The other day a colleague shared this story in Newsday discussing the shortage of social services case workers and increasing demands for assistance; it reminded me how little has changed since I was a social services case worker in the late 80′s. My job was to process applications for beneifts under the AFDC program, a federal program designed to provide cash and medical assistance to children when a parent is missing from the home. The challenge was to provide assistance to people who qualified while ensuring the integrity of the program by preventing fraud and complying with the regulations defined in the program charter.

Regulations provided 30 days to either approve or deny the case – but when there is only one parent, no child support, no income and the landlord is about to evict — 30 days might as well be an eternity. Every day we dealt with people whose well-being rested in the balance – based on whether or not we made a good decision. Decide wrong and a child goes without food or medical care. Decide wrong and someone who doesn’t meet the program criteria, or intentionally commits fraud, may receive benefits that can never be recovered. These overpayments deplete the assistance pool for qualified recipients, can result in expensive legal fees for prosecution, and always lead to higher costs for the taxpayers to fund. In social work, bad decisions are often catastrophic.

To further complicate an already complex process, people had found all sorts of inventive ways to cheat the system. So much time had to be devoted to mitigating potential fraud that it often did take 30 days just to check social security, see if the applicant was receiving benefits anywhere else, check IRS, DMV and child support records and so on.

While that program no longer exists, many others do — with similar levels of need, time sensitivity and complexity. Today, we have the benefit of tremendous technology; yet many states and counties still suffer from outdated systems and manual processes that prevent them from making good decisions in a timely fashion. It’s not that they enjoy inefficiency; it’s often that budgets and regulations provide for the services for constituents but not a good technical mechanism for delivering them. Many agencies are either faced with cobbling together a solution, relying on manual processes or developing a custom system – all are unworkable from the perspective of accuracy, immediacy or cost.

Meanwhile, the weak economy puts increasing pressure on programs as more people have need. Many programs find themselves lacking sufficient staff to meet growing demand.

This is why it’s so critical for social services to have access to technology that is cost-effective and easy to implement, operate and maintain. These organizations aren’t swimming in IT resources and don’t have the luxury to replace systems they use every day – many of which may be provided by other agencies and outside their control. Overlay technologies, like Prodagio Case Management, are the only viable option as they provide the benefit of keeping essential data correlated in one place and full audit capabilities so essential for transparency and compliance. When regulations change, as they frequently do, these systems can be quickly updated for the new rules. These technologies help agencies balance the needs of constituents with the fiduciary responsibility to make good decisions; and that enables the best outcomes for everyone involved.

Field reports from IAPP have been full of interesting trends and buzz. The edgy and dark side of the conference is most participants feel the pressure to innovate or be outsourced. From our perspective, we have built the right products for managers to innovate and transform AP into a strategic financial management tool, instead of a commodity to be outsourced. Here is a quick recap of the show and how our products can help AP to capitalize on current trends:

1. Supplier Interaction – We think this awareness is more that timely. We are getting more interest in our Prodagio VSS product – Vendor Self Service. A few of our customers are starting to view themselves as customer service centers or at least are looking to that industry for the best practices on how to effectivley manage vendors in real-time. The solution logic is strong – push the responsibility for invoice entry out to your suppliers. This increases accuracy and lowers operating cost, but more importantly creates a automated vehicle to engage in Dynamic Supplier Management.
2. Linking Contracts with AP and Procurement - Another trend is linking AP with contracts. Prodagio has long seen this linkage in contracts and is the reason behind our investment in Prodagio Contracts.
3. Scanning or e-Invoicing – Sounds like the current trend is to do one or the other, but not both because of the time and cost involved. We built our Entry Channel Rules technology to handle transactions from any source so our customers are not limited by invoice ingestion technologies.
4. Dynamic Supplier Management – As we discussed in our webcast “An invoice is a demand on your cash” in February, the huge opportunity exists for companies to create a real-time linkage between AP and cash Management. Prodagio Analytics makes identifying these opportunities easy and Prodagio AP allows you to take immediate action.

More to come.

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,” once remarked Ralph Waldo Emerson. I never truly understood that remark until I went golfing one cold October morning some years ago. A neighbor of mine was moving; let’s call him Stan. A few neighbors and I decided to treat Stan to a last round of golf.

The evening before our round a cold front dropped in, pushing temperature into the lower 50s with some stiff winds from the West, making the wind chill in 30s. In Dallas, this would be considered unseasonably cold, but not extraordinary. Being overly practical, I decided to dress in layers to keep warm, including two shirts, a pull-over, a jacket and a knit hat – in short, the Dallas version of Ralphie’s brother from “A Christmas Story”.

When I showed up in the morning, everyone else had dressed just as sensibly, except Stan. He had on shorts, a ball cap and long sleeve shirt. When asked why he wore shorts, he replied, “I always wear shorts when I golf.” As the morning wore on, and the wind took its toll on any exposed skin, Stan was consistently seeking relief behind any large mass. On some holes, the only cover was the lip of a sand trap, and Stan would lie on the ground behind the trap as we all putted out. Then on 17th hole, a large gust of wind took Stan’s ball cap and deposited into the water hazard with Stan doggedly chasing his lucky cap. As he stood in the middle of the water in his shorts, ringing out his cap, shivering and beet red from wind burn, I suddenly understood what a foolish consistency was.

Last week, I remembered this story and subsequent realization when I was talking to one of our sales managers. He was explaining his frustration with a prospect that was considering using a big ERP for Accounts Payable because they “always buy big ERP”. The company agrees that value proposition was superior, there was a proven ROI, user satisfaction was higher and the overall cost was lower. Yet, they are still wrestling with the decision because of a foolish consistency.

In my career, this is not the first time I have heard this reasoning, and it really begs the questions, where are you approaching things the same way because it has always been that way? The current environment is the perfect time to challenge those long held rules of thumb and conventions. And, make decision based on value and not convention. So ask yourself, “Where are my foolish consistencies?”

Apr 08, 2009 08:30 ET

Prodagio Analytics for AP Provides Dynamic Linkage Between Liabilities and Cash

Imagitek, Ltd. Releases Real-Time Cash Management Dashboard for Accounts Payable

HOUSTON, TX–(Marketwire – April 8, 2009) – Imagitek, Ltd., developer of world-class Prodagio™ Software business applications for accounts payable, vendor self service, case management and contracts management, today announced the release of Prodagio Analytics for AP. This software application is designed to give companies a real-time linkage between pending liabilities and cash. With this information, financial executives can make dynamic decisions on how to best prioritize payments, manage strategic vendors and capture the most early payment discounts, and these decisions can be incorporated into their AP department’s workflow in real-time.

“In this economy, one of the few things companies can control is cash. Executives must be able to make strategic decisions on how to optimize spend based on current cash position. Until now, there has been no simple way to have essential information in real-time. Prodagio Analytics for AP brings real-time business intelligence to Accounts Payable,” said Mara Henderson, president, Imagitek, Ltd.

The new module provides a best practice set of standard views for financial executives like CFOs and Controllers. This release comes on the heels of Prodagio AP 4.4, which included a new scheduled invoice template and many improvements to its Prodagio Vendor Self Service. “The Prodagio AP platform provides a consolidated view of liabilities across all systems and organizations, regardless of locations, currencies or underlying ERP systems,” states Pete Stevens, director of Prodagio product marketing. “With our Analytics product and AP platform, financial executives can transform AP from just transaction savings into strategic cash tool.”

Prodagio Analytics for AP will be demonstrated in Orlando, Florida, at the International Account Payables Professionals conference, April 19-23, 2009.

About Imagitek, Ltd.

Imagitek, Ltd., an Altran company, is a provider of off-the-shelf business applications that work seamlessly with content management and ERP systems. Imagitek’s flagship Prodagio Software delivers best-in-class applications for accounts payable, case management, contracts management and vendor self service. Established in 1982, Altran is recognized as a global leader in innovation and consulting with annual revenues exceeding US $2.1 billion. For more information, visit http://www.prodagio.com/.

Prodagio Software products have just been included in two new industry analyst reports by Gartner and Forrester. Both firms list Prodagio Contracts as a leading offering in the Contracts Management space. In their latest research, Forrester has recognized our ability to provide both the benefits of content management and transactional contract capabilities.

Forrester Research – Prodagio Contracts

Predictions 2009: ePurchasing Market, Andrew Bartels, 30 March 2009.

“Imagitek leverages its EMC Documentum relationship to move into CLM. Imagitek has had an offering in the EIPP space for a number of years with its Prodagio A/P product. In 2005, it added a CLM product, Prodagio Contracts, to its procure-to-pay suite. Prodagio Contracts has 30 clients, including global, publicly traded corporations, state and local governments, and international clients. The product includes a flexible data model, business processes, integration technology, and an enterprise content management component built on EMC Documentum. As a result, the product combines contract terms-and-conditions architecture for integration with transaction systems and clause-level control over contract creation, negotiation, and management of contract obligations with the leverage of a leading ECM platform. Imagitek has also recognized the SaaS trend and delivers both hosted and on-premise solutions.”

Gartner – Prodagio AP

Procurement and the Oracle E-Business Suite, Debbie Wilson, 5 March 2009.

Gartner highlights Imagitek as a best-of-breed alternative to Oracle’s Procurement Applications. Prodagio Software is particularly relevant against Oracle in situations where multiple ERPs and backend systems exist or for shared services where consolidation across business units is required.