IFO Posts

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

 

 

 

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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 »

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Notes from the Field: Presentation to IFO Chapter Meeting Focuses on Finding Lost Vendor Credits as Part of an Automated Statement Audit Process

Tuesday, August 7th, 2012

Last month I shared some thoughts about a recent trip to Minneapolis where we presented The Future of AP at an industry lunch & learn session.  I’d like to spend a few minutes now with some ideas about a second presentation I made on this same trip, this one at the IFO Northern Lights Chapter meeting.  This presentation focused on vendor credits and how to ensure that credits are identified and taken in a timely fashion.  Attending the meeting were AP professionals from retail, services, and health care, and across the board, the entire group believed that they needed a process to identify and collect their post-audit vendor credits, as they do not presently have a method in place to ensure that all available credits are identified and collected.

The question of how credits that are over 90 days old have an increased chance of disappearing off the suppliers books began the discussion.  This is due to many different issues which Mary Schaeffer, Editor and Publisher of Accounts Payable Now and Tomorrow addresses in her white paper report The Case of the Disappearing Credits.  I had the pleasure of presenting with Mary at Fusion 2012 in Nashville earlier this year on this topic, and was able to share with the IFO chapter group a few valuable insights into where these credits go and how companies can mitigate the risk of losing credits that are due to them.

I found the most important finding  Mary’s report revealed  is that to ensure that you are getting all of your credits you must have an automated process in place that identifies credits on a continuous, timely basis.  A periodic statement audit project — conducted once a year or every two years — will miss many credits.  An ongoing process, however, will point out the root cause issues responsible for the  missed credits – as they happen.  If you receive root cause analysis two years after the fact, you will have two years of credits missing.  Early discovery of why credits are happening is essential to conducting a best practice statement audit methodology.

I then gave an overview of the Lavante Recovery+ solution, which provides a technology-enabled, continuous recovery audit process.  Because the solution is web-based and delivers results in real time, it provides the root cause analysis and vendor compliance statistics that enable our customers to immediately identify what is driving these outstanding credits.

Below is a good example of how customers have used the analytics provided by Lavante Recovery+ to fix process issues and reduce credits.  This chart,  from a global retail pharmaceutical organization, shows that the organization had an issue in 2010 with returns.  Because the company could identify the cause of these credits using the drill-down access to all credit details, they were able to stem the credit tide and eliminate returns as an issue in 2011.  Without a continuous process, discovery and resolution of the problem would have been delayed resulting  in more return credits that disappear.

To assure that all credits are captured, Lavante Recovery+ performs automated outreach and statement requests to the entire vendor master file (excluding any do not audit vendors) and identifies outstanding credits across the breadth of the vendor population, not the typical top 10 or 20 percent traditional recovery solutions target through a supplier profiling process.  This process ensures that the customer is obtaining a best in class solution to their open credits opportunity.

Many of the companies in attendance at both sessions were aware that opportunities existed in their AP processes.  They realize that changes are coming their way and that being proactive in addressing the problems provides them the greatest prospect of success.  Lavante offers tools and applications that assist in driving the success of our customers by providing them with real-time actionable data and control over the recovery processes.

In the coming months look for more information regarding our recovery and supplier information management solutions. I hope to see you at one of our events or seminars in the near future.  In the meantime, please feel free to provide feedback and comments about how you are handling your statement audit process.

 

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Posted in AP Technology Innovation, IFO, Lavante, Recovery Audit, Vendor Statement Audit | No Comments »

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Notes from the Field – AP Discussion Increases around the need for Effective Supplier Management Processes

Thursday, July 5th, 2012

AP professionals discuss industry trends at Lavante lunch & learnLast month I had the pleasure of visiting Minneapolis to participate in two separate events – a lunch & learn session co-sponsored by Lavante, Basware and the IOFM, followed by the Northern Lights IFO chapter meeting. Here, I’ll focus on discussions that took place at the first event, and I’ll return next week with some thoughts about the second presentation.

The lunch & learn which took place at a great steak house in downtown Minneapolis, The Future of AP: Five Changes Coming to AP, focused on some key challenges facing corporate AP professionals. In attendance were individuals from both small to large organizations and across a range of industries (manufacturing, retail, financial services, education, and healthcare).

As usual, the topic elicited much discussion, with considerable attention given to a challenge facing most of those in attendance–that of keeping their vendor master file accurate. While most attendees agreed that they perform an initial validation of the vendor data while setting up the vendor, there was not as high a consensus that they had an on-going system of checks and balances related to changes to existing vendors and on-boarding of new vendors. It was noted that there break-downs in this process caused many critical issues. For example, the same vendor can, and often does, get setup in the vendor master file multiple times. Or, as a result of mergers and acquisitions, related vendors are not identified. These issues can cause companies to miss purchase volume discounts as well as hinder their ability to take credits for returns. Additionally, it is impossible for the organization to calculate an accurate spend file by vendor, which can negatively impact contract negotiations. And this impacts not only finance, but procurement and in the end, the company’s bottom-line.

As we discussed at the event, there are multiple ways to handle the maintenance of data in the vendor master file, but the best practice which I adhered to during my tenure as Supervisor, AP at Rite Aid, is to:

  • • Start with a thorough cleansing of existing vendors.
  • • Incorporate an ongoing process that ensures new vendors are thoroughly analyzed, compared to the existing vendor master file, with updates made continually.

I found that the most efficient way to accomplish this was to partner with a third party company. Furthermore, that solution should have access to a vendor data network which can be leveraged to assure accuracy of the vendor master file. At the same time the use of a self-service portal application would allow vendors to update information as well as store required documents and validate TIN numbers — in real time. This type of supplier portal will increase collaboration between the buyer and supplier while providing a repeatable, ongoing process that ensures vendor information is accurate, complete and up-to-date.

Lavante has technology-enabled solutions to help deal with this and other related problems – Lavante Recovery+ and Lavante SIM (Supplier Information Management), which offer a way to automate many of these processes through our on-demand, SaaS-based software solutions. With them, users have a way to not only collaborate with suppliers via a web-based tool, but they allow complete visibility in the supplier base to identify related and duplicate vendors (all in real-time!), and to keep vendor information current. Part of this process is collecting and validating critical regulatory items – such as TIN matching and OFAC screening. And, the solutions leverage Lavante’s comprehensive supplier network, which increases vendor data accuracy and speeds up the cleansing process.

Here is one screen shot from the Lavante application showing the supplier compliance dashboard pharmaceutical company, demonstrating the number of suppliers which were updated and possible related suppliers identified through the update process.

For more information about Lavante solutions please visit www.lavante.com

I’ll have more notes on my second presentation in Minneapolis next week. In the meantime, please feel free to contact me with questions or comments.

Jeff Ulanoski, Sr. Consultant Lavante

 

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Posted in AP Industry, IFO, IOFM, Lavante, Recovery Audit, Vendor File Cleansing | No Comments »

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Lavante to Host Ask the AP Experts Sessions at Fusion 2012

Friday, May 11th, 2012

IFO Fusion 2012 is just around the corner.  Lavante is planning a lively, event-filled presence this year, adding a new feature to our booth presence which we call Ask the Experts.  We have invited a host of AP industry experts who will be available at our booth to facilitate a discussion around a variety of AP-related topics.  But, you can also feel free to just drop by to ask another question or bring up a AP hot- topic of your own.

Here is the current line up:

Tuesday, May 15:

  • • 9:45 – 10:15am: Mary Schaeffer, editorial director and publisher of Accounts Payable Now and Tomorrow, will focus on Fraud, as covered in her book Fraud in Accounts Payable: How to Prevent It
  • • 10:30 – 11:00am: Jeff Ulanoski, Sr. Solutions Consultant, Lavante, and former AP Director, Rite Aide, will look at automating the vendor reconciliation process, with a special focus on retail
  • • 12:30 – 1:00pm: Vinay Ambekar, SVP Engineering, Lavante, will be available to answer all of your questions about Security and SaaS.

Wednesday, May 16:

  • • 10:30 – 11:00am: Jeff Wiest, Solutions Consultant, Lavante, and former AP Manager, Tyco Electronics, will focus on the value of credit recovery through the acquisition integration process.

All Meet the Experts sessions will take place at the Lavante Booth at Fusion, #904.  We will be including information gathered at these sessions throughout the day on the HUB, so if you aren’t at Fusion stay tuned for updates!   For more information, please feel free to contact us.

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Posted in AP Industry, IAPP, IFO, Lavante, Recovery Audit, Supplier Information Management | No Comments »

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