In an effort coordinated by Nacha’s Rob Unger, AP Now, representing the accounts payable and payment community and Credit Research Foundation (CRF) representing the credit and accounts receivable community, conducted similar surveys. The goal was to ask similar questions, two opposite groups, to see if they both came to the same conclusions. Surprisingly they did – even when the results were not what was hoped for. The one minor exception is believed to be a reflection of different audience makeups rather than a difference of opinion.

The session begins with Unger explaining that Nacha collaborated on an AP-AR practitioner survey to assess industry practices and perceptions of the invoicing process in accounts payable and accounts receivable/billing departments. Skudera shared data on how AR departments said they sent invoices and it was very close to the way Schaeffer’s data showed AP departments received data.

Both sides agreed on the formats commonly used and that sometimes invoices were sent more than once by some organizations. They then discussed some of the problems associated with portals and why they were not used as much as you might think, even after an organization had purchased them.

The session closed with the identification of certain practices that both sides agreed need to be changed. These included vendors being charged to upload their invoices into a customer portal and the charging for certain payment products. Luckily, they were not common practices.

Host: Mary Schaeffer (https://www.ap-now.com/)

Guest: Rob Unger (https://nacha.org)

Guest: Matt Skudera (https://www.crfonline.org/)

Credit: Music: https://www.purple-planet.com