I hope that you have enjoyed the article “How Purchasing Should Work With A/P.”

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If you are not convinced that improving Purchasing’s synergy with Accounts Payable should be a priority, consider the following scenarios:

• You’ve worked to negotiate an early payment discount from your supplier. As a result, you’ve included this early payment discount in your cost savings reports. At the end of the year, you are chastised for overstating your cost savings because the supplier’s invoices were never paid on time and the discounts never taken.
• You call a supplier on a Friday afternoon with an urgent order that, if not delivered when you need it, could cause a major operational disruption to your organization. The supplier refuses to ship and says that your organization has been placed on credit hold because it has not paid its invoices in 90 days.
• You have the goal of reducing maverick buying and use an eProcurement system to guide users to contracted suppliers. Yet, maverick buying is still in full force because users have found that sending supplier invoices to Accounts Payable with check request forms enables them to pay suppliers for orders placed outside of the system.

Still think establishing that Purchasing-Accounts Payable relationship isn’t important?