As treasury organizations look to drive greater efficiency and cost savings through the optimization of their payables function, itís important to take advantage of industry best practices.
These nine steps can help ensure supplier enablement success:
- Align corporate goals and objectives with automation goals in order to ensure a successful outcome.
- Rely on your bank to conduct a detailed supplier analysis and build an electronic payments strategy unique to the specific needs of your business model.
- Obtain buy-in from all company stakeholders, such as senior management, procurement, accounts payable, treasury, etc.
- Recognize that major changes or upgrades to ERP systems will strongly influence timing and IT resources available for payable optimization effort.
- Implement a corporate wide mandate for card and ePayables.
- Issue virtual cards with card level transaction spend limits to reduce the incidence of fraud.
- Optimize the use of performance, audit and supplier reporting to gain visibility into the efficiency and effectiveness of supply chain business relationships.
- Utilize tailored supplier communications to create a positive supplier experience.
- Customize solutions by division to address different buying systems and supplier needs.
The views expressed by the author are not necessarily those of Fifth Third Bank and are solely the opinions of the author. This article is for informational purposes only. It does not constitute the rendering of legal, accounting, or other professional services by Fifth Third Bank or any of their subsidiaries or affiliates, and are provided without any warranty whatsoever. Deposit and credit products provided by Fifth Third Bank.