Don’t Use a Wrench
to Hammer a Nail

Working in the Payables Community provides the opportunity to witness a wide range of challenges organizations face in their financial operations. AP and AR are distinct functions, but companies often try and use the toolsets interchangeably or perhaps worse, view Accounting generically and invest in only wrenches thinking the same tool can be used by both sides.  To find your wrenches, let’s dig into the numbers >>>

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Spend Management brings Insight to the Payables Community

Understanding the underlying business objectives surrounding payables, and how these fit into organizations’ missions and cultures is key to making improvements. That provides the framework to identify areas to apply data analytics for insight in how to better achieve these objectives. Here’s why Spend Management analytics is crucial to improvements >>>

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The Networked Business

The consumer experience is driving expectations of how our business lives should work and it’s a great model. As consumers, we take for granted that multiple applications created by different publishers work together to make our lives better. Learn about the digital transformation making the Networked Business vision a reality >>>

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User Experience vs Users’ Experience

The user experience is central to an efficient payables process and many applications overlook an important aspect. There are many people involved in the process, each with a unique functional role. Ideally, the user interface should adapt to the person’s role. Here’s how role-based user experiences improve the end-to-end payables process >>>   

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Eliminating Paper from the Payables Workflow

Doing away with paper for the payables workflow? Easier said than done. At the root of the problem? The process spans invoices, sales orders, check requests, statements, and other payment demand documents and often involves multiple organizations.  Moving data instead of paper is a better idea >>>

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Smooth Sailing
in the Payables Community

The Networked Business is mostly about ensuring smooth sailing among the various people
and applications in the Payables Community.  Critical to an efficient journey is the discipline
of workflow engineering.  Understanding Workflow Engineering is a good start >>>

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Cloud Applications
Next Step
In Productivity Evolution

There’s a lot of buzz around the word cloud and cloud applications but the definition depends on who you ask. Let’s break down what exactly is a cloud application, or software as a service (SAAS), and how this is helpful to the Payables Community. First up — let’s all get on the same page when talking Cloud Applications >>>

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Q.  Outgrow Spreadsheets Yet?
A.  Probably.

Spreadsheets are still widely used in business, even though they have outgrown their original benefit – increasing an individual’s productivity. Originally the de facto financial tool for ‘all things numbers’ including expense reporting and invoicing, today, many companies have pushed the envelope and built mini applications with spreadsheets.  Just because it can be done, does not mean it should be done >>>

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Two Sides of the Same Coin

People often approach payables from only one perspective – either:

1      the seller – the Receivable

2      the buyer – the Payable

Each side has unique and special requirements but at the same time, their processes intersect. Appropriately integrating these two practices is the key to strengthening the individual processes and the overall financial workflow. Let’s get a 360 view of the payables coin >>>

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