The largest service supplier submits many invoices through A/P and to the team on a monthly basis.
After investigating several late invoices that remained unpaid, an additional 50 outstanding invoices were added and severely late and unpaid.
With the team Supervisor on vacation, I partnered with one Engagement Manager to address the issue. I assisted him to track down, analyze and act upon all the missing invoices and communicated the various issues to the A/P team and the supplier. During the first passes of invoices to A/P, all invoices were rejected by A/P with a citation of missing information.
Based on A/P’s reaction, we had to change our communication style from following a regimented, serial communication process that was dictated by clicks and submissions within on line tools to are more open dialogue that involved a series of teleconferences and significant information exchange via email. We temporarily provided additional support information to invoices, extracting data that A/P needed for calculations to validate invoiced taxes. This information then added as appendix to the invoice and printed immediately.
The hard copies were recorded and sent by courier the next day. A special tracking sheet was developed to track all invoices, payment status, responsible Engagement Managers, next action steps and this report was used both internally with all stakeholders as well as with the supplier.
Within two months, the number of outstanding invoices reduced dramatically and the account payable balance dropped to a reasonable level.
Within six months, the supplier was convinced to change their invoice format to include this information, thus removing the manual effort from the internal team and reducing payment back to within the payment term period. The tracking report was then instituted as an ongoing business management report to ensure the same situation did not develop.
