I am a giver; a man of the people. A problem solver of sorts.  I have come to the realization that the latest trendy word or acronym has not been coined by a  “professional” in the Accounts Payable space in a long time.  We all know the easy ones like Automation, Touchless Transactions, OCR, Content Management, etc…….Snore.  Well I am here to give the people what they want; a term to be used when credibility is paramount.  I Brandon Henderson will deliver the next Trendy AP word. How about “Simplicity”. It’s a good word, no?  We all want simplicity in our life.  Unfortunately we all know that invoices are not simple, the idea of an invoice is simple, but the 120 line item non po invoice, not so simple.   Ok, so simplicity is out.  But is it?  Can someone provide a method that provides a simple way to process invoices? That’s a different topic for another day.  I am here to brain storm, to provide Controllers across the this great country of ours the ability to use a word that makes them seem smarter than their CFO.  I am not here to talk about providing less complex technology that provides a real time view of expenditures and liabilities. I am not here to talk about the ability monitor invoice approval times and enforce compliance measures.  I am here to summarize. I am here to vocalize a word that will flip the AP world upside down. I am….drawing a blank right now. If “Simplicity” isn’t fitting, there is bound to be another word better suited for this task. Maybe I’ll think of something in the next few days…

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.