Spend Matters PRO started to feature a series on the evolution of the e-invoicing and related supplier network markets, including buying trends that may emerge in 2013. One of these analyses was more subjective than others, and featured a review of why it believes the time is right for procurement to take a more serious look at making a run for accounts payable, either as a close working partner with a dotted line relationships or to take over the function entirely.
Many folks in procurement have not always felt this way. Spend Matters observe that:
“On an historic basis, Procurement and Accounts Payable have been slightly awkward bedfellows in many companies. They’ve been loosely coupled through the both the front-end (e.g., vendor on-boarding, registration process) as well as the back-end (e.g., approvals, dispute management, discounting, payment, invoice auditing) in both online and offline worlds when it comes to various aspects of supplier engagement and management.”
Perhaps the next step of this power grab will be to take over responsibility for accounts receivables and credit management.
Source: Spendmatters
