While getting rid of paper seems to be the mantra of the 21st Century for those in AP and accounting departments around the globe, “going green” and saving a few trees while we’re at it, is not only a worthy trend and good for the environment (a sheepish nod to Hollywood’s green brigade) it’s good for your department’s bottom line!

It’s been about 8 months since a federal court ordered California to stop collecting unclaimed property. During the past few months State Controller John Chiang has made several improvements to California’s unclaimed property process, including a new Web service that helps property owners track down their assets, all in an attempt to rebuild the controller’s office’s damaged image.

An A/P certification trainer’s lunch hour experience in Johannesburg, SA

I had the great experience of training 62 A/P professionals that are member the Gauteng Province Shared Service Center. There is a great deal of commonality among A/P professionals regardless of where the A/P function is performed in the world, and also very similar personnel concerns.

There have been more changes in Accounts Payable in the last five years, then in the previous ten years. This rapid rate of change can be primarily attributed to the growth in technology solutions. Many A/P organizations' that invested in such technology have earned the designation as "Best-In-Class."

The Hackett Group, which specializes in Benchmarking, defines "Best-In-Class" as being in the top 25% quartile in both qualitative measurements and traditional quantitative measurements such as cost, cycle time, quality and productivity.

Purchasing cards are an excellent option for businesses wanting to streamline payment processes and reduce paper volumes. However, as with all AP tools, they can be misused by employees. The key is to have strong controls in place.

"We are working on it" — or if I am in the southwest "we are fixing it" — is the expression I often hear about a best practice I discuss during an accounts payable workshop. We laugh and move on to the next subject. Fortunately in several organizations, I sometimes hear "we are doing that today," which is a way of identifying where a best practice has already been implemented.

Example — When two people are playing tennis, initially they lob the ball to each other. Then one player says lets play a game. What happens to the level of intensity when practicing stops and play begins? The reason the level of intensity increased is because you are now keeping score.

While browsing The Accounts Payable Channel and our sister site The Accounts Payable Network, you’ve probably noticed we have more than a few articles on AP fraud. Between fraud prevention tips, discussions of fraud trends, and stories of individual fraud cases, it’s apparent that AP fraud is something we take very seriously.

Accounts Payable Professionals bemoan the fact that their contributions over the years have gone unrecognized and unrewarded. Yet we have done little to involve the business units we support, in helping develop the strategic plan for the AP process improvement priorities. Public relations has never been a strong suite within AP.

The past three months has been a busy time for The Accounts Payable Network, supporting the Departmental Certification goals of numerous AP organizations.

Our travels throughout the country have taken us as far east as Pennsylvania, south to Georgia, southwest to Texas, in the midwest in Ohio, Kansas and Nebraska and west to California. In addition we conducted a Certification Review in Alaska and internationally in Bermuda.