The IRS recently announced an increase in federal per diem rates for business travel inside and outside the continental United States. This information is important for organizations that use per diem rates, as opposed to actual reimbursements, to substantiate business expenses.

Despite the fact that little attention has recently been paid to merging U.S. and international accounting standards, officials with the Securities and Exchange Commission say the project has not been scrapped.

While they claim that the weak economy of the last year may have led the project to take a temporary back seat, it has also demonstrated why merging accounting standards is necessary.

As electronic imaging began to gain momentum in the 1990s, a number of companies saw opportunities to provide an easy way for organizations to store, retrieve, and distribute images and data within an organization. The business became known as document management or imaging management.

Lately, document management likes to call itself knowledge management because the primary role is to get the right information to the right people at the right time, so that an organization's intelligence can be leveraged.

Outsourcing accounts payable typically costs less than managing it in house and allows organizations to focus on more value-added activities. With the average outsourcing agreement lasting five years, the end of the contract period is typically the best time to renegotiate…or is it?

While spend management has long been a way for AP and purchasing department’s to improve the bottom line, many are overlooking a key spend category – meetings and events.

Spend management typically involves consolidating spending with strategic vendors in order to secure the best prices and contracts. The purchasing department will use data provided from AP in contract negotiations.

Although many organizations have either reduced or eliminated their travel programs altogether, a recent study reveals that this may have a negative impact on their bottom lines.

According to research conducted by IHS Global Insight and presented at the National Business Travel Association Convention in San Diego, as organizations increase or decrease their travel spend by 1 percent, they either see a corresponding 1.7 percent increase or decrease in sales.

The information was collected from ten years of records covering 1998 to 2008 and spanning 9,500 companies from 10 industries.

As the world confronts unstable economic conditions, accounts payable departments are being scrutinized more than ever. While CEOs watch profits slip, employees are tasked to do more with less. This means making the most out of human capital and optimizing business processes to positively impact the bottom line.

Experts say that using workflow and automation can save between 50%-70% and dramatically improve your cash flow. Register for this FREE one-hour on-demand presentation and start reaping the benefits of electronic workflow:

Fraudsters targeting large companies are shifting their sights away from low-level employees and going after top-tier executives in a new round of scams that investigators are dubbing “whaling” attacks.

According to a recent article published by UPI, the term whaling comes from the fact that it is a larger version of common “phishing” scams. Phishing involves attempting to convince someone to divulge sensitive financial information.

While phishing attacks traditionally focus on rank-and-file employees, whaling has upped the stakes.

While the economy isn’t out of the woods yet, many organizations have started thinking about how they are going to come out of the recession stronger and more competitive than when they went in.

Several business surveys making their way around report that businesses are planning to start hiring again soon. According to the Employment Dynamics and Growth Expectations Report, 53 percent of employers expect to hire additional full-time staff during the next 12 months. Meanwhile, 40 percent plan to hire contract workers, and 39 percent expect to hire part-time staff.

The business manager for the U.S. Coast Guard Academy Athletics Division confessed to embezzling more than $1 million from the school to finance a gambling habit, a confession which came just days before his apparent suicide.

According to an article published in The Day (New London, Connecticut), the fraud had been going on for the past decade, with $1.4 million having been stolen between 2004 and 2009. The academy has no way to determine how much was stolen before 2004, adding that they will likely never recover the funds.