Getting accounts payable and purchasing in sync.(payment processing)

Financial Executive, May, 2006 by Heffes, Ellen M.; Marshall, Jeffrey

Tehseen Ali, President and CEO of Verian Technologies, offers the following tips for improving the linkage between purchasing and accounts payables (AP) departments:

* Implement a "no PO, no pay" policy. Insisting on purchase orders (POs) may not be immediately practical in every organization, but those that have adopted it have been able to reap tremendous benefits in AP and in purchasing.

* Never let purchase order issuers access your invoice processing screens. Never means absolutely, unequivocally never. The risk of doing so, of course, is that someone in purchasing could approve an invoice and/or initiate payment for a purchase that he or she originated and received.

* Purchasing managers must accept responsibility for purchase orders...

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