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Accounts Payable Best Practices
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investment of money or time, as noted in the chart in the next section, so the person
doing the improving should verify that resources are available before embarking on
an implementation.
IMPLEMENTATION ISSUES FOR ACCOUNTS PAYABLE
BEST PRACTICES

This section notes a number of issues related to the implementation of each best
practice. The reader should peruse Exhibit 3.1 to ensure that the effort required to
install a best practice is in agreement with the available constraints. For example,
automating expense reporting is listed as requiring a long implementation period
and being moderately expensive (all because of the programming required). If the
reader has a large staff of traveling employees who constantly submit expense
reports, this may be a viable option, despite the projected implementation barriers.
However, if only a few expense reports are submitted, then perhaps this is a best
practice that should be passed over in favor of more practical opportunities.
Exhibit 3.1 lists all of the best practices in this chapter. Next to the best
practices are ratings for estimates of the cost to completely install each best
practice. The last column shows the duration of implementation, which can be
an issue for anyone looking for quick results. Any large programming projects
are assumed to have long implementation durations.
One should be careful to select only ‘‘quick hits” from Exhibit 3.1. Though
these best practices are certainly worth the effort of installing, it is important to
remember that some of the most difficult items on the list can have the largest
payback. Accordingly, it is best to review the list in detail and assemble a set of
best practices that provide for a combination of quick and easy victories, while
also allowing for solid, long-term improvements that will impact the accounts
payable function’s levels of efficiency and effectiveness.

3–1 PAY BASED ON RECEIVING
APPROVAL ONLY

The accounts payable process is one of the most convoluted of all the processes
that a company can adopt, irrespective of the department. First, it requires the
collection of information from multiple departments—purchase orders from the
purchasing department, invoices from suppliers, and receiving documents from
the receiving department. The process then involves matching these documents,
which almost always contain exceptions, and then tracking down someone either
to approve exceptions or at least to sign the checks, which must then be mailed to
suppliers. The key to success in this area is to thoroughly reengineer the entire
process by eliminating the paperwork, the multiple sources of information, and