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Key Accounts Payable Benchmarks Study
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IRS is Cracking Down on 1099 Filers via Enforcement Programs and Full Information Reporting and Withholding Audits

The IRS has announced the 2010 standard mileage rates for business use of a personal vehicle. For 2010, the rates have been lowered to reflect a slight decrease in the cost of gasoline compared to a year ago.
Beginning Jan 1, 2010, the standard mileage rates for the business use of a car (including vans, pickups or panel trucks) will be:

• 50 cents per mile for business miles driven;
• 16.5 cents per mile driven for medical or moving purposes; and
• 14 cents per mile driven in service of charitable organizations.

It can sometimes feel like there is an invisible tug-of-war match going on between buyers and suppliers over payment card acceptance. While buyers want to use p-cards so they can save money on payment processing and improve cash flow, some vendors find that the costs of accepting cards outweigh the benefits.

With legislators debating whether small companies should ever have to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley section 404(b), the world’s largest anti-fraud organization believes exempting them from the audit requirements would lead to increased fraud activity.

Beginning June 15, 2010 small public companies with a public float of less than $75 million must comply with Section 404(b), which requires that they have management and independent auditors sign off on the effectiveness of their internal controls.

Wow, the color! I especially love those fiery Maples this time of year and the breathtaking show nature puts on for its last gasp before we settle in for those cozy long winter naps.

While driving around your neighborhood, I’m sure you have neighbors who diligently rake their leaves on a sunny weekend day, open the windows, and engage in a little fall home detailing. They also do the same thing for their prized (or not so prized) automobiles.

Hundreds of AP professionals stopped to visit The Accounts Payable Network’s booth at October’s IOMA Accounts Payable Conference and Expo.

Visitors to the booth were treated to a real-time demonstration of the TAPN homepage by Manager, Marketing Operations Whitney Vail (left) and Director, e-Learning Gordon Bivens (right). The visitors learned about the many benefits of TAPN membership, including access to downloadable tools and policy manuals, timely benchmark surveys, and a wealth of articles on every aspect of the payables process.

When purchasing cards blossomed onto the landscape in the mid-1990s, the strategy behind the concept was pretty straightforward. It was based on the assumption that the cost of purchasing an item using the card, and therefore consolidating thousands of invoices into one for accounts payable, would be less than the cost of having the transaction handled by the purchasing department.

After several delays, in 2010 small public companies must finally begin providing the Securities and Exchange Commission with certified assessments of their internal controls.

Beginning June 15, 2010, small public companies with a public float of less than $75 million (called accelerated filers) must comply with Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Section 404(b) requires organizations to have management and independent auditors sign off on the effectiveness of their internal controls.

I LOVE football, especially the NFL (and that catchy Monday Night Football theme song). I especially love my hometown team, The Washington Redskins - yes, I know it hasn’t been a good year for them, but that’s a blog for an entirely different site.

But, win or lose, they are my team and they do have three Super Bowl rings. Not as many as the Steelers, Patriots or Cowboys, but if you have even one Super Bowl ring, you did all the right things to get there. You know what it takes to be the best and how attention to detail yields results you can be proud of.