CAPP and CAPA can now become APM and APS

An important message came out this week from IOFM regarding CAPP and CAPA certified Accounts Payable Professionals. See their message:

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Are you CAPP or CAPA certified through IFO? If so, you'll want to continue reading this message.
IOFM is now accepting transfer applications into the Accredited Payables Manager (APM) and Accredited Payables Specialist (APS) programs for those who hold an active CAPP or CAPA certification.

Here are the basics:
There is no cost for the transfer
No need to sit for our rigorous exam
You will need to provide proof of your active certification

Why are we doing this? Hear it directly from Brian Cuthbert, Executive Director of IOFM:
"Over the past 6 months, in particular, current CAPP/CAPA certified professionals have been reaching out to IOFM to express their deep concern over the future of their current certification designation," said Brian. "We've been asked time and again to step in and provide another option for those professionals who have invested so much of their time and money into their certification designation. IOFM has a responsibility to the financial operations community, which we take seriously, and now CAPP and CAPA certified practitioners can benefit from IOFM's certification programs and become part of most well-recognized certification programs for financial operations professionals in North America."

You can learn more about this opportunity here: CAPP/CAPA Transfer Opportunity 

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Q:  Are you CAPP or CAPA certified? What are your thoughts on this? Are you planning on transferring your certification? Although it seems like an obvious choice to me, is there some reason for not transferring?

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Robert Ruhno
Director and Blogger
Accounts Payable Professionals Group (APPG)

What to do about petty cash?

Petty cash is money that a company keeps in the office for miscellaneous expenses (for example: to cover the cost of parking and tolls of an employee picking up emergency office supplies). While on the surface it may sound like a good idea to maintain a petty cash box, it may not be worth the trouble in this day and age. There are better ways to handle these miscellaneous expenses without resorting to petty cash.

Everyone has an ATM or credit card. An employee can simply take on the costs, temporarily, and get reimbursed through an expense report. This way there is no exchange of cash. In addition to that, many companies have T&E-cards or P-cards that allow their employees to make business purchases for the company without taking on the costs at all, so there is no real need for petty cash. There are other problems that should be considered too.

It takes too much time away from other more important A/P functions to maintain the petty cash records. A person dedicated to keeping the petty cash log, to keep track of the balance, and another person to sign-off on the log whenever there is an update. From time to time, there should be an unscheduled internal audit of the petty cash box. There are also concerns over securing the cash to prevent theft or fraud. The best practice is to keep the petty cash in a fireproof locked box with limited access and it should be kept within site.

If you log all the hours spent by each person that has to deal with maintaining the petty cash box and multiple that by their pay/hour, your company may decide to stop the practice of petty cash.

Q: Do you know of a company that still does petty cash? Is it a headache to manage? or is it easy and useful, or something in-between?

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Robert Ruhno
Director and Blogger
Accounts Payable Professionals Group (APPG)

Happy AP Appreciation Week!

The week of October 10th thru the 14th has been declared as AP Appreciation Week. So thank you for all the hard work you do! I know first hand that AP is more than, "just paying the bills". Sometimes it is like you are taking on several roles at the same time: accountant, police, economist, politician, teacher, and occasionally mental health therapist! lol.

Happy AP Appreciation Week!

During AP Appreciation Week, our friends at IOFM and the AP & P2P Network will treat one hardworking AP & P2P team each day by awarding their team a $200 gift card to go out to lunch. Submissions will be accepted until October 13th, 2016 (noon EST). Those who wish to recognize their own team or any Accounts Payable or Procure-to-Pay team who they believe goes above and beyond can submit entries on the AP & P2P Network website: http://www.app2p.com/contest

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Robert Ruhno
Director of Socia Media
Accounts Payable Professionals Group (APPG)

What does A/P know about Bitcoin?

Bitcoin is an electronic currency referred to as a cryptocurrency. Although the percentage of Bitcoin usage compared to all other electronic payment methods is small, as an AP Professionals you want to be aware of it. If the usage of Bitcoin continues to increase and becomes an important and significant payment method, what kind of policies would the head of an Accounts Payable department have to put in place?

According to the book: Mastering Bitcoin: Unlocking Digital Cryptocurrencies By Andreas M. Antonopoulos, "Transactions can be created online or offline by anyone even if the person creating the transaction is not an authorized signer on the account. For example, an accounts payable clerk might process payable checks for Signature by the CEO. Similarly and accounts payable clerk can create Bitcoin transactions and then have the CEO apply digital signatures to make them ballot. Whereas they check references a specific account as the source of the funds a Bitcoin transaction references a specific previous transaction as its source rather than an account."

As AP Professionals we must have this kind of thing on our radar. Here is a video that gives you a good primer on Bitcoin. 

Q: What are your thoughts about Bitcoin? 
Q: Have you used Bitcoin personally? 
Q: Do you know of any businesses that use Bitcoin?

For more information on Bitcoin, I recommend reading the following:



Interested in using Bitcoin? I recommend using Coinbase. Click here to get $10 worth of Bitcoins when you open an account: Coinbase.

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Robert Ruhno
Director of Socia Media
Accounts Payable Professionals Group (APPG)