AP Industry Posts

Ask The Experts

Wednesday, April 3rd, 2013

Lavante has created the Ask the Experts resource page to provide a place where the AP & Procurement community can access direct links to support information. The information Lavante provides is open to the general public. You do not have to be a Lavante customer to participate in any of the Ask The Experts webinars or to benefit from the forums.

Vendor Management Survey
Vendor Management Sandbox

About the Speakers:

Jeff Wiest led the accounts payable function for the U.S. Financial Shared Services Center of Tyco Electronics since its formation over 10 years ago. During that time he oversaw the post-acquisition integration of more than 20 payables functions into the service center. He was instrumental in the implementation of electronic technology solutions that have resulted in significant efficiency improvements and cost savings. Prior to joining Tyco, Jeff served in various accounting roles for AMP Incorporated.

Contact Jeff Wiest

Jeff worked for over ten years with Rite Aid Corporation as Director of AP, during which time he led that company’s Transaction Tax and Accounts Payable organizations. During his tenure at Rite Aid, Jeff was a key player in the integration of the Brooks Eckerd AP process into Rite Aid. His experience included the introduction of technology-enabled solutions and Best-of-Class processes to improve corporate efficiency, reduce costs, increase cash flow and mitigate risk. Prior to Rite Aid, he spent five years at Foot Locker as Manager of Transaction Taxes.

Contact Jeff Ulanoski

Check back for future updates on the Ask the Experts Webinar Series

Ask the Experts

Tags: AP Technology, ask the experts, Lavante webinar, Supplier Information Management, TIN Management, TIN's, Vendor File Mgmt, Vendor Master File Management
Posted in AP Industry, Ask the Experts, Lavante, Procurement, Supplier Information Management, Tax ID Numbers, Technology, W9, Webinar | No Comments »

Benefits of Supplier Master Data Management | MDM Systems

Tuesday, March 19th, 2013

Large Data systems these days depend on the quality of data we feed them. Optimizing supplier relationships and ERP system effectiveness ultimately rely heavily upon our ability to collect timely accurate information. Too many times across our businesses the data that has been received from suppliers decays and leaves us with useless information for us to look at when we are trying to make decisions.

Accurate supplier data drives system effectiveness and saves time, resource, and dollars. Large volumes of data across multiple systems and departments, along with data decay are challenges to maintaining quality supplier data. Up-to-date supplier information is critical for compliance with regulations and controls, such as OFAC screening, diversity tracking, and new tax legislation.

Lavante SIM: On-Demand Supplier Information Management as a Strategy.

Lavante SIM enables companies to proactively communicate with suppliers and gain real-time visibility into suppliers and relationships. Lavante SIM drives compliance across the supplier lifecycle–from initial vendor master file cleansing, to on-boarding, to ongoing maintenance. Set important Vendor Master Controls and let the Lavante software manage your communications.

: Lavante On-Demand Supplier Master Data Management

Drive master data compliance & insight across the supplier life cycle:

Core Supplier Data
Tax Information
Ownership & Diversity
Supplier Classification

Insurance & Risk
Financial Information
Contract Information

Create an enterprise-wide single source of truth for supplier master data:

Ensure quality of supplier data
Gain insight into your suppliers and relationships
Drive compliance with regulations and internal controls
Drive corporate compliance with new 1099 Tax Legislation
Reduce supplier risk
Reduce cost of managing supplier information

Why Lavante Supplier Information Management?

Quick Time to Value: On-demand, “out-of-the-box” with immediate results
The Highest Supplier Compliance: 8X results of alternative solutions
Ongoing Communication: Drives supplier participation and data quality
Funded by Recovery: Works seamlessly with Lavante Recovery

Benefits of Supplier Master Data Management | MDM Systems | MDM Strategy

Tags: 1099, Accounts Payable Software, AP Automation, SIM, Supplier Information Management, TIN Management, vendor file cleansing, Vendor Master File Management
Posted in AP Industry, AP Technology Innovation, Supplier Information Management, Technology, Vendor File Cleansing, Vendor File Management, W9 | No Comments »

Vendor File Management | Collect W9 | OFAC Screening | Insurance Certification Collection | Diversity Tracking | Supplier Onboarding | USPS Validation

Tuesday, March 19th, 2013

Join CEO, Joe Flynn of Lavante in an “Ask the Expert” webinar as he interviews both Jeff Ulanoski, former Rite Aid Director of AP and Jeff Wiest, former AP Manager at Tyco Electronics on the state of Vendor Management.

Find out the benefits of using technology to:Collect and Validate W9s, Monitor and Screen OFAC Lists, Validate Supplier Insurance Certificates, Collect and Track Diversity Status, Manage / Automate Supplier Onboarding, Validate USPS Addresses, Manage changes your Vendor File, More….

Webinar Event: Wednesday, April 3, 2013 10:00 am

Pacific Daylight Time (San Francisco, GMT-07:00)

About the Speakers:

See a Demo of the Lavante Product Suite where you can automatically set your corporate controls and let the application manage all communication for you

Tags: 1099, Diversity Tracking, insurance certificate collection, Lavante, Lavante webinar, OFAC Screening, Technology, TIN Management, vendor file cleansing, Vendor Master File Management, w9
Posted in 1099 Reporting, AP Industry, Supplier Information Management, Tax ID Numbers, Technology, Vendor File Cleansing, Vendor File Management, W9, Webinar | No Comments »

AP Now and Tomorrow’s Mary Schaeffer Joins Lavante for Emerging Master Vendor File Practices and Issues Webinar

Thursday, March 7th, 2013

The topic of Automation of Vendor File Management is back in the spotlight in the Lavante Webinar Series.

The next webinar event is scheduled for Tuesday, March 12th.

We will be presenting the curriculum twice to accommodate busy schedules.

If you would like to attend there is still space available

8am PT https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/579562550

11am PT https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/746389958

The webinar will be a conversation between Lavante CEO, Joe Flynn and AP Now & Tomorrow’s CEO, Mary Schaeffer.

Mary Schaeffer is a recognized thought leader in AP. She is the creator of IFO’s Innovation Certificate Program, a member of the IFO’s Education Committee and gives several sessions every year at the IFO annual Fusion trade show.

Mary publishes a weekly Ezine that we recommend to all of our readers. For more information you can sign up HERE

Here is an exerpt from Mary’s bio located on her site HERE

Mary S. Schaeffer

Editorial Director & Publisher

CRYSTALLUS, Inc. publisher of several accounts payable periodicals

Nationally recognized accounts payable expert and consultant
Frequent speaker at seminars, conferences and online events
Editor-at-Large CFO Publishing’s Learning Pro: AP Edition
Regular contributor to the AICPA’s Corporate Finance Insider
Publisher and editorial director of the Accounts Payable Now & Tomorrow monthly newsletter
Creator of Institute of Financial Operations Accounts Payable Innovation Certificate program
Writes a free weekly e-zine, e-AP News
Author more than 15 business books including the Controller & CFO’s Guide to Accounts Payable and Fraud in Accounts Payable: How to Prevent It (See full list below)
M.B.A. Finance, NYU; B.S. Math, York College

Books by Mary S. Schaeffer

Do-It-Yourself Accounts Payable Consultant Handbook first, second and third editions (CRYSTALLUS, Inc. 2011, 2012, 2013)
Fraud in Accounts Payable: How to Prevent It (John Wiley & Sons September 2008)
New Payment World: A Manager’s Guide to Creating an Efficient Payment Process (John Wiley & Sons 2007)
Travel and Entertainment Best Practices (John Wiley & Sons 2007)
Controller and CFO’s Guide to Accounts Payable (John Wiley & Sons 2006)
Accounts Payable and Sarbanes-Oxley: Strengthening Your Internal Controls (John Wiley & Sons 2006)
The Future of Accounts Payable (CRYSTALLUS, Inc. 2006)
Accounts Payable: A Guide to Running an Efficient Department First edition, Second edition and Supplements (John Wiley & Sons, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002 , 2003, 2004)
Accounts Payable Best Practices (John Wiley & Sons 2004)
Essentials of Accounts Payable (John Wiley & Sons 2002)
Essentials of Credit, Collections and Accounts Receivable (John Wiley & Sons 2003)
International Credit and Collections (John Wiley & Sons 1999)
Understanding Interest Rate Swaps (McGraw Hill 1994)
Your Dream Vacation Home (McGraw Hill 1992)
Triumph Over Tragedy (with John Duffy, John Wiley & Sons 2002)

Mary Schaeffer has the inimitable ability to find accounts-payable-related solutions that really work—without making a major dent in the bottom line. Armed with a degree in math and a graduate degree in finance, she takes a “roll up your sleeves and dig into the details” approach to finding solutions to those problems that cause migraines for CFOs, controllers, and managers.

Fifteen years spent researching and writing about payment issues gives Mary Schaeffer a unique vantage point. Combine that with an almost equal amount of time spent in the corporate trenches of several large finance and treasury departments and you’ll see why she’s become known as America’s leading accounts payable expert.

A wide variety of institutions have taken advantage of her unique expertise: John Wiley & Sons has published over a dozen of her books; CRYSTALLUS, Inc. (www.ap-now.com) relies on her know-how to direct its professional publication, training, and consulting business; and the AICPA features her articles in its Corporate Finance Insider. Let’s not overlook the long list of organizations that have turned to her for best practice guidance of their accounts payable function and training of their accounts payable staff.

Ms. Schaeffer has a BS in Mathematics from York College (CUNY) and a MBA in Finance from New York University. She can be reached at marys@ap-now.com

Tags: 1099 Reporting, Accounts Payable Software, AP Automation, AP Industry, AP Technology, Lavante, Lavante webinar, Supplier Information Management, Vendor File Mgmt, Vendor Master File Management
Posted in AP Industry, IFO, Industry Associations, Lavante, Shared Services, Supplier Information Management, Tax ID Numbers, Vendor File Cleansing, Vendor File Management, Webinar | No Comments »

MGM Resorts Executive Named Controller of the Year by the Institute of Finance and Management

Wednesday, November 28th, 2012

Lavante, a key provider of supplier management solutions, announced today that Rick Arpin, Senior Vice President and Corporate Controller of MGM Resorts International, has been named Controller of the Year by the Institute of Finance & Management(IOFM), a leading industry association for finance professionals. Arpin was selected for successfully leading the company’s centralized Finance Shared Service Center (FSSC) to become a model of efficiency, visibility and effectiveness, and by leveraging technology, including Lavante’s credit recovery solution. Through these efforts, Arpin and his team were able to achieve improved financial processes and greater profitability for MGM Resorts.

Under Arpin’s direction, MGM Resorts’ FSSC has successfully incorporated Lean Process improvements, establishing sound financial processes, streamlining practices and reducing costs. The roll-out of a credit recovery solution from Lavante within the AP department has been a key factor in these accomplishments, enabling MGM Resorts to capture millions of dollars in missing credits from suppliers, earned through duplicate payments, lost shipments, returns or discounts. Lavante’s Recovery+ solution has also reduced the number of invoices that require extra attention from 51,000 to 2,500 invoices per month, and enables the FSSC AP department to capture earned discounts more frequently.

“I’m thrilled to receive the AP Controller of the Year award from the Institute of Finance & Management,” said Arpin. “I’ve learned first-hand the value that automation brings in driving effective processes and delivering the visibility, control and accurate reporting we need. Automation has been a key component of our success and has helped us reduce costs and improve effectiveness.”

While all the departments benefit from the reduced costs and earned credits that the AP department now realizes, Arpin continues to drive similar initiatives in other departments and has set the standard for the efficiency of Shared Services Centers. He has built a strong relationship with the Purchasing department, thanks to process improvements in AP, and is bringing additional accounting functions into the shared service center umbrella, streamlining key finance activities.

“Under the expertise of Rick Arpin, MGM Resorts’ Finance Shared Service Center exemplifies innovation, quality and control in Finance, leveraging automation to not only increase profitability, but also to streamline key processes and heighten the role of Finance enterprise-wide,” said Joe Flynn, CEO & co-founder, Lavante. “I congratulate Rick on this well-earned and prestigious recognition from the Institute of Finance & Management.”

About The IOFM Awards

The winners of IOFM’s AP Manager of the Year and AP Controller of the Year awards were announced on October 15^th in Las Vegas at the 11^th Annual Accounts Payable Conference and Expo presented by the Institute of Finance & Management (IOFM).

Competition for these awards was stiff as many nominations were submitted. The number of nominations submitted for 2012 greatly exceeded the number submitted in 2011, an indication of the increased awareness of the importance of recognizing outstanding performance in the field of Accounts Payable.

The IOFM is the leading source of information tools and resources for professionals across its focus areas. For over a quarter of a century, its newsletters, reference publications, online information services, and conferences have provided authoritative guidance to corporate managers across a wide range of disciplines.

About Lavante

Lavante is the leader in on-demand supplier management solutions, including recovery auditand supplier information management applications. Built with advanced, patented-pending technology, Lavante delivers to the financial arena a new standard in efficient technology-driven solutions that allow companies to quickly drive dollars to the bottom line, improve supplier communications, and assure high supplier data quality. Lavante solutions are deployed across Fortune 1000 enterprises including the hospitality, retail, entertainment, manufacturing, and medical industries. Headquartered in San Jose, California, Lavante is privately held and was founded in 2001. For more information please visit www.lavante.com.

Tags: Controller, Controller of the Year, MGM
Posted in AP Case Study, AP Industry, Controller of the Year, Industry Associations, IOFM | Comments Off

Omnicare Executive Named AP Manager of the Year by the Institute of Finance Management

Wednesday, November 21st, 2012

Lavante, a key provider of supplier management solutions, announced today that Tina McGlasson, Director of Accounts Payable (AP) at Omnicare, a nationwide provider of pharmaceutical services and a valued customer of Lavante, has been selected as AP Manager of the Year by the IOMAs Institute of Finance & Management (IOFM), a leading industry association for finance professionals. McGlasson was selected for her strategic approach to AP, her focus on continuous improvement and her ability to collaborate across departments to increase the value that AP delivers to the overall organization.

McGlasson was instrumental in automating key financial activities, which drove money to the bottom line by providing insight into spend, uncovering potential discounts and recovering credits due to Omnicare from its suppliers. In addition to elevating the AP function to focus on more strategic processes, McGlasson has been working closely with other departments, such as Procurement, to more effectively manage the travel & expense (T&E) policy. She has streamlined AP processes by identifying pain points and bottlenecks, and implementing best practices.

“It is an honor to be chosen by IOMA’s Institute of Finance & Management for this award,” said McGlasson. “Automation has enabled us to work more efficiently and has freed up our AP professionals to focus on more strategic, value-added activities that can help our business, such as evaluating spend and identifying ways to save money.“

Key to McGlasson’s ability to improve the profitability of Omnicare was her implementation of Lavante’s solution, Lavante Recovery +, which enables Omnicare to identify hidden credits it is owed from its suppliers for a variety of reasons, such as duplicate payments, uncredited returns, or discounts.

“Tina McGlasson is the consummate AP pro and strategic leader,” said Joe Flynn, CEO & co-founder, Lavante. “She has elevated the AP function in her organization to focus on more strategic processes, inspires staff members, and collaborates across departments and outside the organization to mobilize everyone toward process improvement. We congratulate her on this well-deserved recognition from IOMA’s Institute of Finance & Management.”

About The IOFM Awards

The winners of IOFM’s AP Manager of the Year and AP Controller of the Year awards were announced on October 15th in Las Vegas at the 11th Annual Accounts Payable Conference and Expo presented by the Institute of Finance & Management (IOFM).

About Omnicare

Omnicare, Inc., a Fortune 400 company based in Cincinnati, Ohio, provides comprehensive pharmaceutical services to patients and providers across North America. As the market leader in professional pharmacy, related consulting and data management services for skilled nursing, assisted living and other chronic care institutions, Omnicare leverages its unparalleled clinical insight into the geriatric market along with some of the industry’s most innovative technological capabilities to the benefit of its long-term care customers. Omnicare also provides key commercialization services for the bio-pharmaceutical industry and end-of-life disease management through its Specialty Care Group. For more information, visithttp://www.omnicare.com.

About Lavante

Tags: AP Manager of the Year, IOFM, Omnicare
Posted in AP Case Study, AP Industry, AP MAnager of the Year, AP Technology Innovation, IOFM | Comments Off

Thoughts About the Escalating Complexities in Managing Supplier Relationships and Information

Friday, November 2nd, 2012

Managing supplier information is becoming an ever-more complex and involved process for organizations of every size and across all industries. Through our work at Lavante in automating recovery audit and supplier management processes, we are constantly learning from our customers, prospects, and industry analysts how organizations are dealing with this critical issue. We recently partnered with IOFM (Institute of Finance and Management) on a comprehensive market research survey where respondents answered a series of questions related to the key tasks and/or projects involved in managing supplier relationships. After spending time at several industry conferences talking extensively with a host of AP and Shared Services practitioners, and reviewing the results of this survey, several themes or issues have emerged which I wanted to share here.

First is that the complexities and scale of tracking and managing suppliers is overwhelming for most companies. This is in part due to the many different tasks that have to be performed – on-boarding, validating tax ID’s, gathering insurance documents, W9s, W8s, maintaining regional differences, etc. – which are often treated as disparate tasks or projects. And although there are usually processes built around performing these functions, they are seldom combined into one seamless process that can be automated, and thus streamlined. This means that every change requires a lot of extra work to accomplish. Take for example the potential change to the W9 collection process in 2010, where organizations would have been required to collect W9s for new categories of suppliers. We talked to hundreds of companies that were under considerable stress with the prospect of:

	a)	gathering together W9s from their current suppliers;

	b)	identifying which vendors were missing W9s, and and then determining if they needed one to comply with the new legislation;

	c)	contacting the supplier to request the document;

	d)	finding the correct information if existing data was incorrect, and reaching out to them again.

If you only have a handful of suppliers, this wouldn’t be such a daunting task. But even mid-size organizations we talked to had thousands of suppliers, with larger global enterprises looking at verifying tens of thousands of contacts. Given these numbers, this task becomes a monumental project with the risk of heavy penalties if not conducted in a timely, accurate manner. While this legislation was eventually overturned, it left many finance professionals with the firm belief that it can and will happen again, and that being reactive wasn’t a good way to approach the issue.

It struck me that this one project of collecting W9s was intricately related to so many other tasks involved with supplier management. And linking these seemingly disparate tasks together into one seamless process, powered by technology, results in a continuous, on-going process which can scale to handle an unlimited number of suppliers. With an ability to collect, track and manage any type of required document, and allow total control over this process, it would dramatically simplify the complexities involved in the supplier management process. An automated process would also allow finance professionals to instantly comply with new regulations and internal processes.

Next week, I’ll share some other thoughts related to this continuous process, and how simple it really can be. As usual, please let me know your thoughts about this important topic.

Tags: 1099 Reporting, Lavante, supplier information managment, W9 collection
Posted in 1099 Reporting, AP Industry, IOFM, Lavante, Supplier Information Management, Tax ID Numbers | No Comments »

Lavante Is Honored to Receive Technology Excellence Award from PayStream Advisors

Thursday, October 4th, 2012

At last month’s PayStream Advisors Fast Track to P2P Automation Summit in Charlotte, NC, Lavante was honored to be included in the technology innovation awards which were announced at the event. The award was in the category of Purchase to Pay Automation for Leading Recovery Audit Solution.

I see this as a strong validation of what has been the cornerstone to our approach of building and applying advanced technology to automate and streamline what were highly manual, costly and disjointed processes in AP and finance. In this case, our patented technology and processes help AP to have in place an automated, ongoing recovery process that delivers continuous benefits, including dollars to the bottom line, dynamic reporting, and updated vendor data.

This was reinforced by Henry Ijams, Managing Director of PayStream Advisors, in the award announcement: “Lavante’s Recovery+ solution automates a traditionally highly manual recovery audit process, providing a comprehensive, automated, and continuous recovery solution. We are proud to honor Lavante with the award in this year’s Purchase to Pay Automation category for Leading Recovery Audit Solution.”

We are pleased to be part of this prestigious awards program and to share the stage with two other technology excellence recipients, Ariba and SciQuest, as well as the Corporate award winners, Graham Packaging Company, The American Red Cross, and Kaleida Health.

To read the complete award summary, please click here, and for more information about Lavante’s excellence award please read the full press release by clicking here.

Tags: AP Technology, Lavante, PayStream Advisors, Recovery Audit
Posted in AP Industry, AP Technology Innovation, Lavante, Paystream Advisors, Recovery Audit, Vendor File Cleansing, Vendor Statement Audit | No Comments »

Accounts Payable Acquisition Integration Part 2 – Managing & Integrating Multiple Vendor Master Files

Friday, September 28th, 2012

Last week I wrote about my past experiences with integrating the accounts payable functions of acquired companies into a service center environment, detailing the inherent difficulties and the ongoing search for solutions to help manage this complex process. In this blog, I’d like to focus on one of the major problem areas that is frequently encountered – that of managing multiple supplier lists from acquired companies.

In my current role at Lavante as a Sr. Solutions Advisor, I have been reminded of the trials of the integration process I experienced while leading the AP function at several fortune 500 companies when talking with prospective and current clients who are dealing with these same issues. One of the first inevitable difficulties they face is in combining vendor master files. The procurement function always began the process with the intent to “rationalize” the acquired file(s) with our own data, which meant eliminating duplicate vendors, selecting strategic suppliers to leverage spend, updating information, etc. In reality, the pressures of just reaching a functional level meant that little of this occurred and the files were forced together in the rush to issue purchase orders and maintain production. Many of the problems created were never addressed as we moved on to the next acquisition or other project.

Lavante’s solutions have always placed a high priority on vendor master integrity. The Lavante Recovery application was built to maximize the use of available supplier data as part of the process and allow clients use it to identify duplicate and related vendors and maintain current data. The Lavante SIM (Supplier Information Management) application takes that functionality to a whole new level. By establishing a comprehensive solution, that begins with a self-service supplier portal that enables a simplified, real time approach and eliminates the need to periodically do vendor master clean-up projects, which must be repeated after the same problems build up over time.

Having a clean vendor master file with current and accurate contact information that had been refreshed by direct communication connections with suppliers, as Lavante’s solution facilitate, would have given me a tremendous advantage in my past AP roles. If both vendor masters — acquired and acquiring — had been in that “cleansed” state, it would have eliminated numerous issues that necessitated considerable resources to rationalize and then combine the files. The ability to communicate effectively with the supply base alone would have saved time and staff resources, all the while eliminating problems downstream that are the result of bad vendor data.

Next week, I’ll go into more details about how bad data impacts an organization, and then discuss how Lavante SIM helps clients and suppliers simplify the many complexities of the supplier management process.

If you have any thoughts or issues related to your experiences consolidating acquired vendor files, or supplier management in general, please comment here.

Finally, we have partnered with IOFM to conduct a comprehensive market research project on supplier information management and we invite you to provide your input by taking the survey. Click here to add your perspectives. All contributors will receive the market research findings report produced by the IOFM (and be entered into a contest to win an iPad).

Tags: AP Industry, Lavante, Mergers & Acquisitions, Supplier Information Management, Vendor Master File Management
Posted in AP Industry, AP Technology Innovation, IOFM, Lavante, Supplier Information Management, Vendor File Cleansing | No Comments »

Accounts Payable Acquisition Integration – The Search For An Easy Switch

Monday, September 17th, 2012

I recently noticed a post on one of the accounts payable forums that was searching for a procedure to handle a post-acquisition integration of the accounts payable (AP) function into a shared service center environment. Mergers and acquisitions have become so commonplace that they hardly raise an eyebrow in the general business community. They do, however, still have the ability to wreak havoc in the lives of the unfortunate AP staff members charged with integrating the financial processes of the acquired firms into those they currently manage or oversee.

The accounts payable function is particularly vulnerable to encountering a high degree of complexity and numerous obstacles while attempting such an integration. Virtually all of the inputs to the AP process are dependent on other systems over which AP exerts no control. The purchasing, receiving, general ledger, approval hierarchy, etc. systems of their own company and the billing/AR, credit, returned material, etc. systems of their suppliers must all operate smoothly to ensure functionality. The lack of quality vendor master data in the acquired company’s records (and perhaps also on the part of the acquirer) can be particularly problematic. In an acquisition scenario, all of these must be correctly transitioned on a coordinated basis to achieve success. If there is no central project planning then each function defaults to its own timeline requirements and the result can be chaos for AP.

I have managed over twenty such AP acquisition integrations in the shared service center for which I had responsibility for 12 years, and AP managers going through this continue to ask me if I know some algebraic-like formula that would help accomplish the task. The short answer was always: “It doesn’t exist”. There is an almost endless list of variables inherent in any AP integration process that makes the search for a consistent formula or neatly-wrapped approach nearly impossible. The myriad potential systems combinations and configurations along with all of the specialized procedures and work-arounds that inevitably develop in each AP department, as well as the skill sets and personalities involved in the process simply do not allow for such an easy switch approach.

Each AP consolidation I encountered had at least some unique characteristics. The only real consistency was that I found it absolutely essential to have a very robust discovery phase in which I and our team would be on site at an early point, making sure to connect directly with as many of those in corresponding positions as possible and gathering all the information we could about the existing process. The integration plan then had to be developed in accordance with the results.

Then there is the human side. Those same individuals that are so critical in this connection and information-gathering phase are the same ones that have a high level of concern about their future employment prospects or may even have already been told that their jobs will be eliminated. There is no way to make this a non-issue and, for me, the effect on those in the acquired organization was always the most distasteful piece of the experience. As you might expect, there were wide variations in the reaction and level of cooperation that followed. I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that the majority of those affected were very willing to assist once they had the person-to-person connection with those of us charged with the integration as they understood that we had not initiated the change and had a tough job to do. It was apparent that the human connection was critical in taking away the image of faceless, Gordon Gekko types on the other end of the deal. There were exceptions though, and it is clearly a time of high risk for fraud, error and non-performance so that a high level of vigilance is warranted.

Next week, I’ll continue this conversation with some suggestions about easing this integration process. If you have any comments or want to share some or your own experiences, please send us a note!

Tags: AP Industry, AP integration, Lavante, Shared Services and AP
Posted in AP Industry, Lavante, Shared Services | No Comments »

AP Industry Posts

Ask The Experts

Vendor Management Survey

Vendor Management Sandbox