90 th Annual Meeting & Exposition April 3 – 6, 2011 Memphis, Tennessee Why Accounts Payable and eProcurement Go Hand In Hand Loette D. King, CPSM, CPSD, APM April, 6, 2011

90 th Annual Meeting & Exposition April 3 – 6, 2011 Memphis, Tennessee What is eProcurement? wiseGEEK says….. “eProcurement is the term used to describe electronic methods of conducting business transactions. ePprocurement can be used in every stage of the process. It can begin with the actual purchase coming through to the purchaser and end with the customer’s invoice and payment.”

90 th Annual Meeting & Exposition April 3 – 6, 2011 Memphis, Tennessee

90 th Annual Meeting & Exposition April 3 – 6, 2011 Memphis, Tennessee What is eProcurement? eProcurement allows you to: Have better overall visibility of the whole procure-to- pay process Improve your transaction tracking Reduce manual errors through process automation Improve system accuracy Produce fast and accurate financial reports Improve compliance Improve management of peak loads Have fast exception and query handling

90 th Annual Meeting & Exposition April 3 – 6, 2011 Memphis, Tennessee Procurement and Payables In many organizations these two groups operate in separate silos Operate with unaligned policies Often fail to communicate effectively with each other

90 th Annual Meeting & Exposition April 3 – 6, 2011 Memphis, Tennessee Bridging The Gap When implemented effectively, an eProcurement system can bridge the gap between Payables and Procurement. By linking the two departments electronically, automation takes the guess work out of contract compliance and streamlines processes by eliminating paper requisition forms, purchase orders and invoices.

90 th Annual Meeting & Exposition April 3 – 6, 2011 Memphis, Tennessee

90 th Annual Meeting & Exposition April 3 – 6, 2011 Memphis, Tennessee

90 th Annual Meeting & Exposition April 3 – 6, 2011 Memphis, Tennessee What Do The Best AP Departments Focus On? Forrester’s survey of AP leaders shows that there is no silver bullet – excellence comes from a combination of several best practices. The common theme for all of them was a focus on the complete procure-to-pay process rather than merely on the invoice-to-pay subprocess. Integrating fully automated eInvoicing with eProcurement doubles organizations chances of achieving AP invoice processing excellence.

90 th Annual Meeting & Exposition April 3 – 6, 2011 Memphis, Tennessee When Payables and Procurement work together, The Organizations Wins!