Have you purchased/read an Accounts Payable Book in the last 3 years?

If you’ve purchased an accounts payable book in the last three years, we’d greatly appreciate it if you would respond to a few of our questions. It should take less than two minutes – and you don’t have to leave your contact info unless you want. Your insights are appreciated as they will help me plan for the future. Go here for my two-minute survey.  Thank you. Mary Schaeffer.

How often do your travelers check their credit card statements? If they are like me, it is once a month – right before I’m getting ready to pay the bill. This, as it turns out, is a really bad idea. A recent study  revealed that almost 40 percent of the credit card hacking cases last year involved the hotel industry. That’s right. Combine the fact that hotels don’t always do as good a job as they should when it comes to securing credit card data with the fact that many travelers are not vigilant about checking their credit card bills on a timely basis and you have a recipe for a fraud smorgasbord.

And that is what is happening. Crooks are getting a hold of this data and running up charges on the cards. In order not to get caught, your travelers need to start looking at their credit card statements on a very regular basis – either as soon as the bills arrive or, if they can, checking the charges online regularly.

To review other travel and entertainment best practices, consider AP Now’s T & E Best Practices to Ensure IRS Compliance and Prevent Fraud CD

(c) 2010 CRYSTALLUS, Inc. and Mary Schaeffer

Do you find that many of the employees in your organization ask the same accounts payable questions over and over again? Does your staff waste a lot of time answering phone calls that really never should have been made? How many Rush checks could have been avoided if the submitters would just remember your cut-off time is noon and not three p.m.? You get the idea. If there were some way you could convey this standard information to employees you might be able to improve the productivity of your department while still maintaining that high level of customer service you strive to offer.

There are several strategies you can use to disseminate information. Start by preparing a FAQ (frequently asked questions) sheet and posting it on your Intranet site and departmental bulletin boards. Try to keep it short, as you will lose people if it is too long. You might also design a quarterly accounts payable newsletter for internal use. It can be one page (front and back) or longer. Use it to provide new information, news about personal or procedural changes, and to reiterate information that seems to have gotten lost. The last piece refers to those annoying questions that keep popping up. The efforts involved in producing these documents (FAQ and newsletter) will be worth the investment when the phone calls about these simple everyday issues plummet.

(c) 2010 Accounts Payable Now & Tomorrow

Do you have a process for tracking discrepant invoices? You should because if you don’t the chances of late fees, duplicate payments, and disgruntled vendors are likely to skyrocket. If you assume that your processors are following up closely, you are apt to be disappointed a good deal of the time. With a mountain of work facing most of them, problematic invoices have a way of disappearing or getting forgotten—hence the moniker, the Accounts Payable Black Hole.

The proper way to handle discrepant invoices is just one of the many issues we’ll explore in our “Laying a Strong Foundation” webinar next week. If you want to make sure your company doesn’t have a black hole in accounts payable or want your staff and management to have a true understanding of the basics of a good accounts payable function, please join us on March 25, 2010. I’ve put together an information-packed 60-minute discussion of the elements that lay the foundation for a robust accounts payable function. CDs of this session will be available shortly after the event.

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

Does your heart drop when you hear someone ask one of your staffers why they are doing something a certain way only to hear, “I don’t know, we’ve always done it that way”—or worse—“Because the manager said to do it that way.” If your experiences are anything like mine, the staffer is sure to be offering up this explanation to the CFO or VP of Finance.

There are a number of reasons this happens. First, it could be exactly as the staffer replied. No one ever explained why they were doing certain things a certain way. Or, when they were new and the explanation was offered, it got lost in the haze of trying to learn the basic processes.

That’s part of the reason I wanted to develop the Laying a Strong Foundations for AP Basics course. Not only will we review the processes, we’ll explain why things are done the way they are. By the way, several organizations that have signed up also bought an Add-a-Buddy slot for their controller so he or she can listen to the information as well from the comfort of their office. We’re hoping that listening to this session will provide a clearer understanding of the challenges faced each day in accounts payable.

Additional information about the event and the CD that will be available after the session can be found at http://www.ap-now.com/accountspayablebasicswebinar.html 

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?

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.

Like any other profession, accounts payable has its own jargon. Most of the time, when we talk about POs or T&E we don’t even realize we’re doing it—until someone interrupts us and asks what the term means. Sometimes, if you’re like me, you feel a little foolish asking what someone meant by a certain buzzword. Now, we’ve created a resource where you can go and look up the meaning. I call it an AP cheat sheet. So, take a look at it and if you think we should add anything, send a note to publisher@ap-now.com with your suggestions.

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

I guess the story that follows - the one I intended to write when I signed on - shouldn’t surprise me too much given the following. Two things of note happened today. President Obama won the Noble Peace Prize and apparently Marge Simpson is on the cover of Playboy magazine. Which do you think generated more Internet interest - at least according to the Internet? Yup - that’s right, it was Marge by a mile!

Anyway, here’s what I originally got on to rant about.

 I got a note last week from a reader (thanks, David) alerting me to a Web site that will generate phony restaurant receipts for anyone who wants one. The site apparently was posted by a posh steak house in New York, apparently its idea of humor. Exactly why they thought this would generate more business eludes me. To my way of thinking, it would lead to a decrease in business—unless they thought they’d get some publicity from the site.

But back to the story. When I was first alerted to the site’s existence last week, I visited it. In addition to receipts from the steak house, a visitor could generate receipts from about half a dozen well known restaurants, mostly chains. I went back this morning as I was preparing to write this and the ability to generate receipts from anyone other than the eatery in question had been removed. I’m speculating that the Web site owner finally heard from legal counsel.

The reason I am not including the link in this piece is twofold. First I don’t want to give publicity to the duplicitous and, more importantly, I hope the site will be taken down by the time you read this.

That being said, there is a valuable lesson to be learned from this escapade. Most receipts are easily altered by those with even a modicum of computer skills and access to a scanner. If you get a receipt that looks suspicious—ask to see the original. Make sure your processors know they can ask for any original, whether they think something is fishy about the dollar amount or the way the receipt looks.  In fact, it’s a good idea to periodically ask a few employees for their originals even if you suspect nothing. This simple act can serve as a deterrent to employees who might be considering trickery as described here.

We recently held a webinar discussing practices to limit fraud in T&E while complying with IRS regulations. CDs of that event are available for purchase.

(c) 2009 Mary Schaeffer & CRYSTALLUS Inc.