The IOFM Podcast

Unclaimed property expert Jim Sadik talks compliance with IOFM Content Manager Grace Chlosta in this interesting podcast on a topic that impacts most businesses. Organizations usually have at least some uncashed checks or credit balances that need to be managed in accordance with unclaimed property laws, but how they choose to handle them varies. Some companies are strongly motivated to not have to escheat property to the state; others are perfectly happy to escheat the money and let the state handle finding the owner.

Practices vary, notes Sadik. The required due diligence of sending a notification letter may not yield much in the way of results. And simply voiding and reissuing checks to see if the payments will clear on a second attempt creates some potential issues. This tactic requires stringent controls to be certain duplicate payments aren't made, and can make state unclaimed property auditors suspicious if they detect practices that make it appear as though a company is trying to extend the holding period before escheatment becomes necessary.

Sadik addresses various approaches to resolving unclaimed property issues prior to escheatment, advising that overall, "Any early intervention is better than waiting for a trail to go cold."

When Arecka Mather, APM, had to manage her team through a system conversion, she was particularly challenged. As a person who herself struggles with change, her leadership was essential to the success of the project, but she needed to overcome her own anxiety while getting everyone else on board as well.

In this podcast, Arecka talks about her experiences with IOFM Managing Editor Royce Grayson Morse, discussing the obstacles and day-to-day setbacks she and her team encountered during the process, and offering tips for others in similar situations. Maintaining her composure, being brave enough to ask lots of questions, working closely with her crew and being honest about her own challenges were key. Ultimately, teamwork and the ability to laugh throughout the journey brought her organization through a successful transition.

Listen to the podcast now to find out more about managing change when it's not only tough for the team, but for you as well.

With a team as important and hard-working as Accounts Payable, it is easy for members to feel overworked, overwhelmed, and unmotivated to come to work. As leaders, it's important to build our teams up, help them utilize unique communication strategies, and think outside the box in order to be efficient.

In this episode, we speak to Katie Noto, a Senior Manager of P2P at BDO USA, and delve into the intricacies of revitalizing team morale, optimizing efficiency without solely relying on automation, and appreciating the true value of your role in Accounts Payable.

Whether you're a team leader seeking to transform your workplace culture, a professional eager to streamline operations through a more holistic approach to efficiency, or simply someone who believes in the power of recognizing each individual's unique contributions, this episode is a must-listen.

Katie Noto is a Senior Manager of P2P at BDO USA and a busy working mom. Her passions are leadership, people, and numbers. She works daily to make P2P a profit center while inspiring her team to be the best versions of themselves.

IOFM receives a lot of questions about the process for correcting 1099 filings, and even whether a correction is necessary in the first place. In this podcast, we speak to Jason Dinesen about the circumstances under which it might be necessary to issue one. What if the recipient's name was spelled wrong? What if the dollar amount or a TIN number was incorrect? What if a check was never cashed? And what should your approach be for correcting a 1099 if the recipient simply requests it?

Jason also explains the importance of filing a correction by the deadline, and the method by which it must be filed, whether electronically or in paper form. He adds that the consequences of failing to correct errors or for issuing too many incorrect 1099s in the first place can result in fines for each mistake, an amount which can become consequential for a large organization that produces a lot of these forms.

Listen now to discover must-know information about how to meet your filing obligations and avoid the financial impact and IRS scrutiny that comes from non-compliance.

It's February, and romance is in the air! However, what you don't want is for a scammer to woo you into doing something you shouldn't. Unfortunately, fraudsters are always upping their game and developing new techniques to rip off unsuspecting AP professionals. Some of their latest gambits involve getting close to you on a personal level in order to get you to let your guard down.

In this fascinating podcast with Debra R. Richardson, vendor master file expert and certified fraud examiner, and Royce Grayson Morse, IOFM's managing editor, we explore sneaky new ways those looking to steal from your company attempt to lure you in. One of those techniques involves a form of social engineering called malicious elicitation. Here, the scammer gets information from you in what appears to be a completely innocent manner — but is instead a well-crafted ploy to get you to reveal company information that should be kept confidential.

Listen to the podcast to find out how one major company almost fell victim — and learn how to spot these scams.

Find out more about the latest "romance" scams:

• Debra Richardson's Romance Scam Resources (Debra's website, Putting the AP in hAPpy)
• Online Romance Scams Toolkit
• Elicitation — A Conversation With Intent
• The hottest new dating site: LinkedIn (Business Insider)
• Love Is in the Air And It's Full of Scammed Money (Kubikle series, YouTube video)
• A Lesson Learned From a 2020 Tesla Insider Threat (Debra R. Richardson podcast)
• Russian National Pleads Guilty After Trying to Hack a Human at Tesla (SecureWorld)

While the terms leadership and management are sometimes used interchangeably, there are important differences. IOFM recently spoke with Tracy Zurcher, District Manager at FedEx Ground, to get her thoughts on how to advance both within your organization.

She notes that while management tends to focus on process handling, leadership involves relationship building. Each practice requires different skills, but mastering both is the key to success. Focusing exclusively on management skills won't inspire optimal results — staff members may lack engagement and their performance may suffer as a result. And because people are the heart of an organization, understanding their needs and working to help them improve will ultimately result in greater employee motivation — which will also impact process improvement.

Zurcher discusses useful tools and techniques she's discovered during her years in management, offering a fun exercise to help others define their leadership styles. She also notes the useful philosophy put forth by the legendary Mr. Rogers and how that may be applied within the workplace.

Listen to this fascinating podcast to find out more.

When COVID hit, many Accounts Payable teams were unprepared, particularly if they relied on paper invoices and checks. Lynn Tate, APM, Accounts Payable & Expense Report Analyst for Urban Science Applications Inc., found herself in a situation that required a significant degree of creativity: In order to get her invoices approved and paid in a timely fashion, she needed to quickly find a way to manage them remotely.

What she settled on was a cloud-based file sharing service that enabled her to notify her teammates when there were invoices that needed review. She was able to alert them automatically, obtain the approvals and get the payments queued up for processing with minimal delay.

In this podcast, we'll not only discuss how she made this decision and got things set up — we'll explore the lessons she learned along the way and how the challenges of the pandemic actually ended up benefitting her process long-term.

"Upper management knows what you do … but they really don't know what you do." So says Patrick Kurtz, Client AP Manager for HomeRiver Group. He explains that although executives understand in principle what accounts payable involves, it's likely that they don't comprehend the day-to-day challenges of AP. While collecting metrics to present to the C-suite when making a case for automation is a helpful strategy, you must also be able to explain in concrete terms how that will play into process improvement.

Fear of change is also an important factor. Kurtz discusses how to analytically evaluate automation options to make sure you're recommending the best solution for your situation. The AP team may also be leery, worried about how it will impact their jobs — or that they may even be unemployed after implementation.

Listen in on this fascinating discussion between Kurtz and Grace Closta, IOFM's Content Manager, to discover how to approach automation in a way that makes sense for the organization while gaining buy-in from the key stakeholders, all the way up and down the chain.

Most organizations have non-U.S. vendors lurking in their vendor master files, but may not even realize it. Worse yet, some of those vendors may appear on the watchlists published by the U.S. government. Because doing business with these entities without proper due diligence regarding withholding — or even doing business with them at all — can result in steep fines and penalties, it's important to identify those vendors in order to maintain compliance. But where to begin?

Vendor master file expert consultant Debra R. Richardson discusses this issue with IOFM's Managing Editor Royce Grayson Morse, reviewing techniques that will help you identify foreign vendors you may not know you have. Once you find them, Richardson explains how to set them up properly and make sure you're managing them correctly going forward. That includes collecting the right tax form and checking them against the government blocked and prohibited lists, plus recovering VAT and GST taxes if you paid them.

Listen in on the podcast "Identifying Foreign Vendors in Your VMF — and What to Do When You Find Them," to discover best practices for managing these vendors in order to maintain compliance and avoid significant financial implications.

In his work as an educational consultant at Unimarket, Christopher Rust helps clients improve their P2P processes to realize cost savings while freeing up staff to make a greater contribution to the institution.

He recommends taking a thorough look at the impact of change management, both to the department and the institution overall. Moving contract management, procurement and AP into an electronic P2P environment relieves a lot of stress on the team and the typically heavy volume of transactions they must manage. The end goal is improved control of spend management, and for institutions that are research-based, improved compliance.

Rust provides suggestions about how to get started, including who to include on the project team and which functions to automate first, with the end goal being a free flowing, continuous improvement workflow in place of existing, disjointed manual processes. Tune in to this podcast to find out more about his strategy for tuning up P2P workflows.