APPG now on Xing!

For all our friends using Xing.com, the accounts Payable Professionals Group is now on Xing!

Join today! Here's the link:

https://www.xing.com/communities/groups/accounts-payable-professionals-group-6d11-1073163

Beyond Checks, EFT/ACH, & Wires

What am I talking about? An alternative payment method. Electronic payment through the VISA (or other credit card) Network.

Who can set this up?: I know of Commerce Bank and PNC, although there may be more.

Here are a few points:

* Vendor pays a 2% cost for accepting payment
* and 1% gets paid to your company monthly.
* Payment program can be done separate from other Automation products
* Some companies start with the payment by card only can bring in revenue to pay for further solutions.

Robert Ruhno

Founder & Social Media Manager

Accounts Payable Professionals Group

I invite you to join our group today! Click Here

Dynamic Discounting

Definition: payment terms that can be established between your company and your vendor to accelerate payment in return for a discount. Dynamic Discounting includes the ability to agree upon terms that vary the discount according to the date of early payment. The earlier the payment, the greater the discount.

Who offers this: Taulia, TradeShift, Commerce Bank, and more.

* Automating Discount Capture on 100% of invoices
* When invoice is approved the supplier is notified and can opt to be paid early
* Supplier gets fast inexpensive access to cash
* And your company gets outstanding returns
* Improves profitability
* and strengthens supplier relationships along the way.

Here are a few videos I found:

Robert Ruhno

Founder & Social Media Manager

Accounts Payable Professionals Group

I invite you to join our group today! Click Here

Nominate the AP Department and AP Manager of the year

Nominations for AP Manager of the Year and AP Department of the Year are now being accepted by the Institute of Financial Management (IOFM). The winners will be announced on October 27 at the Accounts Payable Conference and Expo in Las Vegas http://www.iofm.com/conference .

AP Manager or Director of the Year - Qualifications:
* Strong leadership skills
* Professionalism
* Demonstrated ability to implement change
* Effective management resulting in improved processes
* Incorporates technologies resulting in significant savings
Nominate an AP Manager or Director. https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CNLY96V

AP Department of the Year - Qualifications:
* Excellent customer service
* Effectively streamlined processes, implemented new technologies, and/or reduced costs
* Made improvements to payment processes resulting in better cash management or more prompt payment discounts
Nominate an AP Department. https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CJS75C8

Nomination deadline: Friday, September 19, 2014.

Self-nominations are welcome. Click here for more information http://www.iofm.com/ap-expo-fall-awards .

IRS TIN Matching

Why you want to check TIN numbers on the IRS website?

You can check your W9 forms to make sure the SS# and EIN#'s match the name on the form. This will ensure you have acurate information, reduce the chance for fraud, and eliminate the possibility of getting a B notice from the IRS.

Here are some comments from APPG members:

● "Lets you find out immediately if the EIN and Name are valid. I scan the W-9 and the TIN confirmation page for backup."

● "It really is a best practice, and everyone should be TIN-Matching in today's AP environment."

● "We get audited all the time so we use it to verify the information listed on a required 2013 w9! This is so our penalties and 1099's are correct! By implementing this practice we have updated our file with correct Tax status and saved thousands in fines!"

● "TIN Match=No B Notices. TIN Match is a must; all vendor accounts are supported by a Form W-9 and a TIN match '0' result."

How do we get started?

1. Visit IRS's e-Services website
2. Register as a user here

Robert Ruhno

Founder & Social Media Manager

Accounts Payable Professionals Group

I invite you to join our group today! Click Here

What is FATCA?

What is FATCA? It sounds like a Canadian weight-lose website or an oversized pet, but it is not. It is a US federal law that requires documentation to prevent people and companies from hiding assets from being taxed.

It seems that companies will be required to maintain even more paperwork. This also includes a new tax form: the 8966 form that will need to be submitted on March 15th, 2015.

Here are some great places to get detailed FATCA information that pertains to your accounts payable department:

US Treasury's FATCA website

Here is a Youtube video I found that describes FATCA, although it's a bit sarcastic (it describes FATCA in a more entertaining way):

Robert Ruhno

Founder & Social Media Manager

Accounts Payable Professionals Group

I invite you to join our group today! Click Here

AP podcasts

I came across a great website that I wanted to share with you:
http://www.accountingtools.com/podcasts/

These are the Accounts Payable podcasts:

● Controls for Accounts Payable
● Accounts Payable Best Practices
● Accounts Payable Matching

Robert Ruhno

Founder & Social Media Manager

Accounts Payable Professionals Group

I invite you to join our group today! Click Here

Thank you to our members!

Accounts Payable Professionals is now over 30 thousand members strong! Thank you to all the members for making this group as great as it is.

If you work in the accounts payable field or are looking to change into AP, consider joining us! The group is free to join and is available on:

* LinkedIn
* ap.groupsite.com
* Facebook
* Google+

And you can follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/APProfessionals

AOC Solutions

This week I had the opportunity to connect with Carol Schick, Vice President/Senior Account Executive with AOC Solutions, Inc. Carol helped me answer the question:

What sets AOC Solutions apart from other A/P Services?

AOC is a company that is focused on unique payment solutions for our clients…period. We do not have other lines of business outside of payment technology to sell as you may see with other companies that sell A/P and other lines outside of A/P or use A/P to get in the door and then try to up-sell from there. All R&D throughout our entire company is put into payment solutions.

Accounts Payable: With this focus over the last 17 years, it has enabled AOC to become a leader in the AP space in creating commercial payment technology for corporate end users including healthcare, higher

Carol Schick, APSC

education, non-profit, public sector and corporations consisting of many Fortune 500 companies. Our A/P solution is at no cost to our clients and brings in a significant revenue stream to our client’s bottom line. Our Straight Through Processing methodology allows us to push payments directly to our clients’ vendors without utilizing a card, ghost account or ACH. Due to this unique payment method, our clients’ vendors enjoy the ability to see Level III data, lower interchange fees, and 100% reconciliation.

Virtual Claims Payments: Today payers are under increased pressures from regulatory and business stakeholders to automate and improve their claims processing and payments in order to realize process efficiencies and cost reductions. AOC handles the claims payment as well as the remittance advice to the payor without a cost to our clients and allowing them to earn revenue from our solution.

Commercial Card Management and Reporting: AOC’s platform offers a scalable design that will deliver a card management and reporting solution to meet or exceed our clients’ needs. Our modular, permission-based cloud solution provides the ability to easily manage all of our clients’ credit card programs including Purchasing, Fleet and Travel & Entertainment (T&E). Our Commercial Card Program offers our clients the ability to earn revenue to their bottom line at no cost to them.

Encompass Mobile: Our unique mobile solution provides administrators and cardholders with access to AOC Solutions Commercial Payments Platform from any mobile device, enabling them to stay on top of their A/P and/or commercial card program.

CardVault Solution: Many of our clients store sensitive card data at their locations or have sensitive card data pass through their systems through e-commerce. We remove card data from our clients’ environment, store that in a secure “vault” and tokenize the card number, sending that back to our clients to use. With this solution, our clients are not vulnerable to card “thieves” as the token is meaningless to them and removing the risk and threat to our clients’ business.

Invoice Processing: From imaging and storage of invoice documents to pre-purchase authorization and reconciled vendor payment, AOC Solutions executes your purchasing policy in accordance with our business preferences

Is AOC Solutions an American Company?

Yes, AOC is an American company founded by Allen O. Cage, Jr., President and CEO, who is a pioneer in the industry. Mr. O ‘Cage was an Army aviator and served for 24 years in top level management and acquisition positions, including the Army Space Program. As part of his experience he has also worked with the Federal Purchase Card Program since its inception in 1988. AOC’s headquarters are located in Chantilly, Virginia with offices throughout the United States and services are available to organizations all over the world.

How many clients do you have in North America and Abroad?

AOC has over 11,000 clients in North America and are presently working on opening up European offices.

How long has AOC Solutions been in business?

AOC Solutions was established in 1996.

Is there a particular ERP system that works best with your product?

We have been able to work with any ERP system due to our unique payment technology since we do not find the need to integrate into our clients’ systems but merely have an interface. This enables our clients to be up and running in a matter of weeks vs. months or years as with an integration. We have agreements in place with SAP and we are a partner of Oracle and Infor (Lawson).

Do we offer outsourcing/offshoring services of any kind?

Our technology and solutions are not considered outsourced solutions as we compliment current AP processes in terms of our electronic payment capabilities at post invoice approval. However in select cases we can also help to automate the front end approval process as well through collecting invoices, creating workflow, and providing data back to our clients. We do not offer offshoring services at this time.

Is access to a “supplier network” part of your services?

AOC has a vast supplier network when it comes to our enrollment capabilities as we have over 400,000 suppliers that accept our electronic payments. This is beneficial to clients as it provides the maximum potential for their program which in turn provides maximum financial benefit.

Robert Ruhno

Founder & Social Media Manager

Accounts Payable Professionals Group

I invite you to join our group today! Click Here

2014 IOFM's AP Expo in Washington DC

I hope to see you this year at the AP Expo in Washington DC, April 6-9, 2014. The Accounts Payable conference and expo is the best way I know to get up to speed on the latest accounts payable best practices and to see the latest technology.

The guest speakers at the AP conference never fail to impress. And I've always come away with a richer understanding of the subject matter. Another source of information is the vendors and other attendees.

To learn more please visit: http://www.iofm.com/conference

Concur Fusion exchange event in New York City

On March 19th I will be attending the Concur Fusion Exchange event in New York City. This is an all day event focusing on Concur''s T&E automation products.

I will be writing a review on the event and possibly interview a few people to get more insight into the world of T&E automation.

Event agenda:
https://www.concur.com/en-us/fusion-exchange/schedule

Calendar for future Conur events in other cities:

Sydney, Australia
May 20, 2014

San Francisco, CA
Coming soon summer 2014

Boston, MA
Coming soon summer 2014

Chicago, IL
Coming soon summer 2014

Toronto, Ontario
Coming soon summer 2014

Tokyo, Japan
September 18, 2014

Robert Ruhno

Founder & Social Media Manager

Accounts Payable Professionals Group

I invite you to join our group today! Click Here

Interview with Ryan Stoops at Open Scan Technologies, Inc.

Please join me as I continue this blog series on Accounts Payable Automation. Today I am speaking with Ryan Stoops with Open Scan Technologies Inc. 

Ryan, what makes Open Scan's product different from other A/P automation products? 

Just to give you a little background, our core product is actually a receivables product. In the last couple of years, we decided to fill out the rest of our offering with an AP solution. What we did different was to take our core competencies from AR and applying it to AP.  One of them is the data capture portion of it.

We have a different way of capturing data than a lot of companies. Other companies train their system to look for certain pieces of information on the image of the document. That’s how they build their templates, and this is a technical task that you’d have an I.T. person do.

What they do is take an invoice that comes in every month from a particular company, and take about twenty of those images, scan it, and run it through their system. That can take an hour. Eventually, the system will learn to look for certain things on that paper that matter from that companies invoice.

Ours takes about twenty seconds. What we do is draw boxes around the data that we want, and then we use a similar system, in a sense, to identify who it is from. When it comes to taking the data off of a page, and knowing what the data is, and where it goes in the system, that’s a differentiator for us. We call it roping and zoning, which is basically drawing little boxes around it real fast. This is to limit what the computer needs to look at on the page.

Ryan Stoops

Another type of differentiator we do is take in all electronic invoices such as from emails or any type of document from word, excel, or pdf. We turn them into an image and then put it back into the system. Not everyone does this yet so that another differentiator we found. 

Also, we are end to end, and I’m sure you talked to other vendors which do only one part of it, and so actually because we do end to end for AR we decided to go ahead and just apply all the technology we do with AR and just go from capturing it, all the way to approval, all the way to sending it to the ERP. But where we stop though is we don’t issue the check. That is where ERP really shines anyway. So, literally from the time you receive either an email or paper document, all the way to approval or three-way matching we are end to end. So that is really one of the major differentiators.

Is dynamic discounting part of the program?

Currently, we do not offer that functionality, but it is on our roadmap. In fact, we are well positioned to do this in the future because we have an A/R product that can complete the negotiations.
What we do offer is prompt approvals and electronic approvals. If you chose to, let’s just say its net 10, historically if you’re working with paper you will be lucky to even get it approved in the first 20 days because of paper shuffle. One of the benefits that we encounter is if there is a discount that is to be taken this allows you to get the approval done in a matter of hours to days to get the payment out.

Is Open Scan Technologies, Inc. an American company?

Yes, we are located in the middle of Colorado; we have been in business for 15 years. We have been doing AP for about 3 but we have been doing AR for 15 also working with states, governments, etc. but our core competency is AR.  We are merging into the market for AP and are working right now on taking our on-premise solutions and putting it in a cloud. That is where we are going with it within the next 6 months or so.

How many clients in North America and abroad?

We focus on North America; of course, companies aren't really necessarily just because they are based here built longer than businesses overseas. We are really Canada and North America and we are looking at 75 companies but the majority of them literally like 80% of them are Fortune 500. So that is kind of where we sit with it. We tend to do business as far as your company just because the cost benefit makes more sense when they have more volume. We are looking to go down market for both products, when I say that I mean when you are fully web based then you can service more clients with fewer implementation costs.

Is there a particular ERP system that works best with Open Scan?

Actually, that is another differentiator, we are certified as an ERP partner but in the beginning, we intentionally designed our products to be agnostic.  So when I say that a lot of companies will do custom APIs with different ERP members. The way we looked at it was to keep it the kiss methodology, keep it simple.  So what we do is basically file hand off. So when were done with our work we take the data images we put it in the directory which we basically tell the ERP to do this in an automated fashion once a day when the ERP goes out to pull that file. We actually did that intentionally because first of all a lot of I.T.  people don’t want you to tightly integrate with their ERP because that means you’re messing with their databases and it allows us to work with any ERP.    

What about outsourcing or off-shoring?

As far as outsourcing or off-shoring the answer is no, but both our products are actually built to be used in a business process outsourcing like model.  We haven’t had a lot of play with it but we have a lot of shared services. For instance, clients who have multiple divisions where they put all the accounting work into one location. It’s kind of like outsourcing but you are really in-sourcing. With the outsourcing model, two reasons we haven’t seen a lot of play with it, mainly is you are dealing with the finances because outsourcing is something like customer service which is one thing but when you are outsourcing, issuing a check or the approval of issuing a check not a lot of people are comfortable with putting that in somebody else’s hands that are not in the country. It is a loss of control and one of our companies did actually outsource to India and ended up spending more money sending out supervisors over there for periods of time which was basically a loss of money and they actually brought it back to the states because they felt like A) they didn't have control and B) the people overseas aren't invested in doing the job right. They had to constantly send over supervisors to make sure they were doing the work right.  So that was our experience with it. The answer is yes it’s completely built for and could be outsourced but we don’t offer the particular program for that.

Robert Ruhno

Founder & Social Media Manager

Accounts Payable Professionals Group

I invite you to join our group today! Click Here