Best Practices

This is actually a trick question…the answer depends on what you are spending your time discussing when you are with your suppliers. This is one of the topics we queried finance and Accounts Payable (AP) executives in our soon to be released Ardent Partner’s 2018 ‘State of ePayables’ market research report. The results were quite [...]

It is generally agreed that ePayables automation includes three distinct processes – 1) Receive, 2) Process, and 3) Pay. There is value to an organization in automating each part of the process, and some organizations, when they start an Accounts Payable (AP) automation project, know exactly how, and in which order, they are going to [...]

Last week, Ardent’s Research Director, Bob Cohen, and I met with Ernest Rolfson, the Founder & CEO of B2B payment network provider, Finexio. During our call we discussed some of the challenges that Accounts Payable (AP)/Finance leaders face today, and some of the things that Finexio is doing to help solve these challenges for its [...]

The way enterprises do business has changed significantly over the past 15 years and these shifts are reflected in the way ePayables and P2P solution providers go to market today. Historically, Accounts Payable (AP) was seen as a back-office function within the enterprise, and a very tactical one at that. Procurement, on the other hand, [...]

The emergence of innovative technologies in recent years has the potential to radically alter the way business is done. And, as enterprises intensify their focus on optimizing internal processes, modern Accounts Payable (“AP”) teams are better positioned to advance beyond their transactional past. The way that businesses have gained intelligence from data has evolved and [...]

Supply Chain Finance (SCF) is something that we are being asked about much more today than we have in the past. Many of the practitioners we speak with have heard the term Supply Chain Finance, but are not exactly sure how, and if, it pertains to them, and if it is something they need to [...]

Last week I presented on a webinar with Zycus entitled ‘Design Thinking: Top Strategies for P2P Success’. The webinar contained some excellent practical and useful information that I thought would make for the basis of a good article. The webinar kicked off with an overview of the state of ePayables in 2018 and then went [...]

Throughout my career, I’ve worked with hundreds of companies looking to automate their Accounts Payable operations. Typically, the organizations are drowning in paper, suffering from manual, time-consuming, costly, error-prone processes with little or no real visibility into outstanding liabilities and limited to no cash management practices in place. When I’ve engaged these organizations they almost [...]

The development of a Best-in-Class P2P program takes, among other things, sponsorship, effort, collaboration, vision, expertise, and a supporting technology infrastructure. Superior program design also remains a critical element in the speed and level of P2P excellence and financial agility that is ultimately achieved. With that in mind, please join Ardent Partners’ Founder & Chief [...]

I spent the better part of last week at SAP Ariba Live in Las Vegas with fellow Ardent Partners’ analysts Andrew Bartolini and Matthew York and wanted to share my thoughts and impressions of the event. The conference was well attended with over 3,200 participants, making it the largest procurement or spend management event in North [...]