March 9th, 2010
I work with a professional organization in the Accounts Payable space that is currently spending a lot of time on bringing members together to network and to share ideas about best practices. There is no shortage of people that are willing to speak about their experiences. People are often eager to dispense anecdotal wisdom. What is more difficult to come by however, are the benchmarks and metrics that help to gauge and measure success. Either people to not want to reveal the the report card they have compiled along their bumpy road or they did not keep a report card to begin with.
Benchmarking, Dashboards, Metrics, Report Cards, these things are a lot like the vegetables of the corporate world. We all know that they are good for us, but we do not always want to partake. Not surprisingly however the people and companies that use tools to measure and improve their performance are usually in the best operational and financial health. They same can be said of physical health for those among us who love the green food group.
Find links to key industry benchmarking docs below. Take a look and see how you stack up. You will need to either download or become a member to view the data.
TAGS: Accounts Payable, benchmarking, Technology
Posted in Industry Associations | No Comments »
March 9th, 2010
Before I get to the heart of this post, I wanted to take a moment to introduce myself. I’m a business and financial writer who’s been covering the AP space, and have been working with Lavante for several months. I’m looking forward to weighing in here on a range of topics, and hearing your thoughts on the issues as well. Please feel free to share your thoughts and comments.
Now, onto the post:
If your company is like most, management continually is hunting for ways to cut costs and streamline operations. One way a growing number of firms are doing this is by establishing shared service centers (SSCs). In fact, more than half the organizations responding to the IAPP/TAWPI 2009 Document Management Benchmark Study indicated that they either plan to combine payments and document processing functions or they already have done so, as this article points out. Read the rest of this entry »
TAGS: IAPP, Karen Kroll, Shared Services, TAWPI
Posted in IAPP, Shared Services | No Comments »
March 4th, 2010
A theme I see coming up quite frequently is the difficulty my colleagues experience transferring data and reports in and of their ERP systems. These large platforms add undeniable benefit to an enterprise to be sure, but often transferring data in and out can be unwieldy.
At an event last week with a number of companies that run SAP I heard a lot of frustration about generating reports from the system. I introduced the concept of Winshuttle as a solution to the group and the stared back at me like I had six eyes. They were not aware of the product.
In full disclosure Winshuttle is a strategic partner of Lavante, we use them to support the transmittal of our Profit Recovery claims directly into our client’s system. But in this setting, our usage had no relevance, I was presenting Winshuttle as a solution to a problem. The larger take away is that there are surprisingly high number of people on many different platforms that are experiencing difficulty migrating data. but there are solutions.
Winshuttle is the most appropriate middle ware for SAP, but for folks running Oracle, PeopleSoft, Edwards, Lawson or any other of the usual suspect including Legacy and homegrown systems you may find some relief in the following tools if you are having difficulty transporting data and reports in and out of your system:
TAGS: Accounts Payable, Lavante, Profit Recovery, Technology
Posted in Technology | No Comments »
March 3rd, 2010
I am feeling great right now, we just had our monthly all-hands company meeting and we could not be doing better through the first two months of 2010. We have 6 new clients with 4 more queued up for March and we have hired ten new folks across all departments, and our Profit Recovery production is through the roof! Today was a cross company love fest, but I want to call out one group specifically… I think there is a bigger message here.
Out Product Veep, Leigh Anne, who heads our engineers gave a presentation on 2010 road map and roll out, but before she got into the details she opened with a “Thank You” slide which listed about ten other employees from outside her department. These were employees that had sent emails to the dedicated ”product suggestion” email address. Months ago Leigh Anne established an email for all employees to send ideas about how to improve the company software and functionality and apparently many people took her up on it, especially the operations/audit team. To some VP’s the thought of opening the suggestion flood gate may be imposing, but Leigh Anne thrived on the critiques and on the forward thinking ideas. As she conveyed her thank you she was almost gushing about how unprecedented it was to see so many people speaking up and sharing ideas.
I think that story says a lot about Lavante, but it is more a statement about corporate health. Many companies employ open door policies horizontally and vertically throughout the organization and that is a great thing, but not many companies remove the door from the hinges and send out invitation to visit. This communication model requires great management and a company commitment to innovation. Bravo Leigh Anne.
TAGS: Accounts Payable, Accounts Payable Software, communication, Lavante, Profit Recovery, Technology
Posted in Profit Recovery, Technology | No Comments »
March 2nd, 2010
A couple weeks ago, Lavante presented a webinar about vendor file management with Karen Kroll (www.karenkroll.com) I have been shocked by how much feedback this presentation has generated. One of the most intriguing topics from the webinar was how to build a case for a vendor file management program. Although it may require time on your part, the most effective way to create management support for you to contract resources to help clean your vendor file is to perform some quantifications about what your out of control vendor file is costing you. Some of the things we suggested during the webinar were to quantify the following:
- Value of time spent resolving payment errors
- Customer service costs associated with payments sent to wrong location
- Costs of reissuing checks
- Time spent setting up vendors multiple times in error
- Costs of NOT using automated payment technologies
- Time is wasted trying to find and verify accuracy of vendor information.
- Inability to take early-payment discounts, confirm contract terms are being adhered to, or to ensure that employees work with preferred vendors
- B-Notice Fines Most companies evaluate data quality projects because they qualitatively know these things are hurting them.
Demonstrating the cost of a poorly maintained vendor file will quickly get management attention and support. I would also offer one other idea that we left out of the webinar because we did not want to make the event a sales pitch. Our own solution (at Lavante) couples vendor file management and Profit Recovery so that you can drive a hard ROI in addition to many different softer ROI’s outlined above.
In any event, Vendor Files are a universal pain point for most large enterprises and if you are trying to get momentum behind a cleansing project, I strongly encourage tying the project back to dollar saving potential. You can view the website here: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/393061873 and you can download a white paper here: http://resources.lavante.com/GoogleLeverageVFMaxProfitsWP.html?gclid=COal4ODgmKACFRknawodqz3gnA
TAGS: Lavante, Profit Recovery, ROI, Vendor File Mgmt
Posted in Profit Recovery, Vendor File Mgmt | No Comments »
February 26th, 2010
Thursday saw a very dynamic and interactive session for a small but passionate group of Accounts Payable professionals.
Gail K. from UCSF (who is now one of my favorite AP networking buddies) led an informal discussion about filing 1099’s. She used a narrative approach and talked about evey step in the process including vendor setup, how P-cards payed into the scenario/headache, the process she inherited, and her constant negotiations with IT. She was stopped several times along the way with very thoughtful questions. The group would scrum on the topic and then Gail would pick back up where she left off. With a strong “project management” background Gail made really good points throughout about learning from mistakes, training her staff the “right way” and about empowering her people on a go-forward basis.
The group was small, but represented a number of big companies and unfortunately I do not believe today’s meeting attendees will be traveling to Dallas for tha annual IAPP conference. This saddens me, because I can clearly see that there is a huge need for more networking.
This is a very difficult landscape for Accounts Payable and I think the need to connect with with peers has grown in parallel with constantly expanding job duties. In my opinion it is more necessary now to force the time into your schedule to attend chapter meetings or webinars or even to log on and follow a LinkedIn conversation. You will not only benefit from the information that is circulating, you will be suprised by how much other people need to hear what you have to say.
TAGS: 1099, Accounts Payable, Accounts Payable Software, FUSION2010, IAPP, Social Media, UCSF
Posted in IAPP, Industry Associations | No Comments »
February 24th, 2010
Tomorrow I will be presenting a workshop on the use of social media in the Accounts Payable (AP) space at the Sacramento chapter of IAPP. This is a presentation I have given several times before and I am always curious about the many mis-perceptions of the business application of social media tools.
Too often, professionals in the AP community (as well as many other communities) assume that social media sites are inhabited only by young people with nothing better to do than “tweet” about what they are having for lunch. Although there is an element of that… that is not the prevailing application of social media. I have seen many incredibly powerful instances when people that would otherwise not communicate have been able to connect and collaborate over an internet connection.
As a great example of this… I have been following a fantastic string on IAPP’s LinkedIn board: http://tinyurl.com/ygfjx3n please take a look. Much like trade shows and trade association chapter meetings, social networking tools enable a dialogue between multiple people.
Please comment or contact me for any questions about the application of social tools in our industry. This is a subject I care deeply about and something that I hink we can all benefit from.
TAGS: Accounts Payable, IAPP, Social Media
Posted in Profit Recovery | No Comments »
February 20th, 2010
Fantastic edition of AP Matters Magazine arrived in the mail today. Lavante was feature in the AP Automation article quite a bit.
Here are a few of the words about us from the “Future” of automations section… “Lavante, which operates in a paperless environment…has grown rapidly since the development of its on-demand strategic recovery portal and is now expanding to offer a self-service vendor portal that enables vendor on-boarding, updating of critical data, and uploading of documents for shared visibility across a client’s entire enterprise; and TIN management services, which automate the process of collecting and matching a vendor’s W-9 form and its tax identification number, or TIN, with the IRS. The company is developing additional portal-based features for future release.”
Read the entire article: http://www.iappnet.org/ViewItem-1502.do
Posted in IAPP, Profit Recovery, Vendor File Mgmt | 2 Comments »
February 20th, 2010
I was in LA early this week and at the National Association of Payables and Procurement and I gave a case study presentation with my client Ellen from Holland America Line. Ellen and I had gone through a couple dry runs of the presentation and we were pleased with how it had come along.
The information and the story were great, but I am no graphic designer and the powerpoint graphics left a little to be deisred. Not wanting the presentation to be too dry, I added a few images of the Holland America Lines cruise ships. These are very impressive and majestic vessles, and the images were very striking. Ellen and I hunched over my computer for a last review before our case study and she saw the photos for the first time. Out loud, she said almost wistfully, “what a pretty ship” and then she took another moment and spoke again, “it really is gorgeous.”
Ellen has worked for HAL for 26 years, she has been on her share of cruises and she has seen the entire fleet in photos and in person more times than she can remember, but after all of this, she is still moved to the point of calling her ships “gorgeous” when presented with their image. I hope everyone reading this blog can feel as proud of their company as Ellen feels for hers.
Everyone of us deserves to be as impressed with the product that their company produces. I understand that we are not all in the cruise line industry and falling in love with our product may not be as easy for us, but we should always seek to find some part of our work that makes us proud. In my own situation, I work for a company that performs profit recovery and optimizes vendor data for Fortune 10o0 companies. It is not always the most glamorous work, but it is wonderful work when I see how much we deliver to our clients and how they feel about working with us.
At the end of the case study Ellen produced a stack of business cards and held them up in front of about 50 people. She offered to hand out a card and have a conversation with anyone in the room that was planning a recovery audit in the next year. As she put it, She “loved working with Lavante.” In all her 26 years she said that she had never enjoyed working with recovery auditors until engaging with us. I guess her comments are something that I can be proud of.
TAGS: Holland America Lines, Lavante, Lavante Case Study, NAPP, National Association of Procurement and Payables, Profit Recovery, Vendor File Mgmt
Posted in Industry Associations, Profit Recovery, Vendor File Mgmt | 1 Comment »
February 18th, 2010
While it may not be obvious at first glance, your vendor files offer more than information on contacting your firm’s suppliers – they are also a resource that can be used to cut expenses and boost your firm’s bottom line. To take advantage of the opportunities to do this, however, you need accurate data that is continuously maintained.
For all firms, this presents an ongoing challenge because data becomes outdated almost as soon as it’s captured. As Bill Swanton, vice president and research fellow with AMR Research says, “Data quality is an elusive goal for most companies because it’s treated as a one-time event. No matter how well they do it, the data begins to decay immediately.”
As Swanton indicates, data accuracy is a moving target. Maintaining accuracy is complicated by the fact that it’s often difficult to dedicate the resources needed for a solid, ongoing data management program. After all, it’s one item on a long To-Do list within most accounts payable departments. Often, it’s bumped aside by other responsibilities that have greater urgency. What’s more, it’s easy for data to accumulate, which increases the difficulty of managing the files.
However, failing to proactively manage your vendor files will result in extra work, which ultimately costs money. In addition, it means foregoing opportunities to reduce expenses and make money.
Posted in Vendor File Mgmt | No Comments »
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