Tag Archives: PayStream Webinar

Upcoming Webinar: PayStream and Basware on Global eInvoicing

This Thursday (December 11^th), we’ve got an exciting webinar planned for AP and P2P professionals—especially those from companies that are looking to expand their B2B scope past their national borders. For our recent 2014 Global eInvoicing report, PayStream spent quite some time investigating the current trends and recent developments in eInvoicing around the world. Our main goal with this research (and this webinar!) is to provide North American companies with the proper insight and tools to join a global business arena.

For this webinar, we will team up with the global eInvoicing provider, Basware, and their Vice President of North American operations, Bob Cohen, to discuss the findings of the PayStream’s 2014 Global eInvoicing Report. In the report, research reveals differing adoption rates in different regions and countries, as well as how North American eInvoicing stands up next to its neighbors, near and far. We’ve found that Europe and Latin America show the most advanced eInvoicing networks and the most widespread B2B eInvoicing usage, although interest in eInvoicing network participation is growing among North American businesses. In addition, we’ve identified some major drivers for global eInvoicing adoption initiatives that include the Public Sector, SME involvement, and Supply Chain Financing.

We believe this information is very important for companies interested in gearing their business operations towards international activity. Globalization is expanding, speeding up, and dramatically changing trade all around the world, and in response, eInvoicing solution providers are focusing their development strategies on cross-border B2B functionalities. With this shifting attitude toward global business, it is important for North American companies to learn from successful international organizations, and rise to meet the changing B2B world. Webinar attendees will be given valuable tools for choosing a globally focused solution that will bring security and competency to international trade activity.

This webinar is for companies that are tired of sitting on the sidelines as the rest of the world expands their business operations and advances their business technology. Together, PayStream and Basware will provide the information and incentives necessary to push these companies across their borders and into global innovation. Join us this Thursday, December 11^th, for the Global eInvoicing webinar, and learn how to prepare your organization for a broader business future.

Upcoming Webinar: Curing ERP Challenges with Datamatics and La Quinta

Next week, PayStream Advisors will be teaming up with Datamatics in a webinar entitled“How a Cloud-Based P2P Solution Cured Our ERP Challenges”. The main purpose of this webinar is to tell a story about a very innovative company that strategically used technology to bring AP transformation. This company’s journey shows the correlation between strong goals and lasting success, and it also relevant to some of our recent research on how today’s cloud-based technology is curing ERP challenges. We think it is very important that AP and finance professionals learn from that success.

The story that PayStream’s Henry Ijams and Datamatics’ Roshan Halwai will be telling is centered on La Quinta Inns & Suites. One of the leading franchises of select-service hotels, La Quinta operates more than 800 locations in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. Their company culture is based upon excellence, and they strive to “do ordinary things extraordinarily well”—and challenge the status quo along the way.

This mentality seeps into La Quinta’s accounting goals as well: the company’s AP focus is to make all their processes better, faster, and cheaper and to structure their activity in a way that will consistently support corporate goals. A few years ago, they looked at their AP condition and compared it with their standards for excellence—they saw a lot of room for improvement. They were losing time, money, and security due to their dependence on their existing ERP and its inadequate native business process solutions.

The first step La Quinta took towards change was structuring a plan. Next, they began a search for an appropriate solution provider that could help them migrate from their current in-house applications to versatile cloud-based software. La Quinta eventually turned to Datamatics for a holistic AP solution.

Of course, our readers can probably guess where this story is going. A company with clear goals and a strong desire for change combined with an innovative financial software company—it’s a recipe for success, and success was what it produced.

Attendees of next week’s webinar will hear the full story of how Datamatics was able to ultimately reduce costs, raise visibility, and implement highly customized, cloud-based applications. We will tell you now, however: a great determinant in La Quinta and Datamatics’ success was their careful planning and calculated execution. Join us on November 13^th to find out the specific strategies La Quinta took to formulate and follow an automation plan, and to fill the gaps between process efficiency and inadequate ERP business applications.

PayStream Webinar Recap: Measuring Your P-Card Program with Chris Doxey

This week, PayStream Advisors was honored to team up with one of P2P’s most influential experts, Chris Doxey. A Certified Accounts Payable Professional (CAPP), Ms. Doxey shared her extensive knowledge of financial automation solutions during an informative webinar on the use of purchasing cards. Attendees of this webinar, “Measuring Your P-Card Program with a Six Part Best Practices Scorecard,” learned about different types of p-cards, p-card risks, and the benefits of a p-card program. Ms. Doxey also outlined important steps for establishing roles and responsibilities in a p-card program, and included a valuable metrics tool for companies building a p-card program. Today, we will share some of the webinar’s valuable contents with our readers who weren’t able to attend.

Ms. Doxey began her session by illustrating how p-cards fit seamlessly into the P2P cycle. They are designed to make business purchasing more efficient by reducing paperwork, providing greater control over spending, and increasing visibility into spending patterns. They reduce the workload for both AP and purchasing departments at essentially no cost to an organization, as well as simplify the reconciliation process, eliminate out-of-pocket expenses, and improve supplier negotiations. Companies love using p-card programs for their structural advantages as well. Among other things, they make purchasing more convenient for employees, reduce the overall transaction processing workload, reduce labor and administrative costs associated with procurement and payables, and obtain rebates and incentives for the organization. Suppliers like p-cards too, as they ensure faster payment, reduce credit risk, lower their processing costs, and bring the potential of increased sales. While the impact of p-cards on a company’s business processes is extremely beneficial, the program itself is so easy to use it is almost effortless.

Ms. Doxey wasn’t hesitant to also mention the risks of purchasing cards. There are several types of cards, including corporate T&E cards, fleet cards, and ghost/virtual/single-use cards, but all are subject to occasional abuse. Many organizations have been exposed to some degree of payment fraud, as well as processing difficulty in payment reconciliation. However, the advantages of p-card programs can greatly outweigh the risks when used with p-card program best practices.

There are several useful steps companies can take to ensure p-cards are used safely and efficiently. To maintain compliance and consistency in p-card usage, companies should establish strong parameters with well-defined programs, good internal controls, and realistic policies and procedures. It is also important that there is always available cash for purchasing and appropriate treasury hurdle rates for the use of cash, among other things. A successful p-card program will result from a good program administrator, a solid partnership with the card issuer, strong internal and supplier communication, proper and frequent training of cardholders, and effective card distribution with focus on usage. It also important that roles and responsibilities are clearly delegated.

To help attendees understand these roles, Ms. Doxey highlighted some of the tasks of the P-Card Program Manager and the Program Administrator. The Manager should handle operational relationships with external partners, identify operational gaps in new offerings, and partner with external teams to support new payments products post launch, among other things. They should also work to improve customer relationships and develop metrics for assessing performance and trends. The Administrator operates on a more general level and must have a thorough understanding of the program initiatives and goals. They oversee and manage all purchasing card activity, and are responsible for supervising and training staff, analyzing and reconciling accounts, preparing and processing related information, maintaining financial records, and more.

According to Ms. Doxey, in addition to a strong management structure, a successful p-card program is also dependent on the use of metrics. To help organizations interested in implementing this program in their Purchasing departments, she included a valuable metrics tool in her session. The P-Card Program Scorecard consists of six p-card best practices. The Scorecard is designed to break down a company’s specific business structure needs, and optimize their processes’ interaction with purchasing card use. This Scorecard is free for download for all P2P professionals here.

Every time PayStream has the pleasure of partnering with Chis Doxey, we are amazed by the knowledge and value she brings to every P2P learning experience. We hope our readers will keep an eye out for future webinar opportunities with Ms. Doxey, and we encourage any company interested in a p-card program to take advantage of the P-Card Program Scorecard.

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