Here’s how our HPAS registrations stack up

Posted by Diane Sears


What is a hotcake, anyway?

I was high-fiving my two supervisors because I’d heard the conference services people at our association headquarters talking about how well registrations are selling for one of our upcoming events. Tom Bohn, our president and CEO, wanted to know precisely what I meant. “What is a hotcake, anyway?”

I looked him in the eye and said, “A pancake. A flapjack. Duh.”

“I thought it was more like a biscuit,” he said.

Our editor in chief, Laureen Crowley, looked online and verified that we were both right. It’s so nice to have bosses who dive into the semantics of your statements instead of the math – even though I can take numerical scrutiny. After all, I was a mathlete in high school and at least half of college. I remember my high school Advanced Placement Calculus II teacher literally holding back tears on the last day of her class when I told her I was going to study journalism. She peered into my face, clutched her fists on either side of my head, and said, “Such a waste of a brilliant mind!”

But back to the question at hand. Here at International Accounts Payable Professionals (IAPP) and our sister organizations, International Accounts Receivable Professionals (IARP) and The Association for Work Process Improvement (TAWPI), we’re counting down the days to HPAS, the Healthcare Payments Automation Summit. The third annual event is Sept. 19-21 at the Sheraton Boston Hotel. The focus is on best practices in healthcare payments, accounts payable, and automation.

And even this close to the event, Vice President Ken Brown and Manager Tabatha Ashley in conference services tell me the registrations are selling like hotcakes. To me, that means in little groups, with a lot of butter and syrup in between. It sounds yummy. Can you tell I’m on a diet?

They just added some butter and syrup this week by extending the discount hotel rates until Sept. 3.

In any case, if you want to be there, it’s time to place your order!

Visit http://www.theiapp.org/ or http://www.tawpi.org/ for details about the conference and registration information.

A sweet spot for supplier portals

Posted by Diane Sears


In the old Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups commercial, two people crash into each other and say, “You got peanut butter in my chocolate!” and “You got chocolate in my peanut butter!” With this serendipitous encounter, a new product takes off.

The AP world is seeing its own peanut butter cups moment this summer with the supplier portal, a concept that has steadily gained traction since we wrote about it in AP Matters magazine in August/September 2009. The portal is getting an unexpected boost from this year’s controversy over stiffer 1099 reporting requirements that are set to take effect Jan. 1, 2012.

A provision buried in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act requires organizations that purchase at least $600 in goods or services in a calendar year from a single supplier to submit a 1099 form to the IRS. It’s expected to create more paperwork for accounts payable departments – except those that handle the 1099 process by automation.

Lavante – a San Jose, Calif., company that has built its reputation on recovery auditing – launched a new supplier portal this summer called Lavante SIM, short for supplier information management. I understand clients have been especially interested in what the product can do to help them meet the new 1099 requirements – an added bonus for Lavante, which didn’t know what Congress had in store when it created the supplier portal.

I sat in on a presentation about the product in May, and I recently asked Lavante CEO Joe Flynn what makes it different. Powered by the company’s underlying communication platform, Lavante Connect, the Lavante SIM portal requests and collects supplier data and performs multiple services that AP departments can’t find together in other solutions, he says.

Sure, it’s not as tasty as chocolate and peanut butter. But it does offer vendors and buyers real-time visibility into the procure-to-pay process. Lavante SIM touts these features:

1. It drives compliance from suppliers. It automates the process of gathering information that would cost your company money, time, and resources if it were missing. Perhaps most importantly this year, with the 1099 tussle, Lavante SIM performs an automating taxpayer identification number (TIN) match to ensure quality data. In addition, it automates the process of collecting data and documents by pinging suppliers when their expiration dates are approaching. Lavante SIM also offers an out-of-the-box solution for new supplier set-up and data collection, taking note of details such as the supplier’s status as woman- or minority-owned.

2. It’s affordable. One of the biggest barriers to implementing vendor portals, Flynn says, is the cost of setting them up. Lavante SIM is a software-as-a-service (SaaS), so organizations don’t have to invest their IT time in setting it up in-house. Also, organizations can start with one or two components and add others as they go. Known for its high-yielding audits in the profit recovery space, Lavante offers a unique solution for keeping the cost of its vendor portal product low. Flynn points out, "Our recovery services unlock trapped working capital out of the supplier population that not only provides instant ROI on the project but ultimately fully funds the portal's monthly subscription."

3. It‘s scalable. Charges are based on the application’s ability to get suppliers to comply with data requests. It’s a subscription model based on the number of suppliers per month per tier.

4. It gives suppliers a break. There’s no charge for suppliers to plug into the application. Also, once their information is registered with the first customer, it’s available for any of their customers in the Lavante SIM network. In fact, other potential customers can find them through the network.

At a time when AP departments are nervous about more tax-related work on the horizon, companies will look to new solutions like this one to help them cope.

Let me know about other buzz you’re hearing out there.

Buy a tablet and call me in the morning

Posted by Diane Sears


The end of the world as we know it began on January 27, 2010. What were you doing then? More importantly, what were you reading and how were you reading it?

To most people, when Steve Jobs introduced the Apple iPad that day, it seemed like just another product launch of a tech tool for geeks. But the announcement marked the beginning of a new era in communication, one just as significant as the invention of the printing press. It kicked off a tablet computer revolution that promises to forever change the way we get our information. By the end of next year, the industry is expected to produce 20 different tablet reading devices and sell $12 billion in digital content.

The iPad generated positive buzz last week the Florida Magazine Association conference in Orlando. Editor in Chief Laureen Crowley Algier and I attended to learn new ways to make AP Matters, AR Matters and Today magazines better for you. Several speakers heralded the tablet computer as the way of the future for magazines like ours.

On a tablet, you see the magazine just as it appears in print, with all of the words and artwork intact. You see the cover, the table of contents, the advertisements, everything. Instead of clicking your mouse button to flip from page to page, you use the tip of your finger to pan the pages from side to side or up and down. Advertisements can be multiple pages. Hyperlinks let you click from the content to other sources, such as websites.

So I have a question for you: Are you reading on a tablet … yet?

Consider this: Today, 49 percent of affluent readers are using a digital device to pore through newspapers and magazines. That’s according to Jeanniey Mullen, chief marketing officer for Zinio, which publishes 2,700 digital magazines in 25 countries and 16 currencies.

Zinio’s research paints this picture of today’s iPad readers:

• Established business people
• Content enthusiasts
• Enjoy reading news and lifestyle publications
• 60 percent men, 40 percent women
• 45 percent age 36-55
• 29 percent age 56-plus
• 27 percent age 18-35
• 80 percent college-educated
• 55 percent household income of $75,000 or more

As more companies manufacture the devices, and prices come down, the tablet will become as commonplace as the cell phone, analysts say. Imagine that.

When my high school teachers and college professors predicted the death of the traditional newspaper, it seemed like something so impossible, my fellow students and I knew we wouldn’t see it in our lifetime. Boy, were we wrong. The key is, we’re seeing profound changes in the delivery method – but the public’s appetite for news is bigger than ever. The iPad, and other tablets to come, could be the prescription that will keep newspapers and magazines alive.

Some people have been waiting for the tablet computer for years. When Steve Jobs was making the iPad announcement, publisher Gregg Hano and his team at Popular Science magazine held their breath. And then they jumped. The global research-and-development team had 62 days to perfect its prototype and pitch it to Apple so it could be one of the first publications featured on the new device. Today, it’s one of the examples Apple points to as perfect content for the tablet format.

The magazine, owned by mega-publisher Bonnier Corp., has been one of the first publications to foray into the digital media scene. Popular Science and a handful of others are gaining traction as people get used to the idea of reading a magazine without smelling ink.

Where do you stand? Do you see yourself reading your favorite publications in digital format?

We’ll be surveying readers soon, and periodically, to keep track of how you want to receive your news. I don’t see us going fully digital right away, so you can still look forward to seeing the magazine in your mailbox.

But I do know one thing: The revolution is under way, and we need to be prepared. The boss needs to buy me an iPad, and quick. Can you help me persuade him? Just e-mail him at tom.bohn@TheIAPP.org.

Alert the media: AP Matters magazine wins 3 awards

Posted by Diane Sears

Good things really do come in threes. For the second year in a row, AP Matters magazine brought home three plaques from the Florida Magazine Association Awards. Does it sound like bragging if I tell you we’re saving up for a trophy case?

We won a first place – called a Charlie Award, named after a beloved Florida journalist – in the Best Cover category for the March/April 2010 issue, which featured the article “The Cost Recovery Revolution” by Sean Holton.

I’ll tell you a secret: We caught a little flak for that cover because it has a photo of a fist with part of a dollar sign on it – the part with George Washington’s face. Our members in the UK said it was too U.S.-centric – and we agree. We all learned a lesson in global diversity with this cover, and now we’re careful to show all different types of money throughout the magazine. OK, maybe it was a bit insensitive to pair the word “revolution” and the picture of the general who led it, but come on, it’s been more than 200 years. Can’t we all just get along? I love to tease our UK friends.

We won second place for overall magazine for an association. This is especially exciting because the competition in this area was fierce. Your editorial team at International Accounts Payable Professionals, International Accounts Receivable Professionals, and The Association for Work Process Improvement will keep trying for a first-place win here.

And we received a third-place honor in the Themed Section category for our Special Technology Issue in January/February 2010. I wrote the cover story for that section, “The AP Automation Dilemma: Technology’s Potential Still Largely Untapped,” and several of our writers contributed excellent articles: Mark Brousseau, Karen Kroll, Peter Goldmann, Chrys Olson, and our colleagues at PayStream Advisors. Read the press release here.

The important thing for you to know is we’re consistently looking for ways to improve your association magazines. We win these awards for you. But the trophies? They’re for us.

Thanks for your support, as always.

Diane Sears, senior editor,
and Laureen Crowley, editor in chief

Why Your Job Stinks -- And Your Next One Will Too

Posted by Mark Brousseau

In the United States, we have a seemingly insatiable quest to find satisfaction and meaning at work. Legions of consultants, advisors, and coaches are paid enormous sums of money to be our emotional sherpas along this path of fulfillment and enlightenment.

"What these so called experts don't tell you is that there are three common reasons which can prevent us from enjoying whatever it is we do for work. While understanding these reasons may not bring you any more on-the-job happiness, not understanding them can lead to further career frustrations and unnecessary job transitions," says Dr. Paul R. Damiano of Good Works Consulting.

Here are 3 key reasons Damiano says any job can seem distasteful:

1. "Work" is a dirty four-letter word. The word "work" is commonly defined as the opposite of "play" and therein lies part of the problem. We unconsciously have defined work as something that is necessarily meant to be unenjoyable or that perpetually gets in the way of what we really want to be doing. Damiano says, "If 'work' is merely a means to find happiness and contentment elsewhere, then it pulls us away from what we really want to be doing (i.e., playing), and therefore, we will always feel some level of disdain toward it. And since 'real' work has been historically associated with physical labor and 'sweat of the brow,' many of today's electronic age employees chronically feel like they are never working hard enough or actually 'producing' anything."

2. You are underutilized and underappreciated. "This is always the case (unless you work alone) and the bigger your company is, the truer this will be," Damiano says. You were hired to perform a very specific job or task. You have specialized background, experience, and/or education which uniquely qualifies you to do that job. By definition, the more specialized you are, the less other people know exactly what you do or are capable of doing. You are underutilized because your co-workers can't (and likely never will) understand your specialization or relative contributions. Truth be told, even your boss doesn't know what you do or how you do it; you are the only one who can ever truly understand that.

3. You have no control over anything. "Being part of an organization means we have the opportunity to produce something collectively that I could not produce individually. The unspoken truth upon joining an organization is that you agree to give up some of who you are individually so that the collective can produce something exponentially greater," he says. What you unwittingly give up in this exchange is your individual ability to dictate outcomes and drive results. And again, the bigger the organization, the less likely is your ability to influence outcomes irrespective of your position. In fact, high-level CEOs frequently lament the sense that even they have very limited ability to control or dictate business objectives.

"It is important to remember that paying consultants, job hopping, or cursing your current employer are not going to change any of these conditions. They are inherent in the nature of work and organizational life. The best we can do is to recalibrate our expectations about work itself and the role it plays in the larger context of our lives," Damiano says.

What do you think?

The Lessons of the Mark Hurd Debacle

Posted by Mark Brousseau

Former HP CEO Mark Hurd's resignation after a sexual harassment investigation turned up other alleged misdeeds may hold ethical lessons for all senior executives, managers and employees at every level of organizations.  That's the view of Stephen M. Paskoff, Esq., president and CEO of ELI, Inc. 

"In today's zero-tolerance, 24/7 news environment, where no secret is secret, at least not for long, leaders fall prey to the same penalties that others do in their organizations," says Paskoff. "CEOs may get paid more in severance to leave. However, the more prominent their position, the steeper, faster and public their fall whenever they commit obvious ethical lapses."

In his latest blog post, Paskoff offers his perspective on the Hurd debacle and 7 tips for preventing ethical crises in leadership:

1.  Leaders need to be on heightened guard for the most basic rules of conduct. Most catastrophic executive blunders arise from violations of simple principles and rules. Assuming there's no merit to the sexual harassment claim against Hurd, the key principles in his case here are to tell the truth, don't fabricate records and don't use organizational resources for personal purposes.

2.  Senior executives must follow the rules – no exceptions. No matter how great their business talents, they cannot effectively lead if they violate the organization's key principles and values. In other words, they must act with integrity, tell the truth and guard their words and actions in all professional interactions tied to business.

3.  The more prominent your position, the more vulnerable you are to claims and charges –whether true or false. The misdeeds of powerful leaders create greater public relations interest, scrutiny and claimant leverage than those of others in less visible or powerful positions.

4.  The most critical issue isn't the legal risk, but the harm done to an organization's reputation, brand and credibility, not to mention the personal damage done to the career and reputation of the leader. In this case, the damage is clear: HP's current decline in stock value, the uncertainty created by the scandal and the resulting leadership vacuum.

5.  Leaders need training and refreshers on ethics like everyone else. Leaders can't be too busy to learn the basic lessons on ethics, compliance and values and to recognize that they apply to them, not just to others.

6.  The organization must get the facts and if wrongdoing is found, hold people accountable. We don't know all the facts, but we do know that HP promptly investigated the matter, brought in outside counsel, involved its directions, took decisive action after considering the facts, made a clear statement about their decisions and acted with utmost discretion.

7.  Board leaders must make clear to executive teams that they will be judged on their actions and behavior as stewards of organizational values and brand reputation, not just on their quarterly business results.

"Certainly, this won't be the last time that a CEO ends up as the punch line for a late-night comedian's jokes," says Paskoff. "Whether we are a senior executive, aspire to such a position, serve as an HR leader, or work as a middle manager or line employee, we can clearly see the Hurd situation as a cautionary tale and absorb the lessons there for us all."

Seating Matters

Posted by Mark Brousseau

Creating harmonious teams doesn't solely depend on talented individuals and their output, but also on groups' seating arrangements.

While seating arrangements may seem inconsequential, new research from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University suggests the opposite, noting that where individuals sit in a group can impact how much they think they contributed to the group's output. Because disagreements about contributions often lead to group conflict, the research shows that different seating plans can improve a group's overall functioning. In particular, it suggests that helping group members to see one another can also help them see "eye-to-eye."

The study, titled "Did I Do That? Group Positioning and Asymmetry in Attributional Bias," was conducted by Brian C. Gunia of the Kellogg School of Management and Brice Corgnet of the Universidad de Navarra in Navarra, Spain.

Psychological research has long shown that one motivator of group conflict is "self-serving attributional bias," in which people give themselves more credit, especially for positive outcomes, than is rightfully due. Increasing group effectiveness and minimizing group conflict thus requires mitigating the bias. Gunia and Corgnet argue that group seating positions may foster bias when they prevent particular group members from seeing the contributions of others. Conversely, seating positions that increase the visibility of others can mitigate bias.

As part of the study, three-person groups seated in rows were asked to complete a numbers task. It required them to identify as many numbers as possible that met complex, predetermined conditions – using a shared instruction sheet and answer sheet to encourage collaboration. The participants were then isolated and asked to fill out a questionnaire about their relative contribution to the group, as well as the contributions of the other group members. To measure each group member's perceived contribution to the group, the participants were asked to give a percentage estimate of their individual contribution.

The findings revealed that the person seated in the middle routinely took approximately one-third of the credit for the task – his or her "fair share" of credit on average – while the other two (outside) participants took substantially more credit (about 45 percent). Notably, outside members undervalued contributions made by the other outside member, believing that this person contributed less than one-third, but they appropriately valued the contributions of the middle member. Meanwhile, middle members appropriately valued the contributions of both outside members. These results suggested that an inability to see other group members was, indeed, the driver of people's credit judgments.

"These last findings are consistent with the visual access members had to the people in the other seats. People consistently appreciated their 'neighbor' and underappreciated those far away," said Gunia.

Overall, the results showed that group members seated in the middle showed less bias than outside members because they had better visibility into their peers' contributions. Also, despite differences in attributional bias based on positioning, group members in all positions were equally satisfied with the group experience. More generally, the research findings suggest that positioning groups so that the members can easily see one another (e.g., in a circle) may foster group harmony.

"This research suggests that circular arrangements or open-floor plans could minimize group conflict, something that managers might consider when calling team meetings," said Gunia.

Who let the dogs out? 1099 issue has politicians and pundits snarling

By Diane Sears

Things really blew up this weekend after the U.S. House of Representatives considered a bill Friday that would have repealed a little-known but controversial provision about 1099 reporting in the healthcare reform act passed earlier this year.

Democrats, who proposed the bill, and Republicans, who killed it with a lack of votes, are slugging it out in the print and online media, pointing fingers at one another and casting blame about how the provision got into the bill in the first place. You know, typical partisan politics. Interestingly enough, both sides want to repeal the provision, but they can’t agree on how to do it.

We’ve been tracking the provision since the healthcare act passed in April, mainly because of the effect it could have on accounts payable departments. The media’s attention, however, has largely been focused on the burden it will pose for small businesses, those that don’t have full AP departments and must sometimes rely on their CEOs to handle all tax issues.

The provision – sort of a rider that has little to do with healthcare – requires organizations that purchase at least $600 in goods or services in a calendar year from a vendor to submit a 1099 form to the IRS, which then will track down whether both sides comply with tax requirements. Of course, it’s much, much more complicated than that – we’re talking about tax code here, after all – but the upshot is it’s supposed to raise $19 billion over the next decade to help pay for healthcare reform. That’s why it was in the healthcare bill.

Even the National Taxpayer Advocate, an independent watchdog post within the IRS held by Nina Olson, says the provision “may turn out to be disproportionate as compared with any resulting improvement in tax compliance.” You can read our previous blog item on this here for more background.

Meanwhile, the IRS is looking for public comment on how all of this will affect your business, large or small. You can find out more about that here from the IRS press release, the IRS official notice, and a recent About.com column that gives concrete advice on how to give your feedback. The deadline is Sept. 29.

Looks like there’s no such thing as letting sleeping dogs lie when it comes to this 1099 issue. The hounds are loose, and there’s no getting them back into the pen. We’ll continue to keep you posted.

Network like it’s your job

Posted by Mark Brousseau

Finding a job in today’s job market can be like conquering a new frontier for many job seekers. With the unemployment rate still over 9 percent, the job market has been flooded with tons of competition for job seekers—many of whom are experiencing a culture shock when they send out their résumés. After all, the days of mailing in your résumé and receiving a phone call to set up an interview are over. Today, everything is done online, from sending in your résumé to setting up your first interview—and nine times out of ten, you’re lucky to receive any kind of response, even if it’s an automatic one thanking you for your submission.

It doesn’t take long to discover that in a virtual world it can be very difficult to get noticed by the decision makers whom you need to impress in order to land the job. Maribeth Kuzmeski says there are three easy steps to getting noticed in today’s digitally dominated job market—networking, networking, networking.

“Today you need more than a résumé and a cover letter to get that dream job,” says Kuzmeski, author of The Connectors: How the World’s Most Successful Businesspeople Build Relationships and Win Clients for Life. “Think of yourself as CEO of Me, Myself, and I, Inc. You need to be doing everything you can to get the word out about your brand. That means networking.

“Great networkers are capable of leaving something behind with everyone they encounter—a thought, a memory, or a connection. This is exactly what you need to do if you are in the job market. You need to make strong connections, become a relationship builder. You want to be the first person who comes to mind when someone in your network hears about a great job opening.”

Kuzmeski offers advice for how you can network your way to a great new job:

... Rejuvenate your résumé.
... Build your online résumé using LinkedIn.
... Get face-to-face with potential employers!
... Make an impact by using video.
... Become a contrarian networker.
... Let them do the talking.
... Be prepared to pitch yourself in fifteen seconds.
... Network to the people you know.
... Get involved in organizations that are connected to your profession.
... Volunteer.
... Be a mover and a shaker.
... Always be networking.

“Trying to find a job in such an overcrowded job market can be a daunting task,” says Kuzmeski. “But by placing a renewed focus on networking, you open yourself up to many more opportunities than just the ones on the job boards or those being offered at your local job fair. I truly feel that there are only six degrees of separation between everyone in the world—or at the very least the U.S. Every time you make a new connection you get that much closer to a great new opportunity.”

What do you think?

Is it better to give or to receive? AP, AR, and shared services

Posted by Diane Sears

If you spend any time, as I do, speaking with both accounts payable and accounts receivable professionals, it’s hard to determine which group has the more enjoyable position. Is it the people who dole out the money or the people who collect it?

Both sides defend their jobs as the most engaging and most important. I’ve met people on each side of the wall who think their department is the pulse of the organization. And they’re right – both of them. We know any company couldn’t function without making good on its debts, and it sure couldn’t last long without receiving payments.

So why do departments like AP, AR and other financial functions – purchasing, for instance – sometimes seem to be at cross-purposes? They challenge and cast blame on each other, and they speak about “those people” as if they’re in competition.

That’s why it fascinated me when I received an e-mail recently from a company that’s exploring whether to go to a shared services model that would operate under the direction of procurement. The writer said this idea seemed kind of radical but intriguing.

Now, before you toss out the idea, if you haven’t tried it already, think about how this kind of department works.

In a shared services operation, both AP and AR function as a team, along with all the other functions that fall under the departmental umbrella. When one section looks good, all of them look good. When one falters, the others step up to help. Everyone is pulling for the same side – that of the overall good of the organization.

One of our Editorial Advisory Committee members, Terry Justice, is executive director of procurement at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where he oversees just this kind of operation. Here’s what he wrote about it in a Management Diaries article that will be published in the September-October issues of AP Matters, AR Matters, and Today magazines:

Where I work, at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, the purchasing and AP staffs were at odds for years over invoice discrepancies. It was always the other department’s fault. To correct this behavior, we rolled the purchasing, contracting, AP, and supplier diversity departments under a new structure titled “procurement.” Each department operates independently, but they all report to the executive director of procurement, who is able to sort through any issue. I have to say this is one of the best things we have ever done for our operations.

One of the key points to consider, of course, is how you handle separation of duties. How do you build in controls so one super-department overseeing all finance functions doesn’t leave the organization exposed to potential misappropriation or fraud? Terry has agreed to share his perspective with us in upcoming articles.

So what’s the answer to the question? Is it better to give or to receive? I think it’s a tie.

We’d love to hear your thoughts. What’s your experience with a shared services structure?