Improvements in Invoice Payment?

Could anyone give some feedback on why we run into this situation fairly frequently? Although most of our services (webinars, job listings) are paid by credit card, sometimes we do invoice. And what we have found is that if we are not in their system as a vendor, then the invoice gets "stuck". So what they will do is submit the invoice, but then the invoice just doesn't get processed. And they might submit it again, with the same result. So somehow, the information that we are not in the system and that is why it isn't getting processed doesn't flow back to the person inputting the invoice. And then there is no trigger to get back with the vendor to get the required information. So the invoice just gets lost until we call again to find out the status.

I'm sure they don't want to hear from vendors that there is an outstanding payment. And I'm sure the vendor wants to get paid, so have you all run into this situation, and do you know of a way to better handle it?

This is a typical scenario, Brent. Most onsite staff processing invoices would not forget about it, as they should be checking their systems to see that the invoice was paid monthly. At the very least, I keep a file with processed invoices which I check against sent checks, etc. Once I see a check was issued, I file the invoice. And that is about as basic as it gets. Second, no vendor can be paid without having been set up first. The invoice cannot even be submitted without having done this first and it is super simple to do (set up a new vendor.) Maybe there should not be an invoice at all. Don't most properties have credit cards? Mine does.

Thanks, Mindy. Yes, most properties pay via credit card, but some request to be invoiced. And this issue happens fairly regularly. If all systems require you to set up a company before submitting an invoice, I wonder if possibly our invoice got lost, and then when we bring it up, they then need to get us into the system, so they are just using that as an answer to why it wasn't before.

That is a tough one since each company has a different way of processing items. Our vendor set up requires forms and varies if you are an on-site or off site vendor. Additionally, we require all of our recurring vendors to be set up in an online invoicing system. Much of that set up is done through a third party provider which we have no oversight over.

None of our sites have credit cards. We have found the online invoicing system to be quite helpful in tracking outstanding expenditures. As checks are cut from the corporate office, the corporate office also provides a weekly Open Items List to our site teams. This list provides all site personnel with a list of outstanding invoices, outstanding purchase orders and exception errors that are occurring. This has helped a lot.

Thanks for sharing, Stacy! With so many platforms for handling invoices, my guess is that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to this.