Best practices for the accounts payable function are critical for those organizations concerned about their profitability. For poor practices result in excess cost, duplicate payments, increased processing expenses, fraud, and frayed vendor relationships. And, of course, there is the growing issue of regulatory compliance as the Feds and states look for their fair share. This course presents information the professional can use to identify best practice problems as well as regulatory concerns. Industry expert Mary S. Schaeffer explains the issues related to the accounts payable function to auditors, controllers, and managers. She then reveals the best practices for a myriad of these issues as well as identifying almost best practices for those cases where it is not possible to use the best practices and the worst practices that are likely to cause trouble.

Learning Objectives

• Establish strong master vendor file practices
• Incorporate appropriate segregation of duties into master vendor file process
• Create effective invoice receipt practices
• Construct best practice invoice handling routines
• Define effective practices when short-paying invoices
• Establish a process for managing discrepant invoices
• Design a suitable process for storing check stock
• Understand the benefit of paying electronically
• Develop a process to weed out fraudulent change of bank account requests
• Develop strong controls in a p-card program
• Identify ways to pay small dollar invoices without issuing a check
• Identify lost funds through an effective supplier statement review policy
• Integrate the concept of segregation of duties across the payment process
• Uncover practices that will eliminate weak control points
• Understand the importance of having a separate computer for online banking
• Integrate check fraud prevention practices into the accounts payable process
• Create a strong travel and entertainment policy that is compliant with IRS guidelines for the entire organization
• Develop policies for handling travel issues created when employees leave
• Understand what is required for information reporting to the IRS for independent contractors
• Integrate the use of IRS TIN Matching into the new vendor setup function
• Create a policy that will enable the organization to report and remit unclaimed property in all instances
• Incorporate regular OFAC checking into the payment process to ensure payments are not made to terrorists
• Identify potential situations where a payment may be a bribe to a foreign official in conflict with FCPA regulations
• Understand how payment timing can both help and hurt the organization
• Create procedures to ensure all early payment discounts are earned