We’ve all seen the credit card company ad that begins with customers dancing their way through the checkout line, only to be interrupted by the curmudgeon (or tennis geek) who insists on paying with outmoded paper payment. Everything screeches to a halt as the customers wait impatiently for a payment to process.

Similarly, companies are investing substantial resources in complex financial accounting software. Everything is going smoothly. International transactions occur at the rate of thousands per second. Companies interacting with each other in real-time across continents, and in board rooms across the country, companies talk passionately about their automated and improved efficiency.

But in the backroom, away from the view of the public, companies are mired in paper. Documents such as invoices, checks, credit applications, purchase orders, correspondence and even credit card numbers are sitting in file folder in desks, file cabinets or in storage.

In spite of…

We have our conference agenda ready and posted on the PayStream Summit website! The agenda describes the pre-conference learning labs and the executive workshops that the event is offering to its attendees. There are workshops for healthcare professionals who are looking to optimize their supply chain, for finance professionals who are interested in learning how to develop and implement electronic invoicing, and for buyers who want to understand the suppliers’ perspective on eInvoicing and early payment discounting. Additionally, PayStream Summit will have case studies explaining how other innovative companies adopted purchase-to-pay strategies, maximized working capital through payables automation and what information you should know before making your promises to administration.

One of our more notable workshops is “Cash Flow Diplomacy: The Role of the Working Capital Czar” presented by Larry Williams of Procter & Gamble. This session will ask questions such as, “Who is responsible for coordinating P2P initiatives impacting corporate…

When the economy faces down times companies strive to find ways to eliminate excess costs. Financial professionals can help their company navigate through the down times by making improvements in their Accounts Payable, Supply Chains and Treasury operations.

As one of these finance professionals, you may be asking yourself, “Ok, sounds good. But how do I continue to make these improvements? What is the next level? How do I get there?”

PayStream Advisors, Inc. delivers unbiased, third-party market trend information, assessments of financial automation technology and innovative ideas to business leaders in consumer billing, finance and treasury, accounts receivable and accounts payable.

PayStream Advisors is hosting the PayStream Summit 2008 this June 9th – 11th in Orlando, Florida, that will focus on informative and innovative ways to revamp your current financial systems. There will be workshops, case studies and faculty roundtables that…

As the world moves forward at an accelerating pace, many companies are seeking new and innovative ways to remain competitive. One of the more innovative ways Fortune 500 companies are staying on top of the competitive edge is by riding the wave of new innovations. Many companies are using techniques such as discount management and supply chain finance to optimize their working capital.

Maybe you’re reading this and you think, “Man, that sounds like a good idea, but I don’t have the faintest idea how to begin the using processes such as discount management” Understandably, you are not alone. That is why PayStream Advisors, Inc. is hosting the PayStream Summit this June, to answer questions financial executives may have.

The Summit is a two-day educational conference that will focus on invoice efficiency and working capital optimization in purchase-to-pay automation. It is at this Summit that questions may be asked, answers will be…

In today’s world, almost anything can be done electronically: banking, buying clothing, and even ordering take out! It seems like everyone is doing everything that they can electronically.

It makes me wonder then why many large companies with enormous staff, divisions, and revenue still choose to use paper invoicing? All that paper is labor intensive and inefficient; it only slows down the organization’s business-to-business accounts payable payments.

Human beings are creatures of habit. It often takes some persuading, question and answer sessions, opinions from family, friends, colleagues and a little bit of research for a human to make a decision that can affect them or the work they do.

People in some innovative companies have accepted change and use change as a competitive advantage. Technologies like discount management and supply chain finance have created lower DPOs, DSOs and lower unit costs for these companies by automating the payment exchange process, related documents and…

Company: Orange County Public Schools

Implementation: PayStream’s Payment Process Analysis™

Industry: Education

Company size: 12th largest of 16,000 school districts in the United States

“Exceptions like missing GR’s are killing our productivity.” — AP Department

The problem

• Explosive growth in student population
• Entirely manual document management system
• Approval process inconsistent with current leading practices
• Limited visibility with current ERP deployment
• Missing available discounts
• Invoicing process costs 60% above industry average
• Poor communication between departments
• Poorly trained AP staff

The solution

• Conduct an automation assessment of accounts payable process
• Document metrics with PayStream’s methodology and benchmarking data
• Introduce document imaging technology to the system
• Exploit PayStream’s library of best practices across the industries
• Expand electronic payment options (P-Card, EFT & EDI)
• Apply workflow to enhance approval process and communication
• Specialize AP tasks and training

The benefits

• Scalable AP department to accommodate explosive growth
• Imaged documents only mouse-clicks away from all departments
• Invoicing costs in line with industry average
• Reduce exception handling commitment by 50%
• Efficient approval process from workflow
• Productivity gains from AP training and specialization
• Improve financials from

…

Healthcare providers are under increasing pressure to improve patient satisfaction. However, allocating the necessary resources to achieve these goals means that hospital administrators must seek greater revenue cycle process efficiency through cost cutting strategies and technology investments. Healthcare Document Management (HCDM) solutions are uniquely positioned to deliver key benefits to administrators and clinicians alike.

Hospital administrators and Revenue Cycle Managers are turning to HCDM solutions for process improvements and direct cost savings. HCDM delivers results through the replacement of manual, paper-based processes with more efficient, automated, computer-based processes.

HCDM is comprised of core technologies including document scanning, centralized electronic storage, and workflow automation. Healthcare industry innovators are deploying HCDM systems as organization-wide enterprise solutions, while others choose an iterative, department-by-department, model.

Latest to join the e-invoicing startups to be funded by Venture Capitalists is TBiConnect run by Simon Fox. Both OB10 and Burns e-Commerce top the VC funding tables for attracting the most cash to date. Among other funded companies include Accountis from North Wales, but they still require a significant funding round to enable an European expansion. For some reason, I do not see Accountis conquering the world similar to OB10, so their best hopes remain within the Europe, capitalising their key customer, DHL. UK companies looking for VC funding include United Data, which is yet to launch its e-invoicing solution. United Data’s Founder and I go back a long way, and I hope Mark Morahan will finally launch his much anticipated e-invoicing hub this year with a realistic business model than the last time (conquer UK before the world!).

I have known Simon Fox of TBiConnect for well over…

You have to agree that the mirrors in stores are more flattering than the ones at home. How many times have you purchased something at The Gap or JC Penny, which looked great, only to come home and realize it didn’t quite suit you?  You must be wondering, what this has to do with selecting the right technology partner.

While clothes shopping, you have an option to return the item at the store. Luckily, merchants in the consumer world are very forgiving when it comes to our purchases. Unfortunately, the business world is not quite as flexible. We cannot imagine deploying a technology solution and then just “returning” because it did not deliver on the expected results.

PayStream has developed Seven Steps to help you supercharge your vendor evaluation process and help you select the right provider the first time around so you don’t have to deal with the “returns” conundrum:

Building a…

I received NAPP’s (National Association of Purchasing & Payables) newsletter the other day. There are always one or two articles that catch my interest, but the one in the current issue really jumped out at me. It was titled “Culture Eats Strategy for Lunch” by Mark Trowbridge (and originally appeared in a different publication). What a fantastic headline!

The article was well done and very supply-chain focused, but it struck me that the topic can just as easily be applied to Accounts Payable — particularly with regard to invoice automation. Invoice automation strategies can be designed with the best of intentions, but if you have a culture resistant to change, your investment in invoice automation will not pay off.

But a resistant culture isn’t the end of the world. It just means you’ll need to put some extra thought and energy into ensuring adoption. I believe there are at least 4…