One of the more important jobs of the accounts payable professional is keeping up with what is happening in the industry at large. This is critical for a few reasons, including skills development and the hunt for new technologies, but is sometimes difficult to do. That is why, each week, the team at Payables Place collects news stories and announcements on the people, companies, and events that can have the biggest impact on the accounts payable team; this cuts down on the amount of time that the AP professional needs to spend keeping up to date and makes it easier to get back to the task at hand—driving strategic value for the organization.
This week in payables news includes a few developments: Invoiceware and Lexmark signed a major partnership, the FBI says wire transfer fraud is booming, and Bottomline Technologies recently achieved Prompt Payment Code certification. Read on to find out more about these and all the other impactful news from around the accounts payable world.
Invoiceware International and Lexmark Announce Partnership to Simplify Latin American Compliance
In early August, Invoiceware International announced that it had inked a partnership deal with Lexmark (NYSE: LXK) to help multinational enterprises optimize their accounts payable (AP) processes and more easily comply with Latin American electronic invoicing and tax compliance regulations. The partnership blends Invoiceware’s experience navigating the constantly shifting waters of Latin American electronic invoicing mandates with Lexmark’s skills at automating financial processes for large enterprises. The combination of these two solutions will thus allow multinational enterprises to easily keep abreast of Latin American regulatory/compliance issues while also automating their AP workflows.
This is a smart move for both solution providers in the long run. Eight Latin American countries are currently in the process of enforcing eInvoicing mandates, including Mexico and Brazil, and the requirements to be in compliance change all the time. Invoiceware has built its business on the back of taking a regional approach to eInvoicing compliance in Latin America, which has tended to work in its favor. Similarly, Lexmark has gained a strong position in the scan and capture market in recent months, and this new partnership will only serve to further differentiate its offerings.
Bottomline Certified for Prompt Payment Code
Bottomline Technologies announced this week that it had been independently certified against the UK’s Prompt Payment Code regulations. The Prompt Payment Code is the UK’s version of President Obama’s SupplierPay, but with an oversight board and the legal standing to actually investigate if a signatory to the payment code does not actually fulfill its obligations. Getting certified like this is intended as a sign that a particular company is committed to paying all suppliers within 60 days and working toward shrinking that to 30 days over time.
The certification shows that Bottomline has made a commitment to clear communication with suppliers in regards to the contracted payment schedule, including not trying to retroactively extend payment terms. Achieving this certification does not directly affect Bottomline’s business, except from the perspective of shoring up its brand image and maybe having a slight impact on its days payable outstanding (DPO). In that respect, receiving Prompt Payment Code certification means that Bottomline can advise other companies on how to do the same—and also help its clients pay their suppliers faster. Regardless of what direct impact the certification has, the positive press alone is reason enough.
Medius Continued Its Growth Journey in H1 2015
Medius announced this week it had experienced significant growth in the first half of 2015, with results including 70 new clients and a new CEO in Per Åkerberg. Over 90% of new sales were in the cloud in the first half of the year, which also included 155 clients going live with new Medius implementations. Åkerberg, the former Readsoft executive, joined the Sweden-based AP automation solution provider in June and has presided over the last few months of growth in the company’s market penetration.
These results are good news for Medius, which first launched its cloud offering in 2009. The company appears positioned to take advantage of a growing worldwide push toward eInvoicing, and has so far reaped the benefits of more organizations worldwide looking to automate their AP process. It will be interesting to see if Medius continues this growth trajectory.
FBI: Savvy, Crafty Wire Transfer Fraud is Booming
InfoSecurity magazine reported this week the FBI’s words of warning about business email compromise (BEC) fraud, which so far has resulted in actual and attempted losses of more than a billion dollars worldwide. BEC fraud involves hackers replicating an email message from a senior executive and securing a wire transfer from accounts payable (AP) to a dummy account. The average loss BEC victims experience, according to InfoSecurity, is around $130,000. One company lost $737,000 when an accountant wired money to an account that a scammer included in a false email from the company’s CEO. As a way to guard against this type of fraud, the FBI suggests including two-factor authentication in wire transfers as well as verifying changes in vendor payment location and confirming fund-transfer requests.
Wire transfer fraud can be a serious problem if end-users are not careful. Scammers are becoming increasingly savvier as technology proliferates, which requires enterprises to maintain constant vigilance when it comes to their supplier transactions. The FBI’s suggestions are good first steps to securing the B2B payments infrastructure against a fraud that is so well-researched many employees may not even know they have been scammed until after the fact. In this new world of global trade, protecting assets becomes even more important.
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