Here’s a nifty little tip that will certainly help accounts payable with its master vendor file headaches.

Before setting a new vendor up in your master vendor file, check not only to see if the name has already been entered, but check if any other vendor in the file has the same address or TIN. This step will only take an extra minute or two but could save your company a lot of money but preventing inadvertent duplicate payments.

It’s the little strategies like this that add up and could make you an AP Super Bowl winner.

(c) 2010 Accounts Payable Now & Tomorrow and CRYSTALLUS, Inc.

If not you should. An accounts payable professional recently wrote asking about a feature that causes some confusion. It was the request for what looked like personal information. Here’s my response.

Excerpted from the January 2010 issue of Accounts Payable Now & Tomorrow.

Paper checks are costly, inefficient, and a huge headaches for those toiling away in accounts payable. Yet they remain the tool used to pay the majority of invoices, even at many organizations with the ability to pay electronically. To change this situation, it may be necessary to go on the offensive and find ways to grow your ACH program. It’s certainly worth the effort, given the nuisance of paper checks. What follows are seven assertive techniques to grow an ACH program be it one that is languishing or one that’s thriving but could use a little extra oomph.

Don’t overlook your Web site. Publish ACH information on the company Web site. Occasionally a vendor you might not have approached will want to participate. Make it easy. Also, if you are going to take this approach, include your vendor enrollment form on the site. Do this only if you are willing to include all vendors in the program. Otherwise, you may find your p-card vendors signing up for the program—and there goes your rebate.

The rest of this article, along with articles on: bank account takeovers that lead to unrecoverable transactions, AP New Year’s resolutions and how to keep them, 1099K (a new proposed IRS form), the Procurement/Finance Gap (an excerpt from a fine Baseware white paper), a naming convention check list you can use for your master vendor file, a look at recovery audits, and a overview of advanced 1099 issues for W-9s, are all in the January issue of Accounts Payable Now & Tomorrow. Of course, the issue also includes two pages of tips and strategies you can use to fine-tune your AP process.

You can purchase the single issue using the link below or subscribe for one or two years and receive our quarterly podcasts as part of that subscription.

Purchase an electronic copy of the January 2010 issue of AP Now newsletter.

(c) 2010 Accounts Payable Now & Tomorrow and CRYSTALLUS, Inc.

Let’s face it: the folks in accounts payable don’t always have the best reputation with other employees, especially if they handle travel and entertainment reimbursements. Let me go on the record by saying that rarely do I believe the reputation is deserved - but that ranting is for another posting.

Recently, the every-perceptive Dilbert focused on the reimbursement issue in a Sunday morning cartoon. My husband, Mr. Charm, couldn’t wait to show it to me. (He had to because I don’t read the comics). He could not resist his glee. “Here’s something for your ezine,” he chuckled.

“I don’t think so,” I replied after reading it. “This is not the image we like to portray.”

Then I received a note from a reader which said, “I thought you would like this since I was told from one of my salesman that this reminded him of me.”

She seemed pleased. So, in case you haven’t seen the cartoon, here’s the link.
http://www.dilbert.com/2010-01-10/

Did someone you know send it to you also?

As I understand it, Conan O’Brien is being asked to move his show back half an hour. In return he gets to continue receiving an annual salary of $15 million, if published reports are accurate. Now I suspect most accounts payable professionals reaction is the same as mine: “So, what’s the problem?”

While I understand that this might be a blow to his ego, he’s still bringing home $15 million. In this current economy, I suspect many professionals are being asked to do things they were not asked to do in easier times. They face a similar, albeit one with fewer dollars on the table, issue. Is what their bosses asking so unreasonable, it warrants quitting? Or, is this the time to be quiet, take on the task and who knows - maybe build your resume?

I suspect that those who have jobs will be given career building opportunities that they would not have been given just a few years ago. If you can recognize those situations and take advantage of them, you may be able to turn what looked like a lemon into some mighty tasty lemonade.

As I sit here and ponder AP, it becomes readily apparent just how much AP has changed in the last two to five years. We have problems today that simply did not exist a few years ago. ACH fraud, vendors demanding you accept invoices electronically or by fax, and really aggressive state auditors looking for unclaimed property and unpaid sales and use tax.

It made me wonder. What other headaches are our readers facing? From many of these problems emerge new best practices. What problems do you have today that you did not have two to five years ago? Please send your comments to publisher@ap-now.com with the words “AP Scoundrels” in the subject line. We’ll try to find solutions to as many of these problems as we can.

It’s that time of the year - the time to evaluate what you’ve done in the past, set goals for your future and then the hard part - figuring out what you have to do to achieve those goals. Now, it goes without saying that most of our readers would like to hold onto their jobs and perhaps get promoted. If you fall into that category, here are some goals you might want to consider.

Demonstrate your cost-cutting skills.

Step outside your comfort zone at work.

Raise your profile at work.

Become invaluable to your boss.

Minimize the number of duplicate vendors in the master vendor file.

Improve departmental morale.

Improve relations with other departments.

No more headaches getting 1099s prepared because of missing information.

Minimize the number of B-Notices received.

Need help figuring out how to accomplish these goals? The January 2010 issue of Accounts Payable Now & Tomorrow has some suggestions readers can use to help them meet these goals.

For information about the AP Now newsletter, go to http://www.ap-now.com/aboutnl.html

(c) 2010 CRYSTALLUS, Inc.

… in Britian anyway. Today, the board of the UK Payments Council, the body for setting payment strategy in Britain, agreed to set a target date of October 31, 2018 for winding up the check clearing system. The board is largely made up of Britain’s leading banks.

“There are many more efficient ways of making payments than by paper in the 21st century, and the time is ripe for the economy as a whole to reap the benefits of its replacement,” Paul Smee, the council chief executive, said in a statement. We couldn’t have said it better.

Most of the rest of the world has been far ahead of the US when it comes to electronic payments. This latest action is just one more example. Will the US follow? Good question.

Read the whole announcement at
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091216/lf_nm_life/us_britain_cheques

Although not nearly as lyrical as the original, we offer you AP Now’s 12 Holiday Wishes for 2009 year end

1. May AP get year end closed well before midnight!

2. Let fraud of all types not slip through your safeguards,

3. And duplicate payments become but a fading memory.

4. May your staff be satisfied with their work and their pay,

5. Let your boss be pleased enough with your work to fight for that promotion you so richly deserve.

6. And let employment be found elsewhere for those disgruntled co-workers who make life so difficult for you and your staff.

7. May there be adequate budget so you do not have to layoff anyone.

8. May your 1099s fly out the door in January without a hitch.

9. Let B-Notices clutter your mailbox nevermore.

10. May the auditors, be they escheat, sales and use tax, or worse, never darken your doorstep again.

11. Let you find both the humor and the patience to deal with the absurd -especially on those occasions when ridiculous seems to rule the day.

12. And most importantly, may you unearth a little spare time to sit down, plan, and enjoy yourself.

… and of course, may there be a few dollars left in the budget so you can a subscription to Accounts Payable Now & Tomorrow, AP Now’s Quarterly Diagnostic or The CFO & Controller’s Accounts Payable Management Journal.  

(c) 2009 Mary Schaeffer, CRYSTALLUS, Inc. and Accounts Payable Now & Tomorrow

Finally, the IRS has published its standard mileage reimbursement rate for 2010. Beginning on Jan. 1, 2010, the standard mileage rates for the use of a car (also vans, pickups, or panel trucks) will be 50 cents per mile for business miles driven.

Readers of AP Now’s free weekly ezine were notified of this as soon as the publisher became aware of the new rate. Sign up for the AP Now weekly ezine and we’ll send you a copy of AP Now’s Flimsy Report - a humorous look at the excuses given to AP for not observing published policies and procedures when it comes to T&E and Rush checks.