How to simplify an overly complicated accounts payable system
February 24, 2016 6:15 PM Subscribe
How can I make an overly overly complicated accounts payable system easier to use and understand?
My company instituted a new purchase order and payment system almost two years ago. This system has caused a lot of frustration and added workload for my co-workers and me. The complexities are:
1) Technical issues creating purchase orders.
2) A huge lack of clarity around how our suppliers should submit invoices - they can't email or mail invoices any longer. Instead, they either need to mail invoices to a new shared service center, or if they sign up for a specific e-invoicing website they can only submit invoices there. And there may be more changes that haven't been formally communicated yet.
3) Even our suppliers who understand how to use the e-invoicing website have technical issues.
4) The shared service centers we use give us very technical responses that my co-workers don't understand, or untimely responses, and sometimes are quite rude.
Often times our suppliers bypass the shared service centers and come straight to us for answers, saying they're not getting answers to their questions or don't understand the shared service center. And, some suppliers threaten to cut off business with us until their invoice issues are dealt with - which is extremely disruptive to deal with.
Since I am in finance, I've become a default go to person to resolve issues for my co-workers. But these issues are so specific and require so much follow up that I can't keep up with them (and this isn't the core function of my job anyway). I want to give guidance to my co-workers to help them be self-sustaining, but with all the intricacies and lack of clarity, I am not sure how to do this. My immediate thoughts are to:
1) Elevate issues to someone at our parent company who should explain or answer questions. It has been very difficult to find someone to answer and support us in the past, but I want to try again.
2) Prepare a 2-3 page FAQ document for my coworkers to help them resolve common issues on their own.
Would those be helpful? What else could be helpful?
My company instituted a new purchase order and payment system almost two years ago. This system has caused a lot of frustration and added workload for my co-workers and me. The complexities are:
1) Technical issues creating purchase orders.
2) A huge lack of clarity around how our suppliers should submit invoices - they can't email or mail invoices any longer. Instead, they either need to mail invoices to a new shared service center, or if they sign up for a specific e-invoicing website they can only submit invoices there. And there may be more changes that haven't been formally communicated yet.
3) Even our suppliers who understand how to use the e-invoicing website have technical issues.
4) The shared service centers we use give us very technical responses that my co-workers don't understand, or untimely responses, and sometimes are quite rude.
Often times our suppliers bypass the shared service centers and come straight to us for answers, saying they're not getting answers to their questions or don't understand the shared service center. And, some suppliers threaten to cut off business with us until their invoice issues are dealt with - which is extremely disruptive to deal with.
Since I am in finance, I've become a default go to person to resolve issues for my co-workers. But these issues are so specific and require so much follow up that I can't keep up with them (and this isn't the core function of my job anyway). I want to give guidance to my co-workers to help them be self-sustaining, but with all the intricacies and lack of clarity, I am not sure how to do this. My immediate thoughts are to:
1) Elevate issues to someone at our parent company who should explain or answer questions. It has been very difficult to find someone to answer and support us in the past, but I want to try again.
2) Prepare a 2-3 page FAQ document for my coworkers to help them resolve common issues on their own.
Would those be helpful? What else could be helpful?
Wait, to clarify: do you want to simplify the system itself or provide a simplified explanation for your co-workers?
posted by Tevin at 10:17 PM on February 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Tevin at 10:17 PM on February 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
> Wait, to clarify: do you want to simplify the system itself or provide a simplified explanation for your co-workers?
I agree with the above and would only add: Pick one, because as one person you can't do both.
posted by mosk at 10:27 PM on February 24, 2016
I agree with the above and would only add: Pick one, because as one person you can't do both.
posted by mosk at 10:27 PM on February 24, 2016
Response by poster: Clarification: I would like to provide a simplified explanation to my coworkers so that they are clear on how the process should work. This would include guidance on what to do it the system is broken.
posted by watrlily at 2:53 AM on February 25, 2016
posted by watrlily at 2:53 AM on February 25, 2016
Best answer: OK.
This is kind of hard to answer because a lot of it depends on your team and how they communicate. A FAQ would be helpful to a certain kind of person (self included) but would leave others in the cold (eg, they like verbal verification). So long as there is at least someone who would use it and it would save you more time than it takes to create, I would make a FAQ that addresses specific problems.
Additionally, I would get on the horn with all the support staff I could get a hold of when problems came up and find out who exactly I needed to speak to for each specific problem. Yes, this is a monstrous pain in the ass. But if you find out, for example, that you need to talk to Victor when purchase orders aren't getting verified, but you need to talk to Marissa when users are getting "TERMINATE SESSION" error messages, you can point your co-workers to those names and say they're the experts, they have the best answers. This is a pain in the ass because it will take a lot of talking, cajoling, voicemails, and emails to get that kind of dramatis personae together but it's tremendously helpful. It establishes names to problems and it helps your staff develop relationships with the support staff.
I would also encourage staff to report problems (with short emails, on a shared spreadsheet, etc) with as much information as possible about every complaint or problem and compile all the data into a small report that lays the problem out in such a way that obviously reads "this is wasting tremendous amounts of time and money and here's what we need to fix it." Even if your solution is "have better communication with designated support staff" it might be enough to get something moving.
Sorry you have to deal with this; it sounds like a huge PITA. Hope this helps!
posted by Tevin at 2:02 PM on February 25, 2016
This is kind of hard to answer because a lot of it depends on your team and how they communicate. A FAQ would be helpful to a certain kind of person (self included) but would leave others in the cold (eg, they like verbal verification). So long as there is at least someone who would use it and it would save you more time than it takes to create, I would make a FAQ that addresses specific problems.
Additionally, I would get on the horn with all the support staff I could get a hold of when problems came up and find out who exactly I needed to speak to for each specific problem. Yes, this is a monstrous pain in the ass. But if you find out, for example, that you need to talk to Victor when purchase orders aren't getting verified, but you need to talk to Marissa when users are getting "TERMINATE SESSION" error messages, you can point your co-workers to those names and say they're the experts, they have the best answers. This is a pain in the ass because it will take a lot of talking, cajoling, voicemails, and emails to get that kind of dramatis personae together but it's tremendously helpful. It establishes names to problems and it helps your staff develop relationships with the support staff.
I would also encourage staff to report problems (with short emails, on a shared spreadsheet, etc) with as much information as possible about every complaint or problem and compile all the data into a small report that lays the problem out in such a way that obviously reads "this is wasting tremendous amounts of time and money and here's what we need to fix it." Even if your solution is "have better communication with designated support staff" it might be enough to get something moving.
Sorry you have to deal with this; it sounds like a huge PITA. Hope this helps!
posted by Tevin at 2:02 PM on February 25, 2016
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Sure, some of the people you're trying to help will consult an FAQ, but it's not going to be a cure-all.
posted by jon1270 at 8:45 PM on February 24, 2016 [1 favorite]