|
02.24.10 SaaS Pitfall
Software-as-a-Service, or SaaS, is a way to use software without owning it. You access the software over the Web on a pay-as-you-go basis, often based on volume of transactions. But just because the software is not owned by you does not mean you’re off the hook in terms of internal controls. more...
Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Email to a Colleague | Add to Favorites
02.23.10 Finding Duplicate Vendors
To help eliminate duplicate payments, you need to get rid of duplicate vendor records. The trouble is, this can be tricky. You can’t totally rely on an automated solution to eliminate duplicate vendors, because these systems not always detect near-matches. Just as human error is responsible for creating the duplicate vendor record, a lot of human effort is required to identify them. However, you can use automated tools to help you to some degree.
more...
Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Email to a Colleague | Add to Favorites
02.16.10 Check Printing
It seems like forever that we’ve been hearing about the disappearance of paper checks in favor of electronic payments. Well, that simply hasn’t happened. Only 22 percent of invoices are being paid for via ACH, wire, or some other form of electronic payment, according to our research. That means AP is still dealing with the printing of a lot of paper checks. This means issues with internal control, so let’s review the best practices for controlling the check printing process. more...
Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Email to a Colleague | Add to Favorites
02.09.10 Rogue T&E Spending
Rogue (out-of-policy) spending by employees on travel and entertainment (T&E) can happen for several reasons. Different departments or business units could interpret company policies differently—or certain managers feel that the rules don’t apply to them. more...
Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Email to a Colleague | Add to Favorites
01.26.10 Paying From Invoice Copies
Using invoice copies or statements to make payments has always been a fact of life in AP—but it appears to be becoming less so. Over a third (39 percent) of AP departments we polled say they issue payments without an original invoice, but this is down from 44 percent in 2007, and 53 percent in 2005, when the prior polls were done.
more...
Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Email to a Colleague | Add to Favorites
01.19.10 Most Firms Use Positive Pay
Two-thirds (67 percent) of all companies we polled use positive pay as an internal control measure and to combat check fraud.
more...
Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Email to a Colleague | Add to Favorites
01.13.10 Test Your E-Payment Armor
Do you have weak spots in your defenses against cyber payments fraud? Find out by registering for the free Cyber Attack against Payment Processes (CAPP) Exercise. It will be administered by the Financial Services-Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS-ISAC) and will last for three days (February 9-11).
more...
Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Email to a Colleague | Add to Favorites
01.12.10 Taking Invoice Discounts
Almost half (47 percent) of all companies say they pay at least 90 percent of their invoices within the specified discount terms, according to our research. Only 7 percent of companies say they take the discounts on each and every one of their invoices.
more...
Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Email to a Colleague | Add to Favorites
12.30.09 Too Many Paper T&E Checks
Despite the rise of electronic payments, organizations are still using the old fashioned paper check to reimburse travel and entertainment (T&E) expenses, according to a new report from PayStream Advisors. more...
Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Email to a Colleague | Add to Favorites
12.22.09 Use Closing Report Templates
The period-end closing process triggers all kinds of reports that must be done regularly. So it’s not surprising that many companies say they use templates for recurring reports.
more...
Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Email to a Colleague | Add to Favorites
12.15.09 Use Standard Entries to Close
IOMA recently surveyed 180 accounting departments about the best ways they use to shorten the period-end closing. Now while the respondents were mostly the corporate accountants, the techniques they use surely can help a great deal in AP. After all, a close is a close—whether you’re doing the overall books or a sub-area such as AP, payroll, or AR.
more...
Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Email to a Colleague | Add to Favorites
12.11.09 Test Your AP IQ: Year-End Petty Cash
You have a petty cash fund of $1,000 and need to record the activity for year-end. The receipts add up to $910 which is all attributed to office supplies. You count the cash and there is $100 in the box. When you replenish the fund, how is this transaction recorded for accounting purposes? more...
Comments (2) | Leave a Comment | Email to a Colleague | Add to Favorites
11.24.09 Fake T&E Receipts
A pricey steakhouse in New York City set up a Web site that allows diners to print out a set of phony receipts to use on expense reports, according to the New York Post. The fake receipts are for smaller expenses that are designed to fly under the audit radar easier than a receipt for an expensive porterhouse.
more...
Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Email to a Colleague | Add to Favorites
11.17.09 Year-End Check Distribution
As we get closer to year-end, all of those invoices that have gotten stuck on peoples’ desks all seem to appear at once. That means a big volume of payments. And since most payments are still done using paper checks, it’s time to take a fresh look at some best practices for distributing checks more...
Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Email to a Colleague | Add to Favorites
11.03.09 Talk to Payroll
For year-end, AP needs to talk to payroll about payments made to or on behalf of employees that may represent taxable compensation. more...
Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Email to a Colleague | Add to Favorites
10.06.09 Vanishing Credit Memos
If you see credit memos on vendor statements, take them immediately--you can research them later. Some vendors purge credit memos off of their systems after a certain period of time. Year-end is a good time for them to do this. more...
Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Email to a Colleague | Add to Favorites
09.15.09 Handling Invoices
All AP departments are different—but the one thing they all have in common is handling invoices. True, some AP shops are highly automated—and others are not. But regardless, there are certain basic best practices for processing invoices. Here they are.
more...
Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Email to a Colleague | Add to Favorites
09.15.09 FULL AP EXPO PROGRAM AVAILABLE
Schedules and descriptions of over 30 sessions and workshops—including many on AP automation--are now available for our upcoming 8th Annual AP Conference & Expo October 14-16 at the Loews Royal Pacific at Universal Orlando. more...
Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Email to a Colleague | Add to Favorites
08.25.09 T&E Policy Compliance
It’s easy to think that the best way to control employee travel & entertainment (T&E) expense reimbursements is to have a strong formal policy and procedures manual. But that’s only part of the story. more...
Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Email to a Colleague | Add to Favorites
08.11.09 T&E Spend Analysis Op
Almost a quarter (22 percent) of employee travel bookings are not in compliance with corporate travel and entertainment (T&E) policies, according to American Express Business Travel. Hotel spending in particular is falling through the cracks, as AmEx says companies waste $500 million annually by failing to strategically manage their hotel program. more...
Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Email to a Colleague | Add to Favorites
07.14.09 Petty Cash Fraud Not So Petty
A former corporate controller was indicted in federal court over allegedly embezzling more than a quarter of a million dollars from his company’s petty cash fund, reports the Whitman (MA) Times and the Boston Herald.
more...
Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Email to a Colleague | Add to Favorites
06.23.09 Vendor Welcome Letter
The use of a vendor welcome letter is a best practice in AP for several reasons. First of all, it gets the relationship between AP and the new vendor off on the right foot. That’s because it lays out exactly what is expected of the vendor, which helps eliminate confusion or problems down the road. It also helps keep your master vendor file clean, because it asks for certain information that you need, such as the vendor’s Taxpayer Identification Number for 1099 reporting purposes. This eliminates fines and penalties for incorrect 1099 reporting.
more...
Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Email to a Colleague | Add to Favorites
06.22.09 Surprise IRS Audits Start November
AP professionals should be aware that the Internal Revenue Service will do about 6,000 random employment tax audits over three years (up from 4,500 originally planned) and they will begin this November. more...
Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Email to a Colleague | Add to Favorites
06.16.09 Your Role in Cash Management
Take our current poll: How much of an impact do your role and responsibilities have on your organization's cash flow? You’ll find it in the Active Survey box on the AP360 home page. We’ll present the poll results in a future e-alert.
more...
Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Email to a Colleague | Add to Favorites
06.02.09 Farm Out Check Printing
Many AP departments outsource check printing because the production and distribution of paper checks is expensive and is subject to fraud. Outsourcing this function also provides access to best practice payment processes, thereby reducing overall processing costs. It also eases the transition from checks to ACH payments by reducing number of bank accounts and creating one common payment process. more...
Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Email to a Colleague | Add to Favorites
05.19.09 Uncovering Duplicate Vendors
You should run a series of regular reports to keep tabs on the master vendor file. Regular reporting, checking, and cleanup efforts will help to avoid larger, more expensive clean-up efforts that may be required when the accuracy of the file has been allowed to deteriorate over time. To reveal potential duplicate vendors, three basic reports can be used. more...
Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Email to a Colleague | Add to Favorites
04.28.09 Audit Trouble Over Unrecorded Invoices
A county recently got into hot water because invoices totaling more than $95,000 were not recorded in AP at year-end, which skewed a true picture of the county’s financial statements for fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2008, reports the Clare (Mich.) Sentinal.
more...
Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Email to a Colleague | Add to Favorites
04.08.09 Reasons for ACH Fraud
A new report reveals that the potential for ACH fraud is up due to the growing volume of ACH payments. The 2009 AFP Payments Fraud and Control Survey, released by the Association for Financial Professionals (AFP), says that nearly a third of organizations polled were victims of attempted ACH fraud. In most cases, these attempts did not result in a financial loss. But 17 percent of victimized organizations did suffer a financial hit from ACH fraud. Here are the reasons they cited for getting hit with losses.
more...
Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Email to a Colleague | Add to Favorites
03.20.09 Test Your AP IQ: Preventing Employee Fraud
During tough economic times, employee fraud rises. AP departments at small organizations find that they are especially vulnerable to fraud perpetrated by employees, such as check tampering, phony payments, and expense report padding. AP at these companies can help prevent employee fraud the most by:
more...
Comments (3) | Leave a Comment | Email to a Colleague | Add to Favorites
03.12.09 Most Staff Steal Data When They Go
AP systems contain a great deal of valuable and sensitive company data. So when you have staffers who are terminated or voluntarily leave their jobs, make sure they are not taking this information with them. Nearly 60 percent of surveyed U.S. employees who leave their companies steal data on their way out the door, according to a new survey.
more...
Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Email to a Colleague | Add to Favorites
|
|
|
