When planning new AP automation projects, always consider upkeep, advises Kelly Tripp, APM. Tripp formerly worked in finance and shared services at Reuters, Bausch & Lomb, Kraft, and Motorola. He is now vice president of operations at DataServ, LLC, a company specializing in on-demand document and process automation

Speaking at our Paper-Free AP conference in Chicago, Tripp told attendees that before taking on a slick new application---automated workflow, for example--ask yourself who is going to be the "workflow jockey" and do workflow maintenance. Will it be someone in IT, or someone in AP?

Consider how well IT supports you now, and consider whether you can count on them to have the bandwidth to support the technology you are considering. He noted that there is a gap between the latest technology and IT's ability to support it.

If IT cannot back you up, you should consider outsourcing the program maintenance. Regardless of whether or not you outsource, Tripp warns, at some point you will still need to involve IT and you want to avoid alienating them. He says: "You will not succeed in injecting change in your accounts payable department and make the life of your staff easier if you do not incorporate and include IT early in the process."

One of the key pieces of advice for AP operations that transition to shared services is this: Standardize processes before making the move. This is according to responses from over 100 AP pros we surveyed who have taken their AP shops from a decentralized setup to a centralized, shared services organization. For example: "Standardize processes prior to consolidation to minimize exceptions," says an AP manager (manufacturing; 900,000 invoices annually).

An AP shared services operation has the advantage of removing redundant processes. Through standardization, you can apply uniform best practices. Therefore, before converting to shared services, develop a reasonable level of standardization. Conventional wisdom has been to not outsource a broken process. Since AP shared services is a form of outsourcing (it can be termed "internal outsourcing"), processes should be adjusted and brought up to par.

To do this, you need to examine the AP processes as they stand. "You need to understand exactly how AP is run at each location before centralizing---this is critical," says an AP consultant (communications industry; 500,000 annual invoices).

Sometimes, you'll find very disparate AP processes at your decentralized units. Here's how one AP manager handled that: "We looked at the AP process at each of our plants," said Joyce Couts, senior AP supervisor at the Campbell Soup Company who spearheaded the company's move to shared services. Speaking at our Power of e in AP conference in Chicago, she continued: "We saw who did it the best, and that's the way we decided to do it overall."