Putting the AP in hAPpy

Send us Fan Mail Next month, July 2023,  the Federal Reserve will launch FedNowSM Instant Payments. This means that there is the potential that your company can pay your vendors via an instant payment!  What does this mean for the vendor team? Keep Listening.  Check out my website www.debrarrichardson.com if you need help implementing authentication techniques, internal controls, and best practice...

Send us Fan Mail Check fraud has been on the increase since 2021.  This episode contains 20 tips to avoid check fraud in the vendor process – how many can you implement? Keep Listening.  Check out my website www.debrarrichardson.com if you need help implementing authentication techniques, internal controls, and best practices to prevent fraudulent payments, regulatory fines or bad vendor data. Che...

Send us Fan Mail One benefit of paying US vendors by credit card is that card issuer will issue required 1099’s to report the payment.  A question I get often enough, when a vendor is paid by credit card, do you really need to collect the IRS W-9.  The answer?  Maybe….. Keep Listening.   Check out my website www.debrarrichardson.com if you need help implementing authentication techniques, internal...

Send us Fan Mail Afraid of the IRS penalties and interest for no filing, late filing or corrections for reportable vendors?  That’s nothing compared to the fines for two other organizations that can also hit your company with compliance fines.  What are they? Keep Listening.  Check out my website www.debrarrichardson.com if you need help implementing authentication techniques, internal controls, a...

Send us Fan Mail Our Non-US counterparts still look at US businesses and wonder why we still write paper checks. It’s no secret that checks cost more to produce than say, ACH payments.  So why are US companies still writing paper checks? Keep listening.   Check out my website www.debrarrichardson.com if you need help implementing authentication techniques, internal controls, and best practices to...

Send us Fan Mail I love going to and speaking at Accounts Payable in-person conferences, I educate many – but I also learn a lot.  Today I have 3 tips I learned from practitioners to avoid making a fraudulent payment.    Keep listening. Check out my website www.debrarrichardson.com if you need help implementing authentication techniques, internal controls, and best practices to prevent fraudulent...

Send us Fan Mail When prompted, ChatGPT gave me 5 types of business email compromise!  Four of the types, no problem – but one was one I hadn’t thought about but is definitely fraudulent! If you want to hear the five types and how to combat each….   Keep listening.   Check out my website www.debrarrichardson.com if you need help implementing authentication techniques, internal controls, and best p...

Send us Fan Mail Are you still collecting vendor supporting documents by email? Don't worry you are not alone, but this process does carry its share of organizing issues and fraud risks, so here are 3 tips that can help mitigate that fraud risk and organize your inbox and responses. Stay until the end to hear where you can get 17 more tips for free! Keep listening. Check out my website www.de...

Send us Fan Mail Listen for 4 types of reports from your Accounting System or ERP that can help in the war against internal and external fraud.  Yes I said war…. Keep listening. Check out my website www.debrarrichardson.com if you need help implementing authentication techniques, internal controls, and best practices to prevent fraudulent payments, regulatory fines or bad vendor data. Check out my...

Send us Fan Mail The United States Postal Inspection Service? They’re real?  Yes, it is and here are 5 tips that you can use to combat fraud at your company. Keep listening. Check out my website www.debrarrichardson.com if you need help implementing authentication techniques, internal controls, and best practices to prevent fraudulent payments, regulatory fines or bad vendor data. Check out my new...

Send us Fan Mail When you inactivate vendors in your vendor master file, do you also remove the tax id and the vendor’s banking? Keep listening. Check out my website www.debrarrichardson.com if you need help implementing authentication techniques, internal controls, and best practices to prevent fraudulent payments, regulatory fines or bad vendor data. Check out my new Vendor Process Training Cent...

Send us Fan Mail Do you have internal employees collecting vendor supporting documentation for vendor adds and changes?  What are the risks and how to mitigate them? Keep listening. Check out my website www.debrarrichardson.com if you need help implementing authentication techniques, internal controls, and best practices to prevent fraudulent payments, regulatory fines or bad vendor data. Check ou...

Send us Fan Mail A fraudulent payment has been made.  Now what? Keep listening.   Check out my website www.debrarrichardson.com if you need help implementing authentication techniques, internal controls, and best practices to prevent fraudulent payments, regulatory fines, or bad vendor data. Check out my new Vendor Process Training Center for 149+ hours of weekly live and on-demand training for th...

Send us Fan Mail It’s 2023, and I have an update on a topic I originally wrote about in 2019, before the C-word.  Now there is at least one new threat that is gaining traction – darn it ChatGPT!  Keep listening.  Check out my website www.debrarrichardson.com if you need help implementing authentication techniques, internal controls, and best practices to prevent fraudulent payments, regulatory fin...

Send us Fan Mail Today, If an employee has been committing occupational fraud at your company – what would be your guess for how it would be revealed?  And after how long?   Keep listening.  Check out my website www.debrarrichardson.com if you need help implementing authentication techniques, internal controls, and best practices to prevent fraudulent payments, regulatory fines, or bad vendor data...

Send us Fan Mail The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or FDIC shut down and took over Silicon Valley Bank on Friday, March 10th.  What does that have to do with you?  Could mean a lot of work. Keep listening.  Check out my website www.debrarrichardson.com if you need help implementing authentication techniques, internal controls, and best practices to prevent fraudulent payments, regulatory f...

Send us Fan Mail One day I received an email from Angela Sarno.  Angela and I worked together on a 60-minute webinar on vendor maintenance activities, but now what is she doing?  Planning a full-day, in-person conference on the vendor master file?  And it’s no cost? And they feed us? With CPEs? Wow! If you want to hear what’s included who else is coming, what you can learn, and more with all the p...

Send us Fan Mail Two million dollar questions that I get all the time, and it seems like they should be easy to answer – but they are not.  What are they?  Keep listening.  Check out my website www.debrarrichardson.com if you need help implementing authentication techniques, internal controls, and best practices to prevent fraudulent payments, regulatory fines or bad vendor data. Check out my new...

Send us Fan Mail What is causing a renewed interest in check fraud all of a sudden?  And what can you do to protect your company checks? Keep listening.  Check out my website www.debrarrichardson.com if you need help implementing authentication techniques, internal controls, and best practices to prevent fraudulent payments, regulatory fines or bad vendor data. Check out my new Vendor Process Trai...

Send us Fan Mail So, you receive a vendor request to change banking.  It’s coming from the actual vendor’s email address – you make the change, make the payment then find out that the payment went to a fraudulent account.  The vendor didn’t request a change, instead, a fraudster requested the change from within the vendor's real email address.  Who takes the Keep listening.   Check out my web...

Send us Fan Mail Every now and again I get questions that I think can really help more than just the person that asked it.  Either because I get it over and over again or because it’s a scenario you may not get often, but when you do – it’s a challenge.  Subsidiaries + the IRS Form W-9 fits in this category and if you want to hear more about it…. Keep listening.  Check out my website www.debrarric...

Send us Fan Mail So I just tried to log on to ChatGPT and I received a message that “ChatGPT” is at capacity right now.  Are those fraudsters tying up the site?  I’m going to guess – yes.  If you want to hear what I think is the good news and bad news with ChatGPT for the vendor team….. Keep listening.  Check out my website www.debrarrichardson.com if you need help implementing authentication tech...

Send us Fan Mail You didn’t get a chance to clean your vendor master file quarter – or maybe last year. Now it’s January that’s filled with preparation for distributing 1099s to your payees and the related 1099 filing with the IRS and some states.  But you still have time to do the minimum to avoid fines and penalties…and you also have time to get help.    Keep listening.   Check out my website ww...

Send us Fan Mail Ok – so I think what is going on now.  The payment fraud that happened during the rush of year-end is starting to be found.  I get the calls or emails – but the problem is – there is no tip or set of tips I can say on a phone call or in an email that will fix the problem – because the problem is bigger than that.  So, on today’s episode is what I think every vendor team needs to d...

Send us Fan Mail If any of you are buying a home, bought a home you’re a target two times over.  Fraud scams are hitting the Real Estate Industry just like Accounts Payable to steal funds.  They do however have two tips that I never talk about but might help us in Accounts Payable and at the end I’ll talk about a free webinar with an avalanche of fraud prevention tips in a short period of time tha...