Report: Improving the Procure-to-Pay Process - A Transformational Approach

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A Special Report from
The Accounts Payable Network
Improving the
Procure-to-Pay Process:
A Transformational Approach

Sponsored By:

$95 USD

Improving the
Procure-to-Pay Process:
A Transformational Approach

A Special Report from

By
David Hay
Senior Consultant with The Accounts Payable Network
Former Director, Shared Services, Hewlett-Packard Company

Sponsored By:

2100 RiverEdge Parkway, Suite 1010 • Atlanta, GA 30328
770-984-1184 • FAX: 770-984-1174
www.TheAccountsPayableNetwork.com

© 2012 Financial Operations Networks LLC

Published by Financial Operations Networks LLC, Atlanta, Georgia.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be used or reproduced in any manner or stored
in any form whatsoever without written permission of the publisher. For information, contact
Financial Operations Networks, 2100 RiverEdge Parkway, Suite 1010, Atlanta, GA 30328,
770-984-1184, www.ﬁnopsnet.com.

Table of Contents

The Accounts Payable Network Advisory Board ............................ 4

Introduction............................................................................ 5

Outsourcing ............................................................................ 7

Achieving Effective Procure-to-Pay Processing ........................... 10

Preparation for Outsourcing .................................................... 14

Summary ............................................................................. 21

Appendix — BPO Services — Case Study .................................. 23

About The Accounts Payable Network ....................................... 25

About David Hay ................................................................... 26

About Datamatics .................................................................. 27

© 2012 Financial Operations Networks LLC 3

Advisory Board

Steve Adams, CPA
Director of Global Shared Services Implementations, McKinsey & Co.

Vivian Baker, APM
Accounts Payable Director, Financial Shared Services, The Coca-Cola Company

Judy Bicking, APM
Former Global Director, Accounts Payable European Project, Johnson & Johnson
AP Best Practice Consultant and Managing Owner of Island Decor & More / Ship to Shore Home Decor

Debbie Vander Bogart
Senior Director, Finance General Manager, Shared Service Center, Levi Strauss & Company

Larry Brang, CPA, APM
Director, Commercial Services - Americas, Merck & Company, Inc.

Tom Brewer, CPA
Vice President, Shared Services, Michaels Stores Inc.

Dennis R. Cooper, MBA, APM
Vice President, Operations Director, Accounts Payable, PNC Bank

Lynda Foertschbeck
Executive V.P., IRSCompliance, Inc.

David W. Hay
Consultant, Former Director, Shared Services, Hewlett-Packard Company

Frederick C. Litow, CTP, APM
Head of Financial Administration, ING

Thomas F. Nichols
President, Process Management Improvement, Inc. and former Director of Financial
Operations for AT&T’s Corporate Accounts Payable and Payroll Management

Judi Thallas, APM
SAP Finance Change Management Leader, Finance Manager, ConAgra Foods

Susan Tinkler-Muller
Vice President, Accounting Services, Viacom Media Networks


Introduction

Into the second decade of the twenty-first century, a precedent has been set by leading
organizations: efficient and value-adding financial operations are an important aspect
of competitive and successful businesses. Through use of metrics, “best practices” and
automation, financial operations processes like procure-to-pay can be executed more
efficiently at lower cost, achieving operational objectives of on-time payments, lower
cost, positive vendor relations and relatively secure supply. Best practice procure-to-pay
operations also benefit organizations through early-payment discount capture, and vis-
ibility that facilitates better cash management and enables spend analysis, which feeds
back to better contracts and pricing.

Some organizations have improved processes and implemented automation in-house,
while some have mixed in-house efforts with outsourcing of particular discrete func-
tions. Still others have elected to outsource most or all functions in either accounts pay-
able or procure-to-pay operations.

This often heralded third approach, outsourcing, has not necessarily incorporated best
practices or state-of-the-art automation, however. Rather, it has often simply shifted
paper-based and manual processes to regions where, due to cheaper labor, the cost was
reduced. Business process outsourcers promised to take over processing at lower cost,
essentially offering to “do your mess for less.”

The biggest problem with this approach is that it has relied on offshoring the work
for labor cost arbitrage, but labor costs do not remain static. The advantage gradually
disappears in one region, shifting to another, until pressures on wages there increase
as well. Furthermore, management of offshored outsource operations has proven to be
no easy task. Simple issues like differences in time zones, language, culture and man-
ager travel prove larger challenges than initially envisioned. At the same time, process
improvement has not been a primary goal, and often is addressed only incidentally and
at additional expense.


However, just as technology continues to evolve and improve, some business process
outsourcing (BPO) service providers have improved the BPO model. They offer what is
termed “transformational” outsourcing, which adds value to BPO through process anal-
ysis and improvement, process automation via SaaS in the cloud, and strong customer
service that includes day-to-day operational support. This report examines options for
procure-to-pay operations with a focus on what transformational outsource service
providers offer versus traditional outsource serve providers for a successful venture that
meets an organization’s procure-to-pay operations objectives.


Outsourcing

In the early 1990s a major U.S. manufacturer had a strategy that was called simply “95
by 95.” Their goal was to reach a point by 1995 where 95 percent of their manufactur-
ing was outsourced. They had made the decision that they would focus on the areas that
they felt gave them an advantage over their competition, such as the software than runs
their products and the after-sale service they supply.

For an ever-increasing group of companies outsourcing has become a key component
of business strategy. Initially only non-core processes, such as printing or cafeterias,
were outsourced. As the benefits of outsourcing became more apparent, outsourcing
expanded to include core processes, such as manufacturing and distribution, until today
companies like Apple Computer have become virtual manufacturers, outsourcing all of
their manufacturing to allow them to focus on their key-value activities such as design
and software development.

One of the last areas to be outsourced was finance and accounting (F&A). There were
a number of reasons for this including political and security concerns. However, this
changed as cost savings and benefits became apparent. According to a recent study
by Alsbridge, an outsourcing advisory company, F&A outsourcing costs decreased
between six and eight percent per year in 2010 and 2011 (CFO Magazine 2011). One
outcome of lower costs is that it is now possible for smaller companies to consider out-
sourcing as an option. Although penetration rates are lower with smaller companies (see
figure 1 below) the potential market is large.


Figure 1

Companies outsource for a number of reasons, cost cutting being the one most often
given. Some outsource to focus on their core business while others do it to become
more competitive or to gain access to new technology. Regardless of the reasons, it
is important for any company contemplating outsourcing to focus on the overall strat-
egy. In addition, C-suite support is critical if the project is to succeed. Upper manage-
ment must be involved in making sure the strategy is fully understood and all stake-
holders are involved, both within the company and within the outsourcing provider’s
organization.

The traditional approach to outsourcing is to put the project out to bid, accept the low-
est offer, then transfer the function virtually “as is” to the outsource provider. This may
work well in some areas, such as certain manufacturing, but not well in others. One area
where this approach does not work well is in ﬁnancial operations. Often the approach
is what has been termed “lift and shift,” where what is often a bad process is simply
moved as is to an offshore outsourcer in order to beneﬁt from lower wage rates. All too
often this approach fails in the long run.


A better approach is to outsource to a “transformational” outsourcer. In this model the
outsourcer becomes a strategic partner to help the company transform a process from an
inefﬁcient and costly manual operation to one that utilizes process improvements and
technology to develop a low-cost, highly efﬁcient system.


Achieving Effective Procure-to-Pay Processing

Why do some companies achieve better results than others? Take a step back to
look at an example of how some companies deliver very low cost, efficient payables
processing.

Studies show that the best performers obtain substantially lower costs than the bulk
of the market. One key reason for this disparity is due to automation. The two charts
below show the invoice processing costs, in figure 2, and the penetration of automation,
in figure 3.

Figure 2

The above-displayed costs are median figures. The very best companies achieve a cost
below $1.25 for a complete set of documents, PO through payment. They achieve this
through automation of the complete process. A transformational BPO provider reports
cycle times of one day and a cost of $1 per invoice.


Figure 3

Automation tools such as ERPs and EDI have been on the market for over 30 years. In
the last several years these have been joined by other tools, including web invoicing, e-
invoicing, and effective data capture technologies that convert paper and PDF invoices
to electronic invoice data ﬁles. It is now possible to capture invoices in virtually any
format and integrate the data into your own accounting or ERP system.

Despite this, as can be seen from ﬁgure 3, the number of companies with a high level of
automation remains low. So how can the “laggards” catch up with the best in class?

There are a few basic options available to help companies close the performance gap.

In-House & Licensed Solutions
One way to meet the goal of becoming “best in class” is the do-it-yourself model. In
this model the company’s goal is to fully automate, from the PO issuance through elec-
tronic payment. Full in-house programming that addresses all procure-to-pay processes
is rarely used in F&A due to the required investment of time and money.


In the more common licensed software model companies might utilize a combination of
internal and external resources, though increasingly they implement licensed software.
Though most often easier and more affordable than in-house-developed programs, there
is a cost to third-party licensed software.

Hybrid – Selective Outsourcing
Another approach is a hybrid of licensed software implemented in-house, such as
an ERP and workﬂow system, with systems such as EDI or portals that require outside
providers such as the VANs in the case of EDI, or use of banks for payment/check
issuance.

Often the staff and ERP remain in-house, while the transactional software and systems
are outsourced to providers such as VANs or software as a service (SaaS) providers.
In some cases the entire systems including the ERP are outsourced to SaaS or cloud
providers.

One reason why only 15 percent of companies have reached a high level of automation
is that only they have the time, money and resources to build or acquire and maintain
the systems as required by these options to make it work.

Outsourcing – Traditional vs. Transformational
Traditional outsourcing usually has the operation moved to the outsourcer “as is.” In
this model cost reductions are centered on utilizing lower-cost labor in countries such
as India and the Philippines. In this model there has been little emphasis on transforma-
tion. The result is that there is little improvement in costs over the life of the contract.

The main drawback to this approach is the rising cost of offshore labor. Even in manu-
facturing rising costs are leading some companies to repatriate jobs to the U.S.


A better approach is to utilize the services of a “transformational outsourcer.” In this
model the outsourcer combines a number of key elements:
• The consulting staff helps redesign and implement a better process, whether
it is a complete procure-to-pay system, or just core AP processing. The key
here is up-front consulting and process reengineering with a plan of continuous
improvement, including automation, from the start of the contract.
• The technology to handle all transaction types from PO or RFQ through
e-payments
• The right mix of onshore and offshore facilities to fully meet the needs of
the client
• The staff needed to implement and run the systems and handle a high level
of client support
• Multiple centers, both on- and offshore to handle data capture and support
and for redundancy, backed by a disaster recovery plan that includes people,
as well as systems
• Provide higher regulatory and audit compliance for SE16 and SOX perspectives
for not only the cloud infrastructure, but also for the entire P2P process and the
underlying technology solution. The provider takes the responsibility to keep
the process, technology solution and cloud infrastructure compliant at all the
times, and is audited by independent accounting ﬁrms for accountability


Preparation for Outsourcing

Before deciding on the particular approach, it is important to understand the existing
system. Otherwise it would be like a traveler trying to pick a route to his goal on a map
when he has no clue as to what his current position is.

Understand the existing operation. Fully understand the costs, services and quality of
the existing operation to be able to fully compare with the offerings of potential out-
source providers. One of the biggest reasons projects fail is because costs were under-
estimated. Keep in mind that a good part of the existing cost may be in cost centers not
under the control of AP; these could include mail room, scanning, or the time spent by
requestors/buyers and their administrators in handling invoices, etc.

Put a team in place with the strategic view and authority to manage the process.
This is a multi-part role. Initially the team may be tasked with managing the RFQ
process, then with the selection of the outsource provider. Once a provider has been
selected the team shifts focus to managing the transition. One key element of transition
often overlooked is the people issue.

Don’t forget the other stakeholders, both internal departments such as treasury and
sourcing, and external partners such as the vendors, auditors, and banks.

Any change of this magnitude will affect the employees. Some will remain in their
current positions, some will be reassigned, and others may be let go. Keep in mind that
some employees may be required for the transition period and then let go. A plan should
be in place to manage this process to make sure the transition takes place smoothly. One
way companies have handled this situation is to give bonuses at the end of the transition
phase for those who are retained only for this process.

Don’t underestimate the need for ongoing management. Many companies underesti-
mate this requirement. Ultimately the company is still responsible for the functions car-


ried out by the outsourcer, for example SOX and OFAC requirements must still be met.
The transition phase is the perfect time to put into place changes to make the process
more efficient, for example the introduction of electronic invoicing or more robust
workflow rules.

Selecting an Outsource Supplier

If the decision is to outsource the process, there are important considerations. Outsourc-
ing is one area where the price should be lower on the list of critical items in the pro-
posal. The key area is how the outsourcer is going to help you meet your goals. Avoid a
potential vendor who offers “lift and shift,” only offering lower-cost employees. A few
years ago a major European company did a study of Indian labor rates for AP employ-
ees and forecast that within 8 years Indian costs would equal U.S. costs.

A transformational BPO vendor should be able to provide:
• Upfront consulting to help design and reengineer operations prior to moving
them
• A sound plan for the transformation that includes process and technology
improvements that can be incorporated in the transfer
• Multiple services, not just AP or AR processing. These services could include
catalog management, PO handling, preparation of tax documents such as
1099s, payments both by check or electronically, and ongoing process-improve-
ment consulting.
— An added benefit would be to find an outsourcer that can and will assist with
tasks such as vendor master clean up and spend analysis.
• The capacity to meet your current and future needs whether they are purely
domestic or global in scope
— Multi-language support may be required
• End-to-end delivery responsibility
• System integration with in-house systems such as the ERP or receiving systems
that require little or no IT involvement at the client sites
• The capacity to develop and implement an automation strategy, as required


• The ability to meet all accounting standards, and laws such as SOX, OFAC
and FCPA; in addition the outsourcer should assist in the preparation for new
legislation on the horizon such as FATCA (due to become effective January 1,
2014).
• Compliance responsibility is shared by the service provider, which ensures com-
pliance at all levels—process, technology solution and cloud infrastructure—
through regular audits onsite conducted by independent accounting firms.
• In-country as well as offshore facilities – many finance managers are wor-
ried about offshoring financial operations. The reasons are mainly for political,
security, and control reasons. A CFO Magazine study of 150 finance executives
showed only one- third outsource any finance work, and of those, 83 percent
keep it onshore. One way to alleviate these concerns is to opt for an outsourcer
that offers both onshore and offshore processing, preferably through multiple
centers.
• A good measurement process – measurement is essential to management; the
outsource provider must share metrics with the client company as well as use
them to manage its processes.
• Full multi-site backup and recovery capabilities
• Activity-based costing and transaction-based pricing, as opposed to a model
that charges by the headcount. The most efficient, low-cost AP operations are
those that use transaction pricing. Internally, transaction pricing can be used as
a method of changing behavior within a company’s business units. For example,
one major corporation charges back depending on the makeup of the transaction
and technology used. The lowest charge ($1.50) was for complete transaction
sets, PO to payment, that are completely electronic—in this case a combination
of EDI and Web. The most expensive ($25.00) was for non-PO-based transac-
tions with paper invoices and payment by wire.

Automation Technology
Key to successful outsourcing is having a partner that utilizes the most up-to-date tools
to allow for continuous improvement to take place. These tools include:


• Scanning – In-country scanning. Paper will be with us for the foreseeable future
and scanning is critical to get the invoice information into the AP system as
quickly and accurately as possible. Once scanned, the document is available
for processing onshore or offshore as needed. There are several key reasons to
scan in-country; first threre is time and cost. It can take weeks for mail to cross
some borders and even a delay of a few days for mail to cross borders can make
discount capture impossible. In addition suppliers may not take kindly to the
requirement that they separate cross-border mailings to add the additional post-
age. Another reason is political—in some countries it is illegal to send original
invoices out of the country for processing; for other countries, the invoices have
to be returned to the home country for storage and access by tax authorities.
• OCR – Once scanned, the document can be “read” by an OCR system, auto-
matically capturing the data and transferring it immediately into the AP system
for workflow or matching.
• Workflow – Once received by AP, the invoice has to be routed for approval, GL
and CC codes added, and then the invoice is matched with the vendor file and
any POs or receiving documents or contracts that may exist. Once this step has
been completed, the invoice can be sent to the payment file for payment on the
due date.

The most common method used to distribute invoice information approval is
through e-mail, which is sent to the buyer or requester alerting them that an
invoice has been received and requesting action. The e-mail might contain a link
directly to the relevant invoice, or the invoice could be attached as a file.

The workflow should be flexible enough to allow for an approval hierarchy, for
example if the invoice has not been acted on within a set number of days, an
e-mail can be sent to the approver’s manager for approval, or assumed approval
could be used. (In assumed approval, if the approval has not been received
within the days allowed, the invoice will be “assumed” to be approved and acted
on accordingly. This method is often used where speed of approval is impor-
tant, such as with discountable invoices and those that carry repercussions such
as utility bills.)


Workflow can also be utilized for matching with PO and/or receiving to elimi-
nate manual intervention.
• Integration – the provider’s systems must be capable of integration with
your ERP or accounting system.
• E-Invoicing – The provider should be able to receive and handle multiple
electronic invoice formats, including:
— EDI (ANSI X12 for North America and Australia and UN/EDIFACT
for Europe and the rest of the world)
— Web-based Invoices – Similar to EDI, but utilizing XML instead of
the standard EDI languages
— File Based – Usually EXCEL or similar type files
— E-Mail Based – This is probably the fastest growing method of distributing
invoices, particularly with small- and medium-sized businesses. The invoice
is usually created as a PDF and sent as an attached file. Many small account-
ing systems, such as QuickBooks, automatically generate both the invoice
and the e-mail for immediate distribution.
— Portal Based – A portal can be multi-functional. It can be used to distribute
POs, which can be “flipped” or the data extracted from the PO to create an
invoice. Invoices can be uploaded or created, and finally, invoice status and
payment information can be made available to the vendors.

The above mentioned technologies can all be delivered as a service from the outsourcer
as SaaS, or “the cloud.” Today, forward-looking outsource providers as well as many
financial software providers from Intuit to Oracle offer their applications in the cloud.
This has a number of advantages, but a key advantage is the low level of IT support
required of the client company. In most organizations, financial operations process
improvements are very low on the information technology (IT) department’s priority
list. This can be circumvented through transformational BPO and implementation of
procure-to-pay or accounts payable SaaS via the cloud.

Another important consideration in any technology that relies on vendor cooperation or
participation is the on-boarding process—gaining the acceptance of and providing the


necessary support for participation of the vendors. Transformational BPOs provide the
staff and services to handle this for clients.
Figure 4

One organization that became a client of transformational BPO describes their
experience this way: “When we ﬁrst looked at the P2P project scope, we were only
looking for cheaper alternative that can scale with our growth. The focus to improve
and automate was the next phase. But a transformational outsourcer showed us that
you can design the best practices upfront with a technology-led cloud solution by
implementing its transformational way of outsourcing. What you need is partner who
can question your goals and approach because they know their stuff, have deep domain


expertise and can back it up with the best technology solution to signiﬁcantly bring
value upfront and help with activities that goes way beyond what you call traditional
outsourcing.”


Summary

Traditionally companies had two main paths to cost reduction in P2P operations, one
was through in-house reengineering and automation, and the second was through out-
sourcing existing processes. Today there is a third option: the transformational out-
sourcer. This option combines a number of key disciplines into a single offering:
• Pre-contract consulting to analyze and improve processes before outsourcing
• Reengineering: the redesign of the process to eliminate unnecessary steps and
employ best practices into a streamlined operation
• Process automation, including SaaS
• Transaction-driven pricing as opposed to head-count-driven pricing
• Qualified staff to handle tasks such as discrepancy resolution
• Value-added customer support services, such vendor onboarding and spend
analysis
• The ability to implement strategic goals, to transform a financial operations
team from being processors to a department capable handling the complete
order-to-payment cycle
• Continuous improvement in process and cost during the complete contract
cycle.

Further, no longer is F&A outsourcing an option only for large global companies. The
market is growing, with over 800 contracts signed in last year; furthermore the costs are
coming down. The result is that smaller companies can now receive benefits that were
once only available to the largest companies. “The price point doesn’t change tremen-
dously between a very small contract with only 10 people and a very large one with
1,000 people,” according to Alsbridge CEO Ben Trowbridge.

Outsourcing helps a business focus on its core competency, cut costs and allows a
company to gain a competitive advantage over its competition. Effective F&A out-
sourcing is not about “lift and shift” but about a partnership that is focused on long-


term goals, utilizing all the available tools including technology, consulting and servic-
es. Transformational outsourcing provides this complete approach, making P2P a center
for continuous improvement.


Appendix — BPO Services — Case Study

Industry Automated Accounts Payable
Process
Hospitality

Client • Absence of partnering mindset with
current vendor, required to meet client’s
The client is one of the largest operators
Overview of limited-service hotels in the United
ongoing needs
• Unable to meet defined SLAs and deliver
States with over 80,000 rooms. The orga- all contracted services
Organizations globally are facing mul- nization Operates and provides franchise • Lack of domain expertise and experience
tiple challenges to track invoices for services to more than 800 hotels in the of the current vendor, which required
payment procedures. The common the client’s Accounts Payable team to fill
U.S., Canada and Mexico. Headquartered
the gaps
problems faced by the accounts pay- in Dallas, it has 9,000 employees nation-
able departments are lost invoices, a wide. Datamatics’ Solution
tedious payment authorization process • Customizable and configured as per
and the problem of dealing with paper Business need client business rules to achieve client
and electronic invoices. objectives
• Timely and efficient end-to-end invoice
• Real time visibility and comprehensive
processing
reporting tools ensure a more efficient
• Deploy a user friendly solution with
and accountable AP process
enhanced process offerings
• Built-in automated invoice coding
• Highly responsive customer service and
procedures in the solution to reduce the
support
burden of the approvers
• Obtain cost effective AP outsource
• Quality vendor management services (in-
services
clusive of W-9 collection, vendor inquiry,
exceptional handling, helpdesk)
Challenge • Measurable Service Level Agreements in
• Highly manual, paper intensive and support of timely, efficient processing of
people-dependent AP process resulting accounts payable services
in higher cost of operations • Best of class workflow solution with elec-
• Lack of real-time visibility and robust tronic invoicing & PeopleSoft integration
management reporting capabilities

• Manual vendor maintenance and cus- • Ensure business continuity during transi-
tomer support leading to higher costs tion and stabilization
and lengthy process cycle • Provided solution and services which are
• Inefficient and less transparent accounts in sync with client’s organizational goals
payable process which is not in sync and Go Green initiative
with client’s organizational goals and Go
Green initiative


Approach Benefits
Datamatics
• Invoice processing cycle reduced from 4
Advantage
• A well-defined transition methodology
to ensure complete knowledge sharing days to 2 days
• Deployed next generation solutions • Reduction of exceptions & supplier inqui-
• Global Information Technology (IT) [e-Payables Manager and IQ - intelligent ries by 50%
& Knowledge Process Outsoucing data capture] to automate the end to • Reduction in reclassification GL entries
(KPO) organization end AP Process by 97% due to automated invoice coding
• Delivers smart, next-generation • Adopted phase-wise implementation process
business solutions plan to be in sync with client roadmap • Reduced operational costs

• Trusted partner to several Fortune • Formed a core team with domain and • Shorten approval cycles and improve
500 companies solution experts productivity
• Continuous-feedback sessions with client • Enhance visibility & reporting for approvers
• Capabilities built around technol-
and general managers
ogy, domain expertise & knowledge
of business processes • Dynamic dashboards, to both accounts
payable and approvers, to have visibility
• Featured amongst the Global Ser-
into approvals, aging, payments, rejected
vices 100 List in 2010 & 2011
invoices and more
• Decades of global experience hav- • Suppliers are enabled to use automated
ing executed projects across 60 supplier enablement tools and connectivity
countries options
• Alliances with global technology • Higher volume management with reduced
leaders such as Microsoft, IBM & effort
EMC2 Process
• Certified for SEI CMMI Level 3 V1.3,
ISO 27001:2005 ISO 9001:2008
• SSAE 16 compliant processes
• Global presence: U.S., UK, Germa-
ny, Switzerland, Bosnia, Australia,
Singapore & India

Result
A complete spectrum of accounts payable services satisfying all key result areas,
organizational goals and initiatives.


About The Accounts Payable Network

The Accounts Payable Network (TAPN) is the complete resource for accounts payable,
helping more than 50,000 accounting and finance executives at organizations
worldwide meet their commitments to accounts payable business-process performance.

TAPN provides—in one easy-to-access, cost-effective, online location—insights,
analysis, guidance, advice and best practices for AP strategies, technologies, controls,
compliance, people and processes. Members have unrestricted access to critical
information guaranteed to help them make smart accounts payable business decisions.

Focus areas include all AP functions, AP metrics and benchmarking; tax and regulatory
compliance; proven solutions to real-world problems; AP automation; case studies;
member Q&A networking forums and more than 250 downloadable, customizable AP
policies, flowcharts, templates and internal-control checklists.

TAPN’s highly popular AP tools help compare technologies and AP solution providers,
find new ways to streamline operations and enhance controls, and take advantage
of extensive educational opportunities. Additional networking opportunities allow
members to share problems and solutions with peers “in the trenches” through the
public and private forums and discussion groups.

The Accounts Payable Network is completely independent and is not owned by or
affiliated with any industry supplier, nor does it endorse any suppliers. For further
information, please contact The Accounts Payable Network, 2100 RiverEdge Parkway,
Suite 1010, Atlanta, GA 30328, 770-984-1184, www.TheAccountsPayableNetwork.com.


About David Hay

David has recently retired from a 40-year career spanning International Banking,
Finance and Computer Services and Outsourcing. Most recently, David served as the
Director of Shared Services Business Services Outsourcing, for Hewlett-Packard. He
was formerly marketing manager for e-payments and financial services for Global
eXchange Services (GXS), where he was responsible for the strategic direction and
development of GXS’s online invoicing and payment solutions for B2B e-commerce
on a worldwide basis and has served on GE Capital’s initiative to create a GE Center of
Excellence for e-billing.

David has worked with GE Capital, GE Medical Systems and GE Industrial Systems.
As a member of key focus groups and task forces, he helped the GE businesses with
their EDI and e-commerce initiatives. In his 24 years of GE experience, he has held
several key management positions in financial services, e-commerce and sales &
marketing. A former international banker, David has over 35 years of experience in the
financial and e-commerce industries.

David now provides consulting services in payables improvement and procure-to-pay
process; he works closely with The Accounts Payable Network as a part of TAPN’s
advisory board; he is a regular speaker at accounts payable and payment conferences;
and he is CFO of Atlantis Divers in Richmond, Virginia. (Dave is an accomplished
diver, and his CEO son a top-rated dive instructor.)


About Datamatics

Datamatics is an established IT Solutions and BPO
Services organization offering a wide range of solutions helping deliver superior
business value through its Transformation approach to outsourcing. We conceptualize
and develop industry—specific technology solutions that are tailored to our customers’
requirements. We are deeply committed to our philosophy “Next-Generation
Solutions” and our track record bears testimony to this.

The Datamatics Group was established in 1975 and has over 30 years of experience
in adding value to leading corporations worldwide. Our clients include 6 of the
top 10 Fortune 500 corporations. We have delivered over 1,500 projects across 58
countries and continue to be strategic partners to some of our key clients. Anchored
by a strong workforce of over 4,500 employees worldwide and a network of 1,500
knowledge associates, we have created an organization that strives for excellence. Our
achievements have been endorsed by several awards from leading institutions around
the world.

Datamatics has worked with various organizations to lead the transformation in the
Finance and Accounting functions by bring in its deep domain expertise, process
rigor and world class cloud solutions specifically designed Finance and accounting
processes including Procure to Pay. Datamatics has been instrumental in removing the
inefficiencies, bringing in best in class practices, improving the sourcing, enhancing
supplier collaboration, invoice processing and engaging stakeholders throughout the
organizations that we have partnered with. Our success mantra has been—“Better,
Faster, Cheaper!” and we have stood by it for last 30+ years.


Report: Improving the Procure-to-Pay Process - A Transformational Approach

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Report: Improving the Procure-to-Pay Process - A Transformational Approach