Transcript
Hello, everyone, and welcome to today’s webinar, “How Supplier Portals Solve Your Three Biggest Accounts Payable Challenges” presented by VendorInfo.
I’m pleased to be one of your speakers for today’s webinar.
Today, I’m pleased to be joined by Phil Binkow, Chief Executive Officer of Financial Operations Network, the maker of Vendor Info. Hey Phil, thanks so much for joining us today.
Thank you so much for having me, Mark.
Finance and Administration Functions are as time-consuming, labor-intensive, and paper-intensive as Accounts Payable. In fact, in a recent survey conducted by the Institute of Finance and Management Controllers, AP was identified as the finance and administration function that was most burdensome to their department, topping notoriously cumbersome tasks such as accounts receivable, payroll, reporting, and even taxes.
What is it that’s got AP so far down the list of efficiency and effectiveness? Well, that’s what we’re going to talk about today. We’re going to lay out the three biggest challenges that AP leaders face these days, and we’re going to provide you with an action plan for overcoming them using web-based supplier portals.
We’ll also talk about how you can build a business case for a supplier portal to address those accounts payable challenges that you’re probably facing. But before we do any of that, we wanted to start with a poll question, which is about to be displayed on your screen. We want to know, which of the following is your biggest accounts payable challenge? Is it inefficient processes, inadequate visibility, or high risk of fraud and compliance issues? Take a moment to respond to the poll question now displayed on your screen.
So, Phil, when you’re talking to AP leaders, what are they telling you is on their mind these days?
Inefficiency is a huge issue. Visibility and standardization of their processes are right up there, and probably at the top of the list. Certainly, top of mind is the risk of fraud, and some compliance issues.
Folks, you know, things that are inefficient today would have looked highly productive 5 years ago, but today, technology has changed. Standards have changed. And I think people’s expectations of what can be done with various technologies have really raised the bar, and we’re seeing folks take a really close look at their processes to see how they can make them more productive and tighten up the controls around the risk of fraud.
Phil, we know that accounts payable has historically been viewed as a tactical back office function, a drain on company resources. Is that perception changing in the view of senior finance professionals?
You know it is. Folks used to be, and, you know, folks in back office operations at one time were looked at as clerks. And today, these folks are really knowledge hubs. The more that their processes can be automated, the more folks can understand the processes. And particularly in interacting with suppliers, they are able to provide insights into helping those supplier-related interactions move much more smoothly. And use the resulting information that comes out of those interactions to help the organization and to help the suppliers, too.
Phil, we know these are uncertain economic times and it’s unclear what the economy is going to be doing in the quarters that lie ahead. Will businesses expect more out of AP if the economy does wobble?
There really is getting a smaller and smaller window available for not doing accounts payable-related process improvements. AP is the last control point before cash leaves the company, except for payroll. And that control point is under more pressure today than ever before. The need for information that AP is right in the center of is greater than it ever has been. Organizations that are tightening their controls eliminate exception items, which are expensive and distracting, and they’re able to use the resulting information to really improve not just their environment but their suppliers’ environments, too. It’s a win-win for everybody involved.
We asked our attendees, “Which of the following is your biggest accounts payable challenge?” 50% of you say too many inefficient processes, 25% of you said inadequate visibility, and another quarter of you said high risk of fraud and compliance issues. 50% of our attendees, Phil, said that they’re bogged down with inefficient processes. Why has this been allowed to fester so long in AP?
Yeah, historically it’s been difficult for AP and other back office operations to get funding. There are other priorities that go on in the organization, you know, marketing and sales and product development. But we know people are becoming so much more aware of how disbursements and accounts payable, and the controls, and the information sources, can really contribute in very significant ways to the organization today. That ship has turned. What was the status quo five years ago is definitely not the status quo today. I’d say 95% of the time in the organizations that we’re talking with.
Fact is, businesses expect more out of their accounts payable department these days. They’re counting on AP to help navigate the business through turbulent times and to do more with less. In order to achieve that, AP leaders are going to have to overcome their toughest challenges.
And as our poll question suggested, the three biggest challenges that AP departments face these days, according to a recent survey by the Institute of Finance and Management, are inefficiency, poor visibility, and risk. We’re going to dive into each of these challenges in greater detail.
Today, when we look at the inefficiencies that AP departments face, it really boils down to five key things. Many AP departments are still keying in lots and lots of data. Even for those of you who receive your invoices via PDF, chances are, you do not have the software necessary to extract that data automatically. And so your staff, in many cases, are printing out those emails and PDF attachments and either scanning them into an OCR solution or rekeying that data directly into your ERP. And as a result, we’ve got lots of errors. A single typo or transposed number can create big issues downstream.
What’s more, in many AP departments, we’re still relying on what I’d call semi-automated processes. 77% of you have deployed some type of AP automation technology, but only 9% of you have a fully automated environment where invoices and other documents can flow straight through electronically without anyone ever having to touch them. As a result, we’re still relying on our operators to make desk-level decisions on how things ought to work. And that’s true even in cases where we have some technology. And whenever there is the case where people are using their own judgment, well, we’re going to have inconsistency.
Even if you have formalized policies and procedures for how things ought to get done, making matters worse, many AP departments have complex workflows, whether it’s how suppliers are onboarded or invoices are approved, or who’s going to approve a payment to a supplier. In many cases, you’ve got multiple layers of approval, multiple individuals, and those can vary, depending on the supplier, the business unit, or even the size of the transaction.
And getting those documents from point A to point B, well, it’s harder these days now that our teams are working remotely, at least in part. Many of us are still relying on email to push documents around for approvals, and we all know that emails simply aren’t secure. They don’t provide chain of custody assurance. They don’t segregate duties. They don’t track actions taken on a transaction. They don’t confirm retention of documents per our organization’s retention rules or schedules. And so, now, it’s hard to manage these workflows. And on top of all of this, we now have inadequate visibility in a semi-automated AP environment. Fact is, key information isn’t captured, captured information is often inaccurate. Information isn’t timely. Data isn’t well-organized, and systems are fragmented. Put it all together, and from the moment a supplier is onboarded through the moment a payment is reconciled, in many cases, we simply don’t know where things are. In fact, CFOs identify poor visibility into AP data as their biggest beef when it comes to the way that their AP department operates these days.
So, what does this all do to an AP Department? Well, it has big implications on the way it is that you manage vendor information. The fact is, when we have this mishmash of manual and semi-automated tasks, it’s going to impact every phase of the invoice-to-pay cycle. And that’s especially true when it comes to the way that we collect, validate, and store vendor information.
In many cases, when it comes to vendor information management, we’re going to have low staff productivity. Somebody’s got to collect all those documents from suppliers. They’ve got to request them. In some cases, we’re requesting the same information multiple times. We often have inefficient and inconsistent document management processes. Remember those emails I spoke of a few moments ago? In many cases, it’s hard to tell who to send a document to for review. There’s no telling if they even received a document. It’s easy for things to become misrouted, lost, or even inadvertently deleted all along the way.
We’re not going to have visibility into what’s going on, certainly true in a paper environment. But that’s even true in an emailed environment. We don’t know where a document stands in the process. We don’t know who took what actions on a document. We don’t even know if an approver is in the office or out on PTO. It’s also hard in a typical manual or semi-automated environment to communicate with suppliers, much less collaborate with them. And when we think about it, AP is in many cases one of the first interactions a supplier has with our business. Are we putting our best foot forward when we ask for the same information multiple times when the information is captured incorrectly? When we have to embarrassingly go back and ask for the same thing again because we’ve lost it. And when you have manual processes, you’re inevitably going to have issues where information isn’t being managed in the appropriate manner. And so now that’s going to introduce the risk of compliance issues, running afoul of regulators, cost us big money, resulting in penalties, reputational damage, and even jeopardizing our business.
Phil, just how bad are these manual processes when it comes to how vendor information is being managed in many organizations?
Yeah. It’s a good question, Mark.
The problem is manual processes lend themselves to much less information than automated processes simply because collecting the information from a manual process becomes another manual process in its own right. So the information and the visibility isn’t there. The other side of that is the manual processes also open themselves up to gaps in internal controls. That increases, certainly increases fraud, the risk of fraud, and other and just errors, errors that can cause expensive, time-consuming exception items downstream.
Yeah, and these inefficiencies are pretty insidious in my opinion, because think of all the people involved in onboarding a vendor in most organizations. Now you’re talking about inefficiencies literally across the corporate enterprise. But it’s not just inefficient processes that are holding AP departments back. Today, we also have lots of challenges with visibility in our AP departments. In many cases, we have manual processes that are making it difficult for us to see what’s going on in our AP Department. We have multiple data sources that are difficult in order for us to juggle the information. Some information arrives via paper forms, emails, or maybe even a supplier portal, or FTP upload.
And whenever we have these non-standard means of ingesting and capturing data, well, now we’re going to have errors. They’re inevitable wherever humans are involved, what’s more complex workflows make it difficult for us to see where information stands in the process. This is especially true when it comes to vendor information management. And on top of all of this, in many cases, our systems aren’t well integrated. We know that ERP is the financial nerve center of the business and most AP vendors will tell you that they integrate with any ERP.
The reality is typically something much different in many cases or we’re relying on our staff to rekey data into the ERP, to toggle between systems, to be able to download and upload information to get that full picture of what’s going on. And all of that really sets our AP departments back, put it all together. Well, first of all, you got to have delays. and this is especially true when it comes to onboarding suppliers. When we don’t know where things stand in the process.
Well, we won’t be able to, to follow up in a timely manner with those key stakeholders who are becoming a bottleneck. In many cases, we’ll have communication breakdowns. We ask for the same information multiple times. We don’t know which stakeholders to follow up with in terms of approvals. And in many cases, this reflects negatively on our suppliers. They don’t think that we’re a business that’s easy to do business with. What’s more, when we don’t have good visibility into vendor information management, now we’re going to have inadequate reporting.
Clearly, we won’t know the efficiency of our processes. But what’s more? It’s going to be harder to be able to satisfy auditors and regulators that we’re doing things the way that we ought to. And what’s more, we’re going to have the high risk that things are slipping through the cracks and creating compliance or fraud issues. Fill. We know that many organizations rely on E-forms in order to onboard their suppliers. Talk to me about how those electronic forms make it difficult to get the visibility we need, into what’s going on with our vendor information management processes.
Yeah, that’s a great question, Mark.
and part of it is, you know, the ubiquitous E-dash in front of virtually anything makes it sound as if this is just the greatest latest way to increase efficiency, and to make life easier for everybody. But E-Forms mean everybody calls something that they got over the Internet, or through an email in E-form mean, we have people calling PDFs E-Forms. We have people calling fillable PDFs E-forms. And then we have people who are filling out forms on the web E-forms as well, and you’ve got questions regarding how those forms were developed.
Uh, what are the requirements for actually filling those forms out? Are there fields that are mandatory, or their fields that are edited for certain types of content? Can bad information get into any form, just because it says, E-dash in front of the word form, it, there’s, you know, the devil is in the details and we, it’s, it’s pretty easy to assign a label to, you know, to the actual item. But, there might be dozens of items with the same label, and not all of them are equal in effectiveness, or efficiency, or accuracy, or ease of use. What’s the downstream implications of poor visibility into vendor information?
Oh, my goodness. No, the list, don’t get me started, The list goes on and on and on. Information, we are, you know, we’ve been in the information Economy, You know, for decades now, And Everybody is subject to more and more information than ever before and in some cases subject to way too much information because if you’ve got too much. There’s just no way to get through it and to make anything meaningful out of it. So, you know, getting the right information first of all, having access to the right information is critical, and you can’t do it in a manual system effectively, and, and, and in most cases at all, And then? you know, collecting that information and breaking it down into prioritized, usable bite sites, bite size segments. They can actually be actionable is really where we are today. There’s a lot of science behind it, But there’s an art behind it as well, and And, And you know, we’re getting there with greater levels of automation. AI is helping to some extent, although there’s, you know, there’s still a lot of hype around that as well. But, you know, there’s certainly a role for it. But, you know, we’re getting there, but not having enough information. Uh, no. Having too much information is bad enough, but not having enough information. It’s like, driving down the road in the dark with no lights and with no dashboard.
Yikes, Another challenge that AP departments are facing these days is fraud.
Today, about one quarter of all fraud cases originate in accounting, finance, and procurement departments. And the fact is that many of them these days are coming from accounts payable. Interpol, state Attorneys General, and the Federal Bureau of Investigations are sounding the alarm. They’re saying that the way that AP departments are functioning these days is increasing the risk of fraud. And a lot of that has to do with our reliance on emails.
Today, the most common payment fraud schemes rely in many cases, on phishing schemes or other nefarious ways of gaining access to our credentials or tricking us into paying a bad guy rather than a supplier. There are really three payment fraud schemes that are afflicting AP departments these days. The first is business email compromise. These cases were where scammers gain access to your vendors’ email and send spoof emails or create web domains. Mimicking the legitimate business. You’ve probably seen these. If you look carefully at the email address, well, that I have been replaced with an L. And unless you checked carefully, well, you could be tricked into changing bank account details for an account that’s controlled by a bad guy, not one of your legitimate suppliers.
In other cases, a bad actor will gain access to a co-worker’s email address, typically using social engineering here again. And once again, they’ll send you an urgent email asking you to change the bank account details for an unknown supplier. And it’s only after you’ve sent the money that you realize that that account was controlled by a bad guy, and the money will be quickly whisked off to some faraway account where it’s difficult to recover. We also have a lot of cases these days of account takeovers where scammers obtain credentials to log into a company’s bank accounts, vendor management system, or email. This typically starts with emails where there’s some malicious software that’s loaded into an attachment or into a link once we download that item or click on that link. Unwittingly giving the bad guy the keys to our kingdom, now, they’re able to either cheat transactions on their own or steal those banking details so they can use that information at their own time.
We also see cases of supplier impersonation where, uh, a bad actor is able to infiltrate someone’s email system, watch, as suppliers are being onboarded. And then at the very last moment, just as that supplier is reaching the conclusion of the onboarding process, slip in bank account details for an account that they control. It’s only until 60 or 90 days later when the legitimate supplier calls asking where their payment is, that you realize that you’ve been tricked. Regardless of whether it’s BEC, Account takeover, or Supplier Impersonation. These types of schemes are costing businesses big time. The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners estimates that 5%, of a typical company’s revenues, are lost each year to payment fraud and errors. And today, payment fraud is at an all-time high. And one of the big challenges organizations face is that it’s hard for them to be able to tell which bank account change requests are legitimate and which are phony. This is made all the more difficult, by the fact that many organizations are manually verifying bank account ownership.
Phil, when you’re talking to AP leaders, these days, just how bad are these cases of fraud, and how does bank account verification factor into all of it?
It’s really high up there on the list of concerns because, mostly, this is handled by AP, and these AP folks are getting requests, you know, every day. Bye their vendor base to change, but to change bank accounts. And they’re also putting on new vendors, and they want to pay them by ACH too, so they need to have the right information. And, you know, folks are telling us that they’re uncovering. They’re uncovering one to 2% of all the requests. As fraudulent requests, the way they’re uncovering those. Unless they have an automated system. to help them verify bank account ownership. The way it’s getting validated is through telephone calls, Very tedious research-intensive. Telephone, a telephone call process to get in touch with a known source at the vendor, to uh, you know, to verify that there’s actually an account or a bank account change request. And to verify the information, It’s time-consuming. It’s totally not productive time in the, you know, in the minds of and in anybody’s mind, really, of the folks who are, who are managing these departments. It’s tough. It’s a tough situation right now and, it’s a very convoluted complex and labor-intensive mark.
And, on top of the risk of fraud, we also have challenges with compliance. Today, in order to ensure that A, that a supplier is payable, well, we’ve got to match their tax identification Number against the IRS Database. We’ve got to ensure that the organization, or any of its individuals, don’t appear on any watchlist sort government sanctions lists, and that can be a big burden for organizations that rely on manual processes as well. 5% of the typical company’s revenues, as we said, is lost to fraud. And errors annually, 79% of companies are struggling to comply with the applicable regulations. That brings us to our next poll question, which is about to be displayed on your screen. This time we want to know, does your organization use a supplier portal for supplier onboarding and vendor information management? Yes, no, but you’re planning to within deploy, one within the next six months. No. But you’re planning to deploy one within the next 6 to 18 months. No end. You’ve got no plans to deploy. What? Take a moment to respond to the poll question now displayed. Benin, we’re going to discuss the results in just a moment, put it all together fill, operations, inefficiency, a lack of visibility, and a high risk of fraud and compliance issues. This is a pretty daunting challenge for AP leaders. Why is it that supplier portals might be a solution, versus all of the other shapes of automated technology that’s out there?
Sure, that’s a great question, Mark.
And, you know, the actual supplier business relationship begins when they sign a contract, and when they get into the vendor master file, so that they can get paid. Going back to, you know, our earlier comments about and recognition that accounts payable is the last control point before cash leaves the company.
Starting off that supplier relationship with a very effective, very comprehensive measure, measurable, and secure system is a huge, huge help, instead of using unsecure email to move forms back and forth. Instead of manually trying to do all of the verifications that you mentioned and more. Buy by hand, in order to avoid data entry and even more emails going back and forth for approvals and verifications of the vendor information and then data entry to get it into the vendor master file, all of that can be automated.
And what happens is when it is automated, you eliminate all kinds of things. Number one is you eliminate a lot of errors because the verifications happen automatically. And you also automate data, data entry errors, but you also eliminate a lot of the training that has to go on to effectively get the folks who have been charged with moving this information around or collecting it Just to get them all on the same page. And, you know, and, and I know there are some, I’m sort of hitting, skimming the surface here, but, but what happens is, you end up with a system that not only has much greater efficiencies, much greater value. But you also get measured in information out of it.
That’s measurable.
You get audit trails of who did what and when they did it. and you get actionable information. And it all starts at the very beginning of when that, when that vendor is being onboarded into the company. We asked our attendees, does your organization use a supplier portal for supplier onboarding and vendor information management? 60% of our attendees are not using a supplier portal, but they’re planning to deploy one within the next six months. 20% of our attendees say they’re not using the portal, but they’re planning to deploy one within the next 6 to 18 months. 40% of our attendees say they aren’t using a portal and they have no plans to do so, None of our attendees today are currently using a supplier portal for supplier onboarding and vendor information management. So, what would be the single biggest piece of advice you’d give to the 80% of our attendees who have plans to deploy a supplier portal?
It’s in the next 18 months.
Yeah, I would, you know, do your homework. Of course, I don’t have to tell folks to do that, but you know, certainly as part of your homework, take a look at, you know, reach out to us. Take a look at the vendor info application. It is, you know, you know, it’s our application so I’m not impartial, of course. But it really has been received well by many, many large, a lot of large companies and smaller organizations, and some non-profits as well. It’s extremely comprehensive, and it’s very, very cost-effective, and it’s easy to use. I mean that’s a real important feature for both the vendors and for the internal admin staff.
We believe that supplier portals can help address the biggest challenges that AP departments face. When you think about the typical vendor onboarding process, well, the probably includes some combination of paper forms, electronic forms. And I don’t have my camera on, but I’m doing air quotes. In deference to Phil’s comments from earlier, maybe some capabilities from your ERP system and potentially, a system that your IT department cooked up some time ago.
The fact is, is that, in most cases, this semi-automated approach to onboarding suppliers and managing vendor information probably leaves a lot to be desired. And that’s why more organizations, including those of you on the line, are deploying self-service supplier portals. These web-based tools that automate the process of collecting data and documents from your suppliers, either during the onboarding process or even on an ongoing basis. Validating the key data points on those documents. Verifying vendor and individual information, such as bank account ownership details, performing tin matching, all fact-checking, sanctions screening, and even more. And all throughout the process, self-service supplier portals provide workflow rules. So when something isn’t quite conforming to your organization’s rules, workflows can route those documents for approval. And all throughout the process, your team has visibility and reporting into what’s going on.
Today, 87% of businesses are using a portal either to receive or submit information to or from their trading partners. So, chances are you’re probably familiar with how it is that a supplier portal works. Well, what might be obvious is how it helps your organization address those nagging challenges that we spoke about earlier. And one of the biggest ways that supplier portals helping people is by improving operations efficiency. With a web-based portal, well now your documents can be automatically collected. Suppliers can even be notified of when it is time to submit updated documents. Data from those documents are automatically extracted and input into downstream systems and processes. You can match, match documents to suppliers, validate and verify information that’s submitted in the data, and the documents. You can couldn’t figure systematic digital routing of documents that don’t conform to your business rules, and you can have real-time communication and collaboration with your supplier throughout the process, supplier portals, eliminate the friction that bogged down your supplier onboarding process, and can make it difficult for you to manage vendor information. 72% of businesses say that using a supplier portal has improved their supplier onboarding process. 64% of businesses say a supplier portal reduces the time it takes to onboard new suppliers. If it’s taking too long and it’s too big a burden to onboard your suppliers, chances are a portal can help.
But this is the only way a portal can help your AP department tackle its biggest challenges. Today, supplier portals also help you improve visibility into your processes. It centralizes the management of information submitted by suppliers. You couldn’t have systematic workflows based on your configurable business rules. Communication and collaboration can be done online, with complete logging of all actions taken on a transaction, and conversations with a supplier.
You have real-time reporting and analytics into what’s happening, and you can have automated monitoring of compliance to ensure that all of your processes are complying with rules and regulations.
Today, 58% of businesses say that using the supplier portal has improved the quality of their supplier data.
After all, who knows suppliers data better, that is supplier with them inputting the information? With no need to rekey data or to have hand offset and increase the chances of errors?
Now, information can be pristine, all throughout the process. 56% of businesses say a supplier approved portal has improved communications with their suppliers. It makes it easy to do business with your organization. You can collaborate with suppliers, ask for information that’s missing. And you can be assured that you’re not asking for the same information multiple times.
Today, 69% of businesses believe that a supplier portal has helped them improve supplier performance. Now, you have suppliers who are more engaged, have stronger relationships with you, and are more easily able to communicate and collaborate with you.
So now you can get your supply chain fortified and you can make your suppliers happier so they’ll be there when you need them.
Supplier portals also help you mitigate risk of fraud and compliance issues, standardize processes with audit logging, eliminate desk level decision making and the reliance on staff in far-flung offices to make the right decisions.
Tax identification numbers can be automatically matched to the IRS database.
OFAC Checking and sanctions screening is completely automated with rules for showing you any transactions that fall below certain thresholds.
Bank account ownership can be automatically verified and you’re able to automatically monitor all of your transactions in real time, so you have visibility into who’s taking what actions and what’s going on with all of your suppliers. Today, three quarters of businesses say that using a supplier portal has reduced their risk of payment fraud.
72% of businesses say, supplier portals helped them improve regulatory compliance.
This is music to controllers’ ears.
This is exactly what organizations need times like this, and that brings us to our third and final poll question, which is about to be displayed on your screen.
This time, we want to know which of the following do you believe is the biggest benefit of a supplier portal for supplier onboarding and vendor information management? Is it improved efficiency? Is it enhanced visibility, or is it less risk of fraud and compliance issues? Take a moment to respond to the poll question, now displayed on your screen, and we’ll discuss the results in just a moment.
So, when you talk to AP leaders, Phil, what do they tell you is the biggest impact that a supplier portal has had on their operations?
Yeah, great question, Mark. A lot of folks are attracted to a portal initially because they see it as a way to reduce redundant data and the risk of fraud. But as they get into it, they realize that the efficiency that comes with standardizing the process and automating previously manual steps, such as whether it’s data entry or emailing forms back and forth, or the manual process of just doing data entry or verifications, are really huge and the visibility part really gets a lot of buy-in from the folks in internal controls as well.
Plus, in the organization, there are the accounts payable department itself because they have visibility into dashboards and metrics that give them a way to see what’s going on and where the bottlenecks are in it. In an automated portal for example you can see from the time a vendor submitted its first piece of information until the time that they were onboarded every step that they went through and how long each step took them. You can do that individually, you can do it as an aggregate, you can certainly do it by certain vendor type vendor segments. Visibility is key too so I think a lot of folks sometimes come for the risk but they really get hooked on the efficiency and the visibility.
Come for the risk, stay for the efficiency and visibility. I love it. Feel fulfilled.
Many visuals tend to focus on using a supplier portal for supplier onboarding. But I believe one of the most compelling benefits of a supplier portal is how it helps you manage your ongoing changes to supplier information and mitigate risk in the process. Talk to me about that.
Yeah, sure. So, you know, the supplier with a portal, the supplier has one place to go. They can submit a change request, like a bank account change request. They can put that in with a portal that, can, that information and bank ownership of our change requests can be done automatically and in real time. So, if there’s going to be a problem, that problem is recognized immediately, and if there’s not a problem, the change can actually be implemented very quickly. So, you know, people aren’t me. It helps vendor relations and in a huge way, to allow them to go to a portal instead of sending an e-mail and somebody gets the email and did the right thing with it. And, you know, and then, internally did that information requests, get reviewed, and approved, and validated and so on. It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s much, much easier. And, again, all of that information is tracked. So, you know, from a security standpoint, you’re really seeing, you’re really seeing who made what request, where did it go, who handled that, and when, and how is it resolved?
80% of our attendees believe that improved efficiency is the biggest benefit of a supplier portal. Clearly, they don’t need to be sold on the benefits there.
The question you might need to be sold on is, all right, so how do I convince senior management to sign off on us, supplier, portal project? Well, we believe there’s three elements to a successful business case for a supplier portal.
The first, of course, is hard dollar savings. This is where efficiency comes and all the time that your staff will save shuffling paper reeking data and fixing errors and mistakes. Next is the soft dollar savings. This is where visibility comes in. Now, you’ll be able to better track the performance of your operations, be able to see where things stand in the process, Try to achieve a continuous process improvement loop by tracking your results over time.
And the third element of a successful business case for a supplier portal is, of course, risk avoidance. Show how a supplier portal can help your organization mitigate its risk of payment fraud, and compliance issues.
Today, supplier portal eliminates paper, PDFs, and all those related costs. It helps reduce your staff effort. You can better leverage, get better leverage with suppliers during contract negotiations, and you’re able to scale your operations without hiring additional vendor onboarding staff. Key consideration in today’s challenging labor market.
You’re also able to strengthen your supplier relation. Ships and improve your company’s reputation. You become that business that’s easier to do business with, and you better believe that’ll help you get better pricing and better service level agreements over time. You’re able to improve collaborations standing with the other parts of your enterprise, you’re helping drive improvements all across the business, and you get access to operational metrics through enhanced reporting.
And, of course, with a supplier portal, you’re going to have clear operational visibility and transparency. Your procedures will always be updated. There’s no more desk level decision making. You’re going to have process compliance, then you’re going to have less vulnerability to cyber threats and fraud. What I want you to do is take those elements of the business case and put them into a document that spells out three scenarios.
The first, A best case scenario, if you hit on all of your metrics, if you achieve the best possible benchmarks, this is what your business case will deliver.
Then, think the opposite way. A worst case scenario, if things take a little longer to implement, maybe if our user adoption isn’t quite what we anticipate, this is our downside scenario.
And then, lay out the most likely scenario. This is what we think will happen. Put all three of these at your business case, and senior management will appreciate that you’ve thought through the different possibilities, and they can also see their upside and downside possibilities. So, what are the key takeaways you want folks to have today?
Well, thanks, Thanks for asking, Mark.
I think really the issues that are hitting accounts payable today are and have been for some time are how can we do more with less?
And and how is more defined, you know, more today might mean more volume. But it could also mean greater security, it could mean greater, greater visibility into what we’re into what we’re actually doing. And certainly, it can mean greater productivity. So, how do we do that? one of the ways is to start at the beginning with a, no, with a vendor portal.
And it’s the first thing, other than maybe the buyer who your company is seeing and, and within your organization.
And it’s going to be the entity within your organization that most of the time, the supplier has a tremendous amount, maybe more interfaces with, with accounts payable, then than with anybody else often.
So, how can we make it? How can we make it better for ourselves within the organization? What can we automate? How can we get greater productivity, reduce risks, and greater visibility?
You know, take a look. Really take a look at starting at the beginning with a portal, and see how that fits into your priorities and into your initiatives.
And that brings us to the Q&A portion of this webinar. If you haven’t already submitted your question for Phil, or if you’ve thought of another question for Phil, go ahead, use the questions tool on your screen to submit your question to me now.
We’ll answer as many questions as time allows, Fill our first question up as yes. one more?
Sorry. I’m working. I was gonna say you know, we’ll put up our contact information too, for anybody who wants to question. Doesn’t get answered, or who wants to get some additional information as well.
Sorry. Sorry for interrupting.
No, no, you’re fine. Our first question is from Sarah Beth. She’s wondering what IT resources are involved in deploying your solution?
Yeah, great. Great question, Sarah Beth. It depends. It depends on how you deploy the solution.
We have customers who do everything with the solution, including collecting the information and doing all the verifications and the approvals.
With the exception of an automated upload into the vendor master file, if you do not have an automated upload into the vendor master file, there are zero IT requirements on your staff side. Because this is a software as a service.
If you do automate the upload of the information into your vendor master file, then our customers tell us on their side. It takes 1 to 2, possibly three person days on their side to make that, to make that interface work and to get it tested and working properly.
Carol, Lena wants to know, can you give some examples of best on the market supplier portals?
What should Carolyn and I be looking for? A solution, Phil.
Sure.
Well, Carolina, I can’t. I can’t speak to anybody else’s solution, but I know that if you talk to our references, they’ll say that vendor info is, you know, certainly the best for them.
And, you know, they checked off all the boxes, things that they should be that you should be working for, ARR, the comprehensiveness, understanding how it fits, your Specific needs, those who checkoff your boxes. How easy is it for the vendor to use? And making it easier for the vendors is huge.
How easy is it for your folks to use?
You know, certainly: you know, any IT requirements on your side and cost. Those are some of the, you know, some of the top line things to be looking at.
Rochus, Wondering which ERP you integrate with?
Yeah. Thanks for asking, Roger. We interface with everything. You know, what?
This is a very, very ERP neutral application and it plays well with everybody.
Jenelle wants to know more about your bank account ownership verifications solution. How does that work?
Sure, so, so, what it, what it does, that’s great, that’s a great question.
It actually goes out to the national database of, uh, bank account information.
And it compares what has been submitted by the vendor, uh, on, on it through the portal with regard to their name, their tin, their account number, their routing number, their street address, city, state, zip, company name, and it compares that with what the bank actually has on file for that supplier and no, if everything matches, then that’s great.
And if it doesn’t match, you’re able to see, you know, which, you know, which items on the match list don’t match, wants to know if your solution does OFAC checking.
Yes. It does not just OFAC checking but also other sanctions lists such as the EU, the UK, the UN. And that sanctions lists including OFAC screening can happen as frequently as every day because we have some customers who do that simply because those lists, in fact, do change.
Companies get added to them and taken off of them and are individuals’ entities all the time.
That will be our final word. If you have additional questions for Phil or would like to learn more about vendor info, we encourage you to reach out to Phil using the contact information on screen.
Phil, thanks so much for an excellent presentation and for sharing your insights with us today, and thank all of you for taking time out of your busy days to join us.