The political bug has bitten me, so I’m stepping on my soap box to stump for the AP Best Practice Doctrine. Hey, wait a minute……is there really such a thing? Sure there is. Well, why not, as it seems there all sorts of doctrines floating around these days according to CNBC, FOX News & CBS’s Katie Couric; like the McCain Doctrine, the Obama Doctrine, Church Doctrines, Strange Doctrines, Pocket Doctrines, if you’re short on time, et.al., so it’s high time AP has a Best Practice Doctrine, too.

With the recent news coming from the financial world, people across the country (and the world) are joining together in shouting this famous exclamation. Energy prices are skyrocketing, unemployment is rising, and the stock market is at its lowest level in years.

While things look bad, there’s no way of predicting how hard this slowdown will be or how long it will last. The best thing AP departments can do is ensure that they are doing everything in their power to meet cash management goals.

Few pieces of legislation are as controversial to the business community as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. Passed during the fallout of the Enron and Worldcom accounting scandals, Sarbanes-Oxley, typically abbreviated SOX, requires the CEO of all public companies to personally certify the accuracy of their organization's audit reports.

With many organizations claiming that the rules are too expensive and time consuming to follow, all eyes have been on a recent court case challenging the legitimacy of the law. Unfortunately for them, the court ruled in the government's favor.

Although the U.S. has not officially slid into a recession, many businesses are feeling the pinch of a slowing economy. Rising fuel prices and the weakening dollar are causing organizations to rethink how they spend their money. In many cases, travel budgets find themselves at the business end of a cost-cutting initiative.

Performance Measurement is a process for assessing progress toward achieving predetermined goals that includes the following:

Ah, I just love flowers and foliage this time of year. Every variety: roses and dogwoods and azaleas and sunflowers and, well, you get the idea. It's really great when previous years' bulbs and shrubs spread, creating more of the same beautiful blooms.

According to Wikipedia, public relations is the management of internal and external communications to create a positive image.

Accounts Payable organizations have done a lousy job of public relations, and it is a major reason why the contributions of AP have gone unrecognized over the years. There I said it. Who out there will challenge my statement.

Invoice discounting is a great way for organizations to improve cash management while maintaining strong vendor relationships. For many companies, it may be the key to surviving the current economic uncertainty.

Traditional invoice discounts, which are usually proposed by the seller, involve paying an invoice early (usually within ten days) for a slight discount. The most common discount terms are 2/10 net 30, meaning the buyer receives a 10 percent discount for paying on the tenth day.

Non-PO invoices are a considerable "Pain Point" for AP personnel. In most cases the invoice is sent directly to the client for approval. From my personal experience some 40 percent of late payments at AT&T were the result of receiving the invoice for payment from the client after the terms had expired. However, when the KPIs are published, we in AP are usually blamed for the percentage of late payments which had nothing to do with our cycle time process.

The traditional belief that a comprehensive business solution like an ERP system needs to be running inside the organizations' walls to be effective is becoming a thing of the past.

During the last couple of years, the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model has been gaining momentum with small and medium-sized companies. Saas, where the solution is managed by the provider and the user accesses it over the Internet, is ideal for businesses unable to commit considerable IT resources to a project.