Learning Lab A

Imaging Ivy League: Lessons from a Tenured Imaging and Workflow Professor

The bell has rung and class is in session. Join in as an expert in the finance industry shares their experience in IWA with the class. The need for cost containment and enhanced productivity has encouraged organizations to look for new ways to cut expenses and automate traditionally paper based and labor intensive processes. Imaging and Workflow Automation is emerging as the leading technology to do just that. Our professor will guide you through the benefits of this technology and show you why companies like yours are finding they can’t afford to wait any longer. Explore how IWA solutions strengthen controls, drive down costs and increase efficiencies. You cannot afford to sleep through this class!

Sush Koka, Sr. Research Director, PayStream Advisors

Learning Lab B

Efficiency: Roadmaps to Working Capital Improvements

The current business environment has driven organizations to thoroughly examine internal Working Capital opportunities. Through solutions such as Supplier Finance and the automation of the Payment process, clients have sought to internally raise cash and put in place the tools for an efficient payables process. Join in as our faculty member takes you on a tour through the considerations for a new Supply Chain Finance Organization. Learn how to measure your organizations’ Working Capital, Supply Chain Finance, and Payment Automation opportunity and convert them into an ROI model.

Ed Simpson, Procure to Pay Market Manager
Citi Bank

Learning Lab C

P-Cards: Paper or Plastic- What You Don’t Know About Purchasing Cards

What's new isn't the fact that p-cards have become corporate mainstream, but rather, that p-cards are now finding their place as a means for larger, recurring purchases like temporary labor, computers, software and corporate travel. This session will offer valuable insights for business executives and managers who are considering how to aggresively growth their p-card program, as well as people with larger programs that are looking for ways to consolidate more spend on the card from non-card enabled and low-volume vendors and/or reduce the net cost of goods and services they need to buy.

What you will learn in this session:
(1) The current state of the purchasing card growth
(2) How Best-in-Class users are have nearly doubled charge volume per card
(3) What the PayStream survey revealed about card adoption
(4) Best practices from innovators who have made p-cards a strategic tool

Sid Vasili    , CEO, Invapay

Learning Lab D

Payables Performance Measurement
A key component of any electronic invoice and electronic payment initiative is the ability to measure performance. This session will explain how AP managers can track and measure key AP performance indicators (KPIs), such as invoice cycle time, on-time payment, invoice exceptions and discrepancies, early payment discounts, and supplier automation, to name a few.

Topics for this discussion will include:
• Productivity breakthroughs from AP automation
• Identification of key AP performance indicators
• Recommendations for implementing payables performance measurement
• Examples of customer results

James Tucker, Director Product Marketing, Ariba Network & Financial Solutions

The Next Generation of ePayables- the Future of AP Automation in a Digital World
New tools, such as e-Procurement, Electronic Invoicing, Purchase to Pay, and Dynamic Discount Management are rapidly emerging in the Accounts Payable field. Unfamiliar with these terms? Five years ago, no one knew what a Blackberry was, and today your organization couldn’t live a day without it. Join the conversation as leading experts discuss the future of AP Automation and why your job depends on not only understanding these high-power tools, but becoming an expert in their use and application. You will walk away from this panel with a greater understanding of the future of AP Automation in the shifting sands of automation and learn why you cannot afford to be in the dark.

Beyond Ghost Cards: Harnessing Card ePayment Solutions to promote Supplier ePayments and improved controls

Bovis Lend Lease needed to increase Accounts Payable productivity without increasing headcount. They quickly learned that there are many electronic payment options available and that they would need to harness the power of several of them in order to achieve their goals. By utilizing e-settlement accounts, a Corporate Purchasing Card and vPayment system, this organization empowered employees and streamlined their processes while tightening controls in their Accounts Payable Department.
Join this session to learn how Bovis’ Procurement Manager, Terri Brown determined which electronic payment solutions were best suited for her organization. Walk away with an understanding of how she partnered with her provider to create a program that met the various needs of her company.

Terri Brown, Procurement Manager, Bovis Lend Lease
American Express Case Study

Implementing eInvoicing To Drive Continuous Process Improvement

So you’ve decided to move forward with your electronic initiative – Now what? First step – uncover the lessons learned from those whom have traveled the road ahead. Motorola Shared Services would be considered "Best in Class" by most standards, having implemented a number of initiatives to achieve efficiencies in accounts payable, including such things as ERS, eProcurement, A/P Workflow, and off-shoring of low-value added work.
Motorola recently implemented an eInvoicing program in order to further drive continuous process improvement.

This session will cover:

* A snap shot of Motorola’s current state
* Key drivers behind the initiative
* Major accomplishments
* Lessons learned

Michael Riggins, Senior Manager, US Accounts Payable, Motorola
Thayer Stewart, Vice President Marketing & Business Development OB10

Beyond ERP: Leveraging Supplier Networks to Maximize Automation

Whether you are considering electronic invoicing or are already on the path, you know the most critical success factor is gaining supplier adoption. In this session, we will discuss the myths, challenges and limitations of ERP and Enterprise Portals to automate supplier participation in payables activities. We will discuss five factors you must consider when looking to automate your organization’s order-to-pay functions to achieve demonstrable results on paper elimination, cost reduction, process improvement, supplier performance, and working capital optimization. Join us as a fortune 500 company shows you how they have managed to overcome this challenge and successfully implement electronic invoicing.
Client case study presented with James Tucker, Ariba Network & Financial Solutions

Enhancing AP Efficiency & Performance: Best Practices in OCR and Data Capture

It is well known that part time and temporary employees are one of the biggest costs to an Accounts Payable department, both in monetary value as well as the lack of attention to detail and interest in the job. In this session, see how a Fortune 500 company with more than 12 million customers and over $8 billion in revenues, faced and overcame a unique set of challenges to:

• Streamline their front-end process.
• Improve their invoice processing time, allowing them to increase their early discounts taken by 45 percent.
• Process 500 invoices per day using the equivalent of 1.5 employees and eliminating the need for temporary workers.
• Virtually eliminating invoice backlog and duplicate payments.
  

The Key Elements of a Strategic Approach to AP Automation

The distributed nature of accounts payable processes often requires approval on several levels, and generates huge volumes of documentation that are difficult to effectively manage. Not only does this increase the amount of time needed to process each invoice, but it also sets the stage for costs to spiral out of control. Because of this, AP processes are an ideal place to start as organizations look to strengthen controls, drive out costs, and increase efficiencies. This session will examine the key elements that are needed in a strategic solution to realize the full benefits from automating the accounts payable process.

Client Case Study

Marvels and Miracles on the Road to a Touchless P2P Process

New tools, such as e-Procurement, Electronic Invoicing and e-Payment can lead to a touch-less Purchase to Pay Process. So how do you measure and plan for success? When should you plan to reach 100% adoption? Join the conversation as a manager from Monster describes the path they have taken to achieve a nearly 100% touch-free operation and share their experience on the road to paper free. Our speaker will share the decisions that had to be made along the way, from planning efforts – to path choices – to the miracles that they hope to achieve. In short take a look inside how Monster brought about measureable change in their global organizations and learn at the path ahead.

Dee Kresa, Manager, Accounts Payable, Monster

Using Metrics and Benchmarking to Drive Your AP Automation Strategy

Given that “doing more with less” is the mantra of 2009, how do you accomplish your goals with limited staff and non-existent budgets? Evaluating key indicators of the people and processes in place are the true keys to transforming your P2P organization. PayStream has identified the 12 Key Performance Indicators of the Accounts Payable, Travel & Expense and Discount/Payment Management. This model serves as a recommendation for organizations to follow in improving their own P2P operations by closely analyzing the entire approval to payment process from the following areas: costs, quality, effectiveness, productivity, strategic alignment, employee and supplier-specific issues. In this session, PayStream’s research director will share her experiences at building a simple dashboard to monitor and drive your invoice and expense management improvement process.
Sush Koka, Research Director, PayStream Advisors

Developing and Implementing your IWA Project: Avoiding the Potholes

So you've decided to move forward with your imaging initiative - Now what?
First step - uncover the lessons learned from those whom have traveled the road ahead. In this session, you will be taken inside a case study of a company who has been there from the beginning. See how they were able to cut expenses, and lay out the path to be able to implement their imaging platform.

Faye Adams, Manager of AP, BE Aerospace

Beyond ePayments Panel: Tools to Enhance Supplier Collaboration

eInvoicing, Purchasing Cards and ePayments are making significant inroads into reducing inefficiencies in accounts payable. The next frontier is developing a seamless connection to your suppliers, regardless of their sophistication, frequency of orders or size. The good news: several emerging tools will play a key role in managing supplier connectivity, adoption and financing. In this panel session, we have assembled three experts to explore how innovative companies are bridging the gap between your needs and those of your suppliers. Our panelists are on the forefront of developing win-win solutions that enable seamless ecommerce between buyers and suppliers. Participants will discuss the use of P-Cards to pay non-accepting vendors, evaluating your costs of maintaining One-Time-Only Vendors, the eye-opening implications of electronic P.O. delivery to suppliers and how to use vendor financing to improve your working capital.

Creating Value with Automated Workflow in a Time of Change

Economic downturns always shine the limelight on accounts payable operations. Companies that are unable to increase revenues seek to drive down costs and reduce profit leakage. This brings the AP department under renewed scrutiny. Automated workflow technologies deliver tremendous value in this area by allowing companies to lower invoice processing costs, reduce the number of erroneous payments and capture early payment discounts offered by suppliers. Learn from our experts how automated workflow can dramatically change your operations and make you the hero.

What the Recession Means for Outsourced AP Services

“Outsourcing” has been a taboo word in the business of AP, yet more and more companies are taking that route. If outsourcing brings to mind additional risk and out-of-control processes, it’s time to take a fresh look. Outsourcing is a very healthy way to transfer low-value tasks to others and improve control over your processes. Many turn to outsourcing as a way to leverage the expertise of a third-party service provider and use internal resources for more critical tasks. For some companies, outsourcing is a more viable option than a lengthy technology implementation. In this fact- filled session, take an inside look at the 3 types of outsourcing options and why it may not mean what you always thought it did. Review the hands-on experiences, challenges and lessons learned from a manager of a retail giant, that off-shored most of its AP functions. You will be surprised at what you learn.

Cash Flow Diplomacy: The Role of a Working Capital Czar

How does a global giant drive change across divisions and geographic regions? Who is responsible for coordinating P2P initiatives impacting corporate and regional enterprises? Surprisingly, for most organizations the answer is “no one”. How can you build a single P2P strategy to seed and coordinate cross-functional initiatives? In this session, attendees learn from the trials and tribulations of an energetic manager who has wrestled with the difficult strategic decisions required to carve out his informal role as Chief Payment Officer.

The Liquidity Crisis: Maximizing Working Capital by Automating the Order to Pay Process

The global credit crunch has highlighted the importance of controlling costs and maximizing working capital not only across each enterprise, but throughout the global supply chain. The inefficiency of paper-based documents and manual processes is no longer an acceptable option anywhere in the order-to-pay lifecycle. Treating only symptoms such as paper invoices, manual approval processes, and resources devoted to status inquiries and late payments will not cure the underlying disease – only by automating the entire process can working capital be maximized and new opportunities for growth created.

Client Case Study presented with Marcus Hughes, VP of Global Marketing, Bottomline Technologies

Complex Payables & Your Control Framework: The Shifting Demands of AP

The role of the Accounts Payable Professional is morphing rapidly from purchase accountants to process and expense control experts. Today’s environment demands managers to become experts in all facets of their business plus become vigilant hawks for risk, fraud, and process monitoring. In this panel session, we have assembled three AP experts to explore the critical role that today’s manager need to play in managing the entire purchase to pay process from the creation of an obligation to its ultimate payment.  Participants will discuss these new management roles. For example: How do you certify that your P-Card process is in control? How do you monitor mobile phone bills that individually are small, but collectively can be more than your travel budget?  Join the conversation as leading experts discuss control roles, tools and techniques and why your job depends on not only understanding more about your process controls, but also becoming an expert in their use and application. You will walk away from this panel with a greater understanding of your role in driving compliance-to-policy and learn why you cannot afford to be in the dark.

Tom Bohn, CEO International Accounts Payables Professionals

Greg Boyd, Results Engineering

Debbie Hammel, CEO Take Charge

1:50 PM - 3:00 KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Blazing the Trail on eCommerce

We typically picture the US government as being slow to reform and adopt new technologies. The Department of Defense has proved that not only is this not the case, but that they are leading the way in AP automation. In this session, you will see firsthand how they were able to engineer and successfully implement their own electronic invoicing technology. What started as an eInvoicing solution for one sector, has developed into a full blown eCommerce project with eDisbursements, vendor payments and entitlements. Listen in as these finance managers share some of their top secrets tips with you. Their story will inspire you as you follow the path towards a paperfree Accounts Payable department.

PAM FRANCESCHI Director of Finance and Dawn Coulter, E-Commerce Director of Defense Finance and Accounting Service