Your disaster recovery plans deserve to be reassessed.

November 18, 2014 Lynn Larson

From a purchasing and payments view, is your organization prepared to respond to a disaster? What is the plan? Paula Cooper* realized her employer had overlooked many details. Could this be you?

Within the disaster plans, Paula’s organization had identified Purchasing Cards as the primary payment vehicle. Procurement staff would be responsible for the majority of emergency purchases; most already had a card. Paula, as the program manager, would simply increase their limits. Not so fast…

Ask Detailed Questions

Would procurement’s P-Cards be accessible when disaster strikes, including nights and weekends? Where did they store the cards?
What, exactly, would procurement staff need to buy? Would it vary, depending on the disaster?
Would they be able to handle all the purchasing needs or would others need to assist?
If additional cards are needed, how quickly will the issuer respond?
How would the card controls need to change? How high should the limits be? Should all MCC restrictions be removed?

To resolve these details, Paula recommended they conduct needs assessments. She was also concerned that her organization had never discussed disaster planning and recovery with the card issuer. Their contract did not mention it.

*To uphold her organization's confidentiality, Paula Cooper is not her real name.

Reassess your disaster plans to ensure all key points have been addressed.

Work with Your Issuer

Paula made a list of items to address with their card issuer, including:

the results of her organization's needs assessments
how to ensure swift responses by the issuer during a disaster
potential for increasing the organization spend limit to accommodate disaster purchases
how to prevent unusual purchases from getting declined at crucial times

Communication is Critical

Finally, Paula learned that individual departments were also devising their own purchasing plans in the event of a disaster. One cardholder asked if he could share his card with his manager, who would need to make purchases, too. The lack of internal coordination and communication was immediately evident.

What Can You Improve?

If your organization is like Paula’s, there is room for improvement concerning emergency preparedness. Access the related webpage for more on this topic.

About the Author

Blog post author Lynn Larson, CPCP, is the founder of Recharged Education. With more than 15 years of Commercial Card experience, her mission is to make industry education readily accessible to all. Learn more…

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Four tips for repaving the path to P-Card success.

November 11, 2014 Lynn Larson

How do you take a leadership role and drive Commercial Card program success, especially if you lack card experience? Obtain tips from a pro who has been there and done that. Tiffany Lovelace, CPCP, Kansas City Southern, has taken a P-Card program from stagnant to sensational, including 150% growth in volume over four years! Following are her words, which are part of a three-page series about her journey and card program transformation.

Make Use of Your Unique Skills

If you have inherited a program, but lack direct card experience, don’t let that be a barrier to success. Embrace your inherent skill sets and transition them to the world of Commercial Card payments. I had no experience in Commercial Card payments or in the accounts payable arena. What I did possess was the knowledge and fortitude to successfully evaluate and market programs and products.

Build Strong Relationships

Build strong and consultative relationships with: (1) other organizations within the Commercial Card space, (2) your issuer and (3) internal peers.

Humility is a good thing. While you may have moved mountains in your previous positions, leaning on industry experts, admitting you do not have all the answers, and exerting the willingness to educate yourself will help pave the way for success.

Break the barriers standing in the way of your success and that of the card program.

Sync Up Your Strategy

We have a saying in our department: If it makes sense, do it. Our organization was willing to rethink how we utilize Commercial Card products and services. We created program goals and objectives to be in sync with accounts payable, strategic sourcing and treasury, as all three business functions are critical elements, contributing to the overall program success.

Market, Market, Market

My expertise in marketing provided the opportunity for our team and super users to become an extension of our issuer’s account management team. We launched surveys, formed focus groups, and created process maps to unveil issues plaguing our program. With this new-found knowledge, we birthed a new program and crafted targeted messages for our marketing campaign to promote solutions across our organization.

Read the complete series to gain additional tips from Tiffany.

About the Author

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Recast your ballot: Does BIP or SIP win your vote?

November 3, 2014 Lynn Larson

Given the various candidates, how do you choose an ePayables solution that will best serve your needs? As with voting in a political election, you do not want buyer’s remorse later. If you think of ePayables as a two-party system, the two major options are buyer-initiated payments (BIP) and supplier-initiated payments (SIP), with possibly some independents sprinkled in. Which one is right for you?

One Provider’s Opinion

I asked Bora Payment Systems LLC (“Bora”), a business-to-business BIP solution provider, about their views. Of course they campaign for what they offer, but they were also quick to point out that the “best” AP system is one that:

matches the needs of the buying organization and
meets any existing contractual terms with suppliers

Bora explained certain end-user (payer) and supplier (payee) attributes that often lend themselves to one option or the other. For example, consider your annual AP card spend (actual or targeted) and the frequency of payments to each supplier.

SIP can be a good choice if annual AP card spend is less than $5 million and there are many non-recurring payments to suppliers. Conversely, BIP is ideal when 10% to 20% of suppliers receive 80% to 90% of payments. Per Bora, end-users who benefit from BIP include healthcare/medical organizations, universities, large corporations, etc.

Read the complete input provided by Bora.

Rock-paper-scissors is no way to decide your payment strategy. Do your research and then demonstrate your support for what best meets your organization's needs.

ePayables In Review

With an ePayables solution, the end-user organization receives and approves a supplier’s invoice through its established processes. In this way, it mirrors a traditional purchase-to-pay process, making it different than a streamlined P-Card process. Following invoice approval, the end-user initiates payment to the supplier through its card issuer/provider, usually by providing a “payment instruction file” or similar. Then, depending on the specific solution (some providers offer more than one), the supplier either:

processes a charge transaction for the approved amount to a designated Virtual Card account number; this reflects the supplier-initiated payment (SIP) option or
receives payment directly through the card rails and its merchant account, which is reflective of buyer-initiated payments (BIP)

Learn more...

What Do You Think?

Do you agree with Bora's input? What else would you add about BIP versus SIP? I encourage you to comment below. Please do not bash a particular provider or solution!