Recommend Strategy for Processing Invoices
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A summer intern project created by the Client Finance interns (2015) presented to the Catalyst Finance department and the CFO. The presentation includes current everyday issues at Catalyst and the negative impact it has on the company. Possible long- and short- term solutions are suggested as well as ideas on how to implement them in the office.
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Recommend Strategy for Processing Invoices
- 1. Recommending a Strategy Ideas for Today and Tomorrow
- 2. Goal and Objective Current Situation Consequences How did we get here? Available options Next steps Results Agenda
- 3. Warren Buffet In a letter to shareholders, 1989 “Time is the friend of the wonderful business, the enemy of the mediocre."
- 4. Goal and Objective Efficiently process invoices and bill clients in a timely manner. Ensure DDS insertions are up to date. Reduce late payments to vendors.
- 5. Current Situation Invoices are received without IWO numbers.
- 8. Current Situation Invoices are received without IWO numbers.. IWO numbers are not allocated on invoices.
- 9. Allocation of the Cost
- 10. Current Situation Invoices are received without IWO numbers. IWO numbers are not allocated on invoices. Frequently coming across missing invoices.
- 12. Consequences: Contracts are not entered.
- 13. How Did We Get Here? Lack of communication between all parties involved in issuing invoices and creating IWO. Original assumptions that are no longer valid. Lack of communication.
- 14. Available Options Create workflow charts accessible by all parties so everyone is aware of what is needed to get bills paid.
- 16. May June
- 17. Available Options Create workflow charts More organization in the invoice folders. Invoices are received without IWO numbers. Frequently coming across missing invoices. IWO numbers are not allocated on invoices.
- 20. Available Options Create workflow charts More organization Masterfile containing consistent IWOs.
- 21. Masterfile:
- 22. Available Options Create workflow charts More organization Masterfile
- 23. Next Steps: We should contact all account managers and send them a work flow chart. Emphasize the importance of properly created invoices. Undefined
- 24. September • Organize shared drive. • Create temporary master file. October • Create work flow chart with account managers. • Emphasize the importance of IWO numbers and properly created invoices. December • Continue to remind account managers to reference the work flow chart. Next Steps:
- 25. Results Up to date Less stress Good relationship and reputation Organized More time
- 26. “Time is the friend of the wonderful business, the enemy of the mediocre." Warren Buffet In a letter to shareholders, 1989
- 27. Christine Huynh Client Finance Intern Luke Marji Client Finance Intern
Editor's Notes
- We are client finance interns at Catalyst and we’ve been working here since July. We have come across several issues regarding accounts payable that we will discuss today. We will follow up with possible solutions to mitigate any issues carrying over into the future. Lastly, we will discuss the next steps that we believe Catalyst should take to implement these solutions.
- We will be going over what our goal and objectives were this summer The problems we’ve run into in our time here The cause and consequences to the problems Options that catalyst finance could take to mitigate any issues in the future How to implement the possible solutions And how this will be benefit catalyst
- Warren Buffet is trying to say that time isn't the enemy of a business if the business is efficient and error free. Because we come across several issues when doing account payables, we begin to loath time because we feel we run out of it. Once we can sort out these issues, time will be our friend.
- Luke: Here at Catalyst, we’re working Accounts Payables. And in doing so, we rely on a clear path with no errors. On the daily, we update insertions and do our best to reduce late payments.
- Luke: One of the biggest Issues we have here, is receiving invoices without IWOs. This causes many errors and a lot of time wasted. Without an IWO, it would be difficult to locate the CPE for our DDS insertion. Without a home for the dollar amount, its just money floating in the air.
- L: the negative impacts
- Luke
- LUKE: We receive many invoices without IWOs… as stated without an IWO; we are always emailing account managers for the information. This causes annoyance and frustration. We cannot do or job without the IWO. For every insertion, we need the CPE. LUKE: We need allocation to verify its accuracy so we know what amount was actually spend under which campaign
- Luke: If allocation isn’t given for various IWOs.. Why is it that we receive the allocation right away when asked for? Why cant they just be allocated already? More work for the Finance Team More unnecessary work = waste of time We don’t know what the Media team is doing it appears that the media team has all the costs so we don’t understand why this is an issue every month They can’t create the allocation beforehand (irrelevant slide)
- L: reasons for missing invoices could be: Marin or tech (in that case it’s our own fault), the campaign didn’t run and we weren’t notified, or the invoice is simply just missing.
- C: We contact the account managers to ask if the campaigns ran and if so, if we could get those sent to us. Here is an example of account managers not knowing how/where to get the invoices. These frequent email exchanges wastes the account managers time and our own and usually still ends with a missing invoice.
- Christine: Contracts aren’t entered in a timely manner This is because of the problems we’ve run into such as no IWO numbers, no allocations and missing invoices, causes the finance to focus their time on chasing account managers. This is what appears on Sharepoint when a contract is not entered. This happens when Catalyst Finance is backed up trying to hunt down IWO numbers from account managers When we are busy emailing account managers to send us allocations of invoices And when we’re busy emailing them to send us missing invoices. The extra time is also being wasted when explaining how to find the IWO numbers and how to find the missing invoices. This is an example of a snowball effect that effects Catalyst Finance the most.
- C: So how did we get to where we were? It is important to look how we came across these issues because it helps us find a feasible solution. 1) The lack of communication between account managers and the finance team could be a huge cause for these errors. The account managers could be unaware at how much an IWO can negatively effect the work flow for finance. 2) Because this is a growing company, at one point, things were probably more simple. Original assumptions may no longer be valid. There may have been little emphasis on the importance of IWO's in the past when there were fewer clients. 3) Again, with a growing company, processes may have changed to accommodate for more clients. Failing to inform everyone on the new requirements for processing invoices can lead to all the issues we run into. Condense notes
- Christine: A work flow chart is a great visual for projects that involve a lot of people. It is important to know your own process as well as how it effects others or how others effect you. Running campaigns for vendors is a team effort and all parties should know how their actions effect each other.
- Christine: This is a workflow chart I made, through the help of Arjun. Given more time, I would have liked to approach everyone involved in the work flow. This is something we could show account managers so they can see how their work effects us.
- Christine: This is an example of lack of communication and the severity it could have on Catalyst. This is a real example of Google invoices for Colgate campaigns that get billed to Catalyst. The first time I saw this invoice was in April and I contacted the account manager (because again, it's missing an IWO). The account manager told me that it was actually supposed to be rebilled to MEC. In my time here, I've seen this invoiced billed to Catalyst from April to July. For the two invoices shown above, which are May and June, that's $13,703.85 that has not been paid to Google. Now imagine that these invoices were actually for $90,000 and that rebilling issue continues for a year. That will be $1,080,000 that Google won't receive. This can cause tension between Catalyst's own employees as well as a bad reputation. And at worst, we could lose this client.
- Luke/Christine: The reason why the folders have recently become a little unorganized is because we are busy with finding missing IWO numbers, finding allocations, and finding missing invoices to worry about keeping the folders consistent and organized. Having organized folders saves a marginal amount of time, but in the long run, this adds up. This also will help alleviate any headaches of searching for numerous invoices in the shared folders for future interns or employees.
- LUKE Better organization of files. Better organization enhances search speed. Eliminates “eye spy” action. Compliments fast paced environment. Easily locate any required invoice.
- Luke
- Christine: Short term solution: In the case where we can't fix invoices missing IWO's, we could create a masterfile containing all the consistent ones. I found that the same campaigns that run month after month have the same IWO numbers. We could have a master file containing these so we don't have to email account managers every month just to receive the same answer. This is especially helpful for when Luke and I leave. We received numerous IWO numbers this summer and it’d be nice if everyone knew those numbers as well. However, if IWOs change, this can become messy if no one updates the masterfile. This would be temporary, because it is still not efficient.
- Christine
- CHRISTINE: Short term solution: In the case where we can't fix invoices missing IWO's, we could create a masterfile containing all the consistent ones. I found that the same campaigns that run month after month have the same IWO's. We could have a master file containing these so we don't have to email account managers every month just to receive the same answer. However, if IWOs change, this can become messy if no one updates the masterfile. This would be temporary, because it is still not efficient.
- LUKE:There may not necessarily be a prime solution, however it is important to minimize the errors. If errors continue: Miss Deadlines Create unwanted Stress Look bad to our clients Create a lot of flowing money with no home Creates frustration throughout Catalyst
- Christine
- Christine
- Christine