Latest / Putting the AP in hAPpy / Episode 228: Debra R Richardson and Angela Sarno Discuss a Whole In-Person Day Dedicated to the Vendor Master File - and It’s At No Cost To You (With CPEs Too!)

Transcript

Episode 228: Debra R Richardson and Angela Sarno Discuss a Whole In-Person Day Dedicated to the Vendor Master File - and It’s At No Cost To You (With CPEs Too!) · Putting the AP in hAPpy

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Hello everyone, this is Deborah Richardson, and today I am putting the AP in Happy, where accounts payable teams are empowered to protect the vendor master file from fraud.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: This podcast will give a voice to accounts payable team members by talking about the growing reality of cyber attacks in their world, and which vendor set up and vendor management techniques they can apply to protect the vendor master file from fraud.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Visit the vendor process training center to enroll in your choice of 55 plus training sessions that will help you and your team avoid fraud, compliance, fines, and bad vendor data, or just sign up to get access to vendor process FAQs, and to attend weekly drop-in live QNA sessions.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Visit training deborah r richardson.com today.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: The link will be in the show notes.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: One day I received an email from Angela Sarno.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Now Angela and I have worked together on a 60 minute webinar and some other things in the past, right on vendor maintenance activities.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: But now what is she doing?
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Planning a full day in-person conference on the vendor master file and it's no cost, and they feed us with CPEs.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: If you wanna hear what's included, who else is coming, what you can learn and more with all the passion that both Angela and I have for the vendor process, then keep listening.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Welcome to episode 228, Debra R.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Richardson and Angela Sarno discuss a whole in-person day dedicated to the vendor master file.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: And it's at no cost to you with CPEs too.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: So today I have with me Miss Angela Sarno, and I am so excited because like me, she is just very passionate about the vendor setup and maintenance process.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: And so I'll let, uh, Angela I'll let you come on and just tell the listeners all about your background and then also about payment works.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: Awesome.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me, Deborah.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: Uh, longtime listener, first time caller,.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Be good.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: My name is Angela Sarno.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: I'm the VP of marketing at Payment Work.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: So, but prior to that, I headed up our customer success team.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: I've been here about four years, and you come to your fandom of vendor maintenance and setup, uh, by way of doing it.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: I'm an outsider who's been a convert to the appreciation for this whole process.
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: Uh, my background is in marketing and customer success for software, um, and hardware mostly focused on higher education and public sector.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: And I know particularly in those two worlds that you have people who are dedicated stewards, like they're there taking care of taxpayer money or taking care of student tuition money, and everybody wants to do the best job that they can.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: And in my time at cust with customer success at Payment Works where we are, it's probably helpful to say we're a digital vendor onboarding solution platform that can do a lot of third party checks and get rid of a lot of the manual processes, um, and also help implement some bigger strategies around compliance, diversity, um, payable strategy even.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: But the folks who are actually like the guardians of the vendor master file, I think they, they need hero status for what they're being asked to do by their organizations.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: And this is where you and I could probably talk for about four episodes worth of your podcast, but the Herculean effort they put into getting everything right, because they know the downstream effects or problems that can happen if it's not right.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: I just see them trying so hard, I see the stress that they're under.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: I see how it's almost impossible to meet the speed that their business wants to work at.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: And I just wanna start shadow for the rooftops that these people need, uh, more resources, uh, probably bigger paychecks, and, and, and more authority to do the important job that they're doing.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: So that's why I'm very excited to be talking to you about that today.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and thank you.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: And I will tell you too, that if you are a convert from the outside, right?
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: Not an insider actually doing the work and feeling the, um, what do you call that?
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: The pressure, the non respect, you know, just hurry up and get it done.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: It should be easy, right?
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: Being a convert from outside of that process, that's much harder.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: Which means you're probably, you know, right there with me, with being as passionate if not more about this vendor onboarding and maintenance, uh, process.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: I know you and I have worked together in the past, we've done a webinar together to talk about what payment work does, and you've explained it with the intro, so thank you for that.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: But I know, right, that I've actually registered on your Payment Works platform as a vendor for two of my clients.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: And so I gotta tell you, I was, uh, I like the fact that, you know, you're getting that information out of email, right?
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: And we know, we both know the risks that are involved in email with, with, uh, the fraud.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: So I, I will just say that it's just an understatement that we are both passionate about the vendor process, me with the manual process and just trying to help the vendor team, you know, get out from that stress of accepting information via email, the vendor setup information via email, and then you with working with the clients to try to do just that with your Payments Works platform.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: Yes, you, you talked about it that in, in most worlds, in most organizations worlds, their vendor onboarding process is in large part a manual process.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: You are collecting via unsecure channels, all sorts of really sensitive stuff.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: And of course we care a lot about business payments fraud, vendor impersonation, fraud, which is not going anywhere and getting more and more impressively sophisticated as the days go by.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: Um, but there's also just so many risks in terms of your business goals.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: Uh, if you can't move with the speed to support it, if you have internal compliance initiatives around, let's say diverse spending or making sure conflicts of interest are filled, all of these things are another step that's usually manual.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: And folks might say, I'm using a supplier onboarding tool to collect it.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: That's, that's great, but how are you vetting it?
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: I betcha that's manual.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: I bet you're calling out to tin check.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: I bet you're going out to double check that insurance.
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: Like all of these things, has it expired, has it not a human has to do?
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: And the amount of time that takes and the discipline it takes to always be right, the pressure it takes to always be right is, is, is enormous.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: So we're, we're both passionate about taking that, um, pressure off the person and making them more strategic than tactical because we know the value of what's in that vendor master file.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: And so, I mean, that's why we've talked in the past and that's why we've recently, um, invited you to be our keynote speaker at our very first event that's coming up.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: Uh, once we started putting it together.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: I thought of you immediately
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: And I appreciate that.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: And I cannot wait.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: By the way,
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: , I'm pr I'm pr you know, we're very excited too.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: It's, um, yes, we're geeking out over this, but on April 12th, 2023, we are having a day long in-person event, which is devoted to the strategic importance of the vendor master file.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: My personal sort of O K R objective and key result Angela's work, one for this year is to get everybody in an organization to appreciate the value of inputting data to their vendor master file and what it means downstream.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: And I know you have dedicated your whole consulting career to making people appreciate this effort.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: So we have this lineup where you're keying, um, along the way and I'll let you talk a little bit more about that.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: But tell me what you thought when I did invite you to, um, keynote at a whole day about the vendor master file.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: Um, so the first thing is that I thought, wait a minute, someone's doing a whole day event.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: Like all the topics are on the vendor master file.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: So I'm like, you know, they can't, the listeners can't see us now, but we are both cheesing from like ear to ear cause we love this.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: And that's, I was just so surprised to even get that because the vendor master file and the activities to onboard vendors and to maintain those vendors to make sure that their information remains accurate, right?
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: Is just so undervalued.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: You talked about that and the fact that right, we're gonna have a whole day of this is just absolutely wonderful.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: And I've, I've gone to conferences before, I've spoke at conferences before on ap on procure to pay and the vendor maintenance, you know, activity or breakout session is one little one that, you know, is part of like the 50 whatever, um, breakout sessions.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: And so I love the fact that, uh, again, this is dedicated to the vendor master file and I do wanna say, right, that you invited me to be the lunchtime keynote speaker and I'm thinking, what the heck's a lunchtime keynote speaker?
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: But okay, we'll go with that.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: It's still a day on the vendor t or you know, on the vendor master file.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: And so I thought, hey, why don't I, you know, have some training on getting a vendor policy, right?
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: Because all, all the clients that I work with, the vendor policy, like how you onboard vendors, how you maintain'em, it's just one little paragraph and the account's payable right policy.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: And I thought, okay, I do, I'll do that.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: And so I sent it off to you and you sent it back and said, Hey, quit teaching.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: You need to be more dramatic.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: And I thought, okay, you want me to say what I really think they should be doing with the vendor Dean?
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: That's the keynote.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: That's the keynote there is.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: Alright, so you talked about it here and this is where you and I could talk all day.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: You talked about the conferences you've gone to having this tiny little bit about vendor onboarding.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: You talked about like a a bit here or a bit there, a session here.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: This is the metaphor I came up with when we were thinking about this conference.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: If your vendor onboarding process is flawed, if it is broken in any way, then it is feeding your e R p, which is feeding your entire procure to pay process with broken faulty data.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: So people are spending all sorts of time at these conferences on how to fix the end result instead of the foundation result, right?
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: So let's imagine I got up to bat in a baseball game and I broke my bat and we tried to fix that from second base, right?
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: Like it doesn't work that way.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: If you come up to bat with a faulty process, the whole game is over and you're spending all your time, whether you know it or not, your business unit owners, your procurement people, your risk people are spending all sorts of time trying to solve a problem that could be addressed at the base.
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: So let's have an entire day with, yeah, I think we have seven or eight sessions with different perspectives on the base.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: And so that was where the idea came from.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: And when I challenged you on the keynote, I said, this is, this is an opinion piece for you Deborah.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: We're hiring you to come do this, to tell people what they're not thinking about and to challenge their thinking about what vendor onboarding and maintenance really is.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: Are we expecting, um, home runs but we're only paying for bat boys or girls
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: Perfect to do job perfect.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: And right now we are paying for bat boys bat girls right?
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: To, to do that job because right now it is still thought of as a data entry, right?
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: No thinking required, just a data entry piece.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: But it's, it's, it's one, it's always been more than that.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: But I think now because of the fraud that we've seen externally, that has just been increasing with changing my bank account, and it's not just banks, it's also checks too, right?
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: So changing remit addresses, so it's starting, it, it has, uh, started to get more in the, in the news now than it has been, but it's still the same issues, right?
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: You still need to make sure that you are onboarding vendors with accurate and valid data.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: That's even if it's not fraudulent, right?
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: So it still needs to be accurate and it still needs to be complete.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: Uh, and so you need to make sure that you have a team that can recognize how that needs to be done and also to maintain it.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: Because once you get the vendors loaded or onboard it, you know they're gonna have changes.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: You need to make sure that their information remains valid.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: You need to make sure that the information is not stale, right?
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: So if you haven't done business with the vendor and I don't know how long, right?
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: 15, 18, 24 months or whatever works for your industry or your company, then you need to revalidate that vendor and or inactivate them, right?
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: So that you can revalidate'em if your company needs them again in the longer term, right?
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: But you inactivate them so you don't have that vendor that's available for internal or external fraud.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: So it is a lot that goes into this vendor process than just onboarding a vendor and key it into the system.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: It has to be accurate and it has to be maintained.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: Maybe we need a bumper sticker.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: You know, vendor management is not data entry.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: It's, it's not,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: It's not data entry.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: And I will tell you to Angela, I don't know if I told you this before, but I was at a conference and this was probably right in the middle of, you know, what was considered the great resignation, right?
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: Where everyone was, right, uh, trying to, trying to get their positions filled.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: And I had, uh, a couple of folks that just complained that they were, they were competing against the local fast food restaurant cuz they were paying the same amount.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: So this goes back to the bat boys right back cuz they were paying the same starting right wage, right?
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: And so, and they weren't feeding them right?
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: The local fast food company probably gave'em lunch or dinner or something.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: , they weren't feeding them.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: So
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: No snacks at this job,
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: No snacks.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: I mean you might get a donut or two or something, but my, my point is, is that you're hiring or you're putting that task at a lower level than it needs to be.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: It needs to be at a higher level because we need to start not just data entry, but also strategic thinking and uh, and making sure that that information is valid.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: And that requires, right, looking at, uh, metrics and putting in right internal controls, best practices, not just keying in.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: It really never has been that, but now it definitely needs to be more.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: So you and I have talked about this a lot, uh, but I'm happy to say we're not the only people who think that there's a lot of value being left on the table.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: So hence the, the event, the perspectives we're bringing to the table, and this is sort of payment works opening salvo to the industry in it's time for you to take this little bit more seriously.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: So we have speakers from Chubb, you know, that's a kind of a big deal insurance company who wanna talk about your vendor onboarding and maintenance and the risk inherent to your entire organization if you don't get it right.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: We have speakers from JP Morgan saying, do you know how much money you're leaving on the table by not optimizing your payable strategy right?
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: At the time of vendor onboarding.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: So let's think about that for a second.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: Everybody wants electronic payment types.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: Everyone's scared of fraud.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: What do you do?
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: Well, how about we marry those two things together, vendor onboarding and a payable strategy where we're preventing bad info from the get-go.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: So we feel comfortable paying, right?
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: We have, uh, customers of ours, Johns Hopkins is gonna be there talking about automation as a business control to help them realize larger procurement goals.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: We have e n i that are talking about e n i cooperative services talking about the value of vendor diversity.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: All of this has one thing in common, Deborah, guess what?
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: It starts
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: The vendor.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: It starts with vendor onboarding and maintenance.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: It starts at the beginning of the relationship.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: And too many people are trying to take advantage of these things way downstream.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: Do we have a diverse vendor face?
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: Do we, are we paying people electronically when we want to?
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: Let's see, we've been with them for two years.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: No, we've been paying them via a check.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: Like let's start at the beginning and optimize all of these things.
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: So this day is dedicated to all things related to the vendor master file.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: Um, and it's, you know, I am, I'm not joking about the bumper sticker, it's nuts outta entry.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: Maybe we should get some of those and just pass'em out because
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: I don't think enough organizations are thinking about it this way.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: They're not thinking about how they could be achieving business goals better, faster, more efficiently.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: If they started at the source,
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: I think that's totally true.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: And when you think about vendors or, um, historically when you talk about vendors within an organization, they talk about the sourcing right pyramid, right?
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: For strategic vendors, making sure you get the right price.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: But all of that information, right?
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: Once you get that vendor in your vendor master file, you still have to track it.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: You still have to report.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: And so you have to be strategic about how you're setting these vendors up, how you're updating their information, what information you're putting into the, uh, into the vendor master file so that those, uh, different departments can track that information and make sure that it is valid.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: I will tell you that we had, right, some big disconnects, uh, that I have in the past, in my other lives, right?
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Have corrected in our vendor master file, right?
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: We added strategic vendors, we added hierarchy, right?
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: So you can get reporting at the parent level.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: So there is much more that can be done, uh, in the vendor space, uh, with that vendor master file than, than is currently being done or even thought of today, right?
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: And so I think this event is a great way to get everyone to start talking about that and realizing that, and I love your title, right, that you have for me, when I said, Hey, why don't we do this?
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: And you were like, no, we're going do foraging an elite vendor team.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: I was like, yes, okay, I can do that.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: Superheroes,
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: Superheroes,
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: Superheroes.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: It's, it's true.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: So, so listen, this is an in-person event.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: April 12th in Reston, Virginia.
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: It is free and there are c p e credits that are available for folks.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: We're not gonna do free events forever.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: We're gonna do it with our inaugural events.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: So I encourage people to, to, to take advantage of that.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: And a little plug here for the whole idea of starting at the beginning.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: Uh, of course I love payment works.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: I love what we do.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: I love the problems we solve.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: This, this day is not about payment works, it's about the vendor master file, but you're, you're talking about strategic things.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: We recently, um, did a fireside chat with one of our customers who's the University of Tennessee system and they talked about how automating this process allowed them to bring so much value and with giddiness she said, we're auditors.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: We get to audit now, like they actually get to spend their time doing the value of their job and get this, they got more investment to hire another head because the organization saw the value they were now bringing with vendor onboarding.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: I mean that is like the opposite story than what most people walk away with.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: They think, oh, automation's gonna like replace ahead.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: No, our automation brought so much value to this role that they got to hire another person to do more of of that.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: So that's the sort of like celebratory story we're going to be telling at, at the event.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: And I do hope a lot of your listeners are able to come.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: This is, and you know, I'm very curious to hear feedback on, uh, the idea of our titles and our agenda.
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: So I'll make sure that you have a link that you can put out with the podcast so people can sign up, take advantage.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: Oh perfect.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: I'll put that in the, uh, in the show notes.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: And I like the way that you said that your client during that fireside chat indicated that they were able to add headcount for value added.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: And I think that's the key cuz the value is not in keying that data because if that was the only value, then if you did automate right, you could eliminate positions because the key is going to be less.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: But the issue is not, the key issue is what do you do with that information?
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: How do you track it?
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: How do you make sure it's valid?
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: Because I will tell you that a couple of different projects that we had after we automated again in past lives were we started looking at, well, you know, the, uh, contracts, you know, the payment terms and the contracts have updated, has it updated in the accounting in the vendor master file?
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: Nope.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: Okay, so let's get that done.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: So that's valued.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: It's things like that that we didn't have time to look at as we were just trying to key in data that after automation we had time to look at and that even increased our R roi.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: And I love the fact that we've got a whole day to talk about it and not just talk about it with the, the speakers, right?
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: And, and listening to, you know, what has what we should be doing and what has happened, what opportunities are out there, but within the networking and just talking to your peers about what they are doing, use value in that too.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: And
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: We will definitely be doing plenty of smooth and networking time at the event, um, there's a, your, your lunchtime keynote might be a dessert time keynote, so we can have a little more networking time in there, there.
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: And then afterwards there'll be a reception, there's going to be some sponsors there.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: Uh, all the speakers will have tables.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: You're gonna have a table.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: We're gonna have, um, JP Morgan, Chubb, Ian, I carahsoft all sorts of folks there to talk about different angles of this.
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: So we are, I mean it's true.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: I wish you did use video cuz people would see us smiling like it's Christmas morning this entire time.
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: Like we're both so, so giddy a about it.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: I just want people to be able to go back to their organizations armed with the argument that this function deserves investment in that they can tell the case on the r o ROI about what happens when you do invest in it.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: And you were, you came, you just gave a couple of examples.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: I'll give the, the University of Tennessee example she gave was that they've spent time analyzing the vendor file, getting rid of the old guys and gals and converting folks to virtual card.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: They're earning rebates now that they weren't before and electronic payment a c h or wire.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: So they're saving money on check.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: And this is a bonus because they're a system and they're doing all the campuses.
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: They were able to consolidate spend by seeing very, oh, these, they're both inviting the same vendors get together to negotiate.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: So there's the maverick spend curtailing, but then there's also new stuff going forward, being able to take advantage of where they didn't have the visibility before where they were doing things.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: There's so many things you can argue, even if you're not gonna invest in payment works, invest in the people in that position.
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: And that's really what I hope people take away from this day, that they go back with a clear case for elevating the status.
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: And
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: Again, I just love that
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: ,
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: I just love that.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: And I am going to still talk about, right, the, the that vendor policy and how that can bring value to your organization, right?
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: So again, it's not just about accounts payable and processing invoices.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: Yes, that is important, but so is the vendor master file.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: So this is going to be a great event.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: So where can, uh, I know we talked about putting a link in the show notes, so is that the best place for listeners to go if they want more information on the conference and, and and how about if they just want more information on the payments Works platform?
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: So definitely we'll, we'll give you the link to both for your show notes.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: The, our co um, post caresoft at rest of Virginia is actually hosting the signup.
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: So that link will go to their website.
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: You can see the agenda, the, the confirmed speakers.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: You can see information about the C p E credits there.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: If you wanna learn more about payment works, and I hope you do, we'll have a, a link to our website and how it works as well.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: You know what, and we didn't emphasize it, but free c p e credits.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: When does that ever happen?
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: ?
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: I don't know that it, it does, but that's what you do when you're doing something for the first time.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: Ah, right.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: Like you make, like this is a can't miss because you're gonna get the CPE credits, you're gonna have a great networking opportunity.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: It's not gonna cost you anything to attend.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: And I promise you, uh,, my company's not gonna let me get away with that again,, I said let's go out and get, because that's how valuable this message is Yeah.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: Along the way.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: But when you are getting the credits, um, I think it's a no-brainer.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: Come hang out with us for the
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: Day.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: I think so too.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: Okay, great.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: I will put all of that in the show notes and if anyone wants to come and wants more information, please make sure you click through on the links and if you, uh, do come, please stop by and talk to me.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: I love, love, love, love talking.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: Uh, vendor maintenance and Angela will probably be somewhere close by if, if as well.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: Smiling ear to ear talking about the vendor process.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: Honestly we should have, uh, like a kissing booth sort of thing.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: You know, people just come who just wanna talk about this and we just have a little yes in our booth.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: .
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: Good deal.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: Well thank you Angela.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: Really enjoyed you being on the podcast.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: I'm sure this will not be your last time.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: Awesome.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: I think we should do a follow up.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: Ah, maybe we should, maybe we should do it at the conference.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: talk about the
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: Highlights and on the streets.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, yes.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: I love it.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: So thank you so much for having me, uh, on this Debra, and thank you for participating in this first of its kind event.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: We're super excited about it.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: I can't wait to share about the forging of an elite vendor team.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: We need that in our lives.
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: Thanks Angela.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: So thanks everyone.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: I hope you enjoy the 228th episode of the Putting the APN Happy podcast or accounts payable teams are empowered to protect the vendor master file from fraud.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: Don't forget to check the show notes for the links mentioned in the podcast.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: And if you enjoyed this episode, consider subscribing and writing a review of my podcast on the platform that you use to listen.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: Stay happy.