10th Annual Accounts Payable 2011 Conference & Expo® - Pre-Conference Workshops
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Get the Most Out of Your Conference Experience By Signing Up for Our In-Depth Workshops on October 19th!!
Jumpstarting Your AP Automation
Pre-Conference Workshop A – 9:00 - 12:00
Automation can be the key to achieving the top goals that senior management has for AP: cut costs, reduce headcount and reduce cycle time. However, many automation projects never get approved and some take too long to implement. Find out what you need to do to get your automation projects approved faster and which projects you should tackle first.
In this workshop, you'll learn:
- How to identify potential solution providers
- What to include in an effective RFP
- Key questions to ask bidders and their references
- What to include in your business case
- 7 one-time and 9 ongoing criteria you should include in deciding which projects to do and which to do first
Find out more about 14 automation projects that you should consider implementing. Learn the best approach to implementing each of them as well as the one-time issues and ongoing impact. Find out which 4 of these automation projects can be implemented in 30-90 days, 6 that will take 3 to 6 months, and 4 that will take at least 6 months. Find out what key activities should be completed before taking on any new project. We’ll discuss those as well as part of this interactive session.
Jon Casher, APM, Senior Consultant, IOMA’s Institute Of Finance & Management (IOFM) Advisory Services; President, Casher Associates, Inc.
World Class Performance – How to Motivate, Lead, and Manage AP Staff with Best Practices and Benchmarking
Pre-Conference Workshop B – 9:00 - 12:00
Benchmarking holds out the promise of helping you identify and understand best practices and enabling you to set meaningful, achievable targets for your Accounts Payable organization. As such it is an essential ongoing process to ensure that your staff are producing the best possible return. To be effective it is crucial that you approach benchmarking in the right way. In addition, it is important to ensure that you have laid the foundation, the environment to performance excellence. What is included is demystified in a workshop that will inspire, intrigue, and excite you to invest in an approach that will make each of your employees as excited about improving processes as you are! Learn how to lead, manage, and implement best practices and use benchmarking to drive performance improvements. This session will guide you through some of the basics of benchmarking, identify some of the common mistakes people make when benchmarking and share some key performance metrics from The Hackett Group’s research in this area. Discussion will include how to:
- Define “world class” and its relevance to your shared services operation
- Understand the resources and time needed to benchmark effectively
- Identify those areas that are best suited to benchmarking – and those that are not
- Choose and apply the right metrics
- Inspire your staff to a service management mentality
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Learn some of the ‘tricks of trade’ –
- How to drive critical change when top leadership may not mandate important change; i.e., the land of the dinosaurs
- How to improve everything – and – how you may be ‘asked’ to turn it off; i.e., University of Michigan site visit
- How to achieve a $2.00 / transaction cost reduction in less than two years; i.e., including everyone in your mission
- How to establish a ‘green room’ or a virtual structure that will engage employees to their highest potential
- How to excite your staff about customer service and driving cost out of SG&A; i.e., what is SG&A and how can I get my staff to understand the reason why we exist
- And, much more!
Penny S. Weller, PhD, CMA, Global Business Services, North American Practice Leader, The Hackett Group
P-Card Transformations: Eliminating “Mounds of Paper” From Accounts Payable
Pre-Conference Workshop C – 1:00 - 4:00
Accounts Payable has always been a transactional based function. As AP professionals, we know that more purchase orders translate into greater invoice volume, which then translates into the need for more headcount in accounts payable. Simple enough to understand, but we also know that upper management does not often authorize “new hires”. Hence, the reason for you to attend this workshop on “P-Card Transformations”.
Instead of more hiring, management expects “process improvement, productivity gains and headcount reductions” while still improving on-time payments and never missing a discount offering. This philosophy is almost universal in the AP world.
So what’s the answer to the dilemma? Purchasing cards! The programs can be implemented or expanded with almost no cost and the impact on the organization is almost immediate. Even if you have had a p-card program for years, this workshop will explain how others have expanded “stalled programs” while improving their controls and increasing productivity.
Topics for this workshop will include:
- industry Trends
- Card Basics
- Control Features
- Top 10 Ways To Maximize P-Card Usage
- New Categories of P-Card Spend
- Mechanisms to Control Misuse and Abuse
- Technology Advancements
- On-Line Tools For Card Administration
- Best Practices to Expand Usage and Improve Controls
Once completed, you will each be armed with the necessary information to quickly compare your organizational culture regarding p-cards to those considered “best-in-class”. This information will then allow you to implement a great p-card program or to re-invigorate your stalled and perhaps obsolete program.
Ted Klein, APM, Chairman, Klein Consulting
How to Design, Develop and Deliver a Bullet-Proof AP Automation Plan
Pre-Conference Workshop D – 1:00 - 4:00
Your organization's been on the sidelines of AP Automation, but the time has finally arrived to join the game. Now what? The trick is sorting out the AP automation landscape so you can complete a winning plan. Get answers to the following questions:
- What technology is available?
- Which tools are the most effective for you?
- How can your organization leverage low-cost, easy to implement automation?
- What simple tricks can help you make the correct choices?
In this session, get an undercover look at three critical components
- approval workflow and matching,
- electronic invoicing, and
- ePayments
so you can develop your roadmap.
You’ll also learn how to evaluate your processing costs and the key elements for developing a business case. This workshop will leave you hungry to get started!
Henry Ijams, APM, Managing Director, PayStream Advisors
Best Practice Case Study Workshop — Free to Attendees Pre-Conference Workshop E – 5:00 - 6:00
Do This! Not That!
It might be true that, "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas."
But what happens with your AP automation has far-reaching consequences.
That's why it's so important to get your AP automation projects right.
During this lively and interactive session, the speakers will detail the most common mistakes that companies make when deploying AP technologies -- and what they should have done instead.
Attendees also will have the opportunity to share their own automation challenges and have the speakers offer possible solutions.
While this session won't help you win money at blackjack, it will help keep the business case for your AP automation projects on track -- no matter where you are in the process.
One early piece of advice: At the end of the session, we will hold a raffle for two tickets to a 10:30 p.m. performance of Cirque du Soleil's O at the Bellagio! But you must be present to win.
So don't miss this kick-off session!
Arnold P. Leap, Executive Vice President of Sales & Marketing; Chief Technology Officer, Direct Insite
Mark Brousseau,President, Brousseau & Associates
Download the Conference Brochure
For more information or to register, call 203-889-4977 or email us at customerservice@iofm.com, print out this form, or click the button below.
