s no universal best practice for determining the frequency of your check runs. Some print them every day—and others print them once a month. It depends on the interplay of a number of different factors, such as the volume of payments, how checks are physically signed and printed, cash management needs, and corporate culture.
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05.12.08 New Bill Cracks Down on 1099 Workers
Top Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee have introduced legislation (H.R. 5804) designed to cut down the number of employees who can be classified as Form 1099 independent contractors. It also increases fines for filing incorrect information returns and repeals “Section 530” relief.
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05.09.08 Test Your AP IQ: Invoice Exceptions
How familiar are you with AP rules, regulations, and best practices? Here’s a multiple-choice question to test your knowledge: The most efficient way to handle invoice exceptions is to have them resolved by what department or entity? more...
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05.08.08 Legal Protection From Workplace Bullies
Supervisors who constantly berate or mistreat workers create the same kind of hostile work environment that would bring discrimination claims if aimed at a protected class of workers, and therefore should be subject to new "anti-bullying" statutes, a plaintiffs' lawyer said.
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05.07.08 Keep Control of Your Automation Project
You need the support of the management team and the rest of your organization in order to make your automation process a success. But you have to make sure others don’t take control of the project away from you.
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05.06.08 Keeping a Log of Check Stock
Despite today’s super high-tech environment, most business-to-business payments are made by paper check. And that means keeping track of the blank check stock—using a log.
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05.05.08 NY Sued Over New Internet Sales Tax
Amazon.com has sued the state of New York over a controversial new law regarding the taxing of certain Internet sales, arguing that the new law violates the state and federal constitutions [Amazon.com v. New York State Department of Taxation and Finance, N.Y. Sup. Ct., No. 601247/08, 4/25/08]. The suit, filed in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan, alleges that the new law violates the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution because it imposes tax collection obligations on out-of-state entities that have no substantial nexus with New York. more...
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05.02.08 Test Your AP IQ: Service Level Agreements
How familiar are you with AP rules, regulations, and best practices? Here’s a multiple-choice question to test your knowledge: Which of the following is the most appropriate definition of Service Level Agreement? more...
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05.01.08 Dealing With Millennials
Employers are much more likely to have difficulty getting through to so-called Millennials or Generation Y--generally defined as people born between 1981 and 1993--than to any other employee group, according to a survey of more than 2,500 North American employers by Novations Group, a global consulting organization based in Boston.
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04.30.08 Be Realistic With a New Tech Project
When choosing a new technology project, be realistic, advises Pam Miller, AP director at Building Materials Holding Company (BMHC). One of the easiest ways to fail is to try to do too much, according to Miller, an IOMA “AP Manager of the Year,” who was the first individual to earn AP certification “with distinction” from the IOMA/TAPN AP Certification Program. more...
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04.29.08 IRS Blunder Points Up New AP Best Practice
One of the new frontiers for AP is in “contract compliance.” That is, avoiding incorrect payments for contracted goods or services. All kinds of fluky things can happen with contract payments, such as unsubstantiated charges, wrong billing rates, padded reimbursements, extra charges, double charges—well, you get the picture.
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