Over the last few weeks, we’ve shown how poor vendor maintenance can wreak havoc on your accounts payable department. From duplicate payments to unclaimed property penalties, a poorly maintained vendor list can cost your health system thousands of dollars before you realize it. We’ve found that vendor management starts with statement collection. Analyzing your organization’s vendor statements can reveal a number of issues in your process as well as funds you’re leaving on the table. Let’s take a look.

What causes breakdowns in accounts payable?

We understand the typical accounts payable department is short-staffed and under a lot of pressure to process and pay invoices as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, many vendors opt to only send invoices; meaning health systems aren’t always looking at their account’s whole picture. For example, if your health system made a duplicate payment to a vendor and had a $1,500 credit on your account, your accounts payable department wouldn’t catch it until they saw the next statement–which could take months or even a year.

Sure, many organizations have systems in place to catch errors like duplicate payments, but most don’t have the capacity to monitor each and every statement. From typos to miscommunications, process errors are all too real and have significant impacts on your bottom line.

What are the risks of not checking statements?

Like any business, your health system strives to control costs and manage cash flow. If you don’t take time to closely examine statements, it creates a lot of opportunity for cash to be tied up in outstanding credits. That’s money that belongs to your system, but isn’t showing up on your balance sheets and isn’t being allocated toward technology, staffing or other priorities.

What is TAG’s approach to statement collection?

We’ve worked with health systems and their vendors for decades, so we know which vendors are known for keeping credits on their books. Once we request statements from targeted vendors, we identify opportunities to recover those missing funds and recommend ways you can improve your processes to reduce the risk of losing them again.

What benefits can your organization see with better statement collection?

Our clients are often shocked when they see how much money we’re able to recover through one of our Discovery Reviews. However, statement collection is part of the larger picture of how you manage your vendors. That’s why we integrate statement collection efforts into our Discovery Review to deliver increased accountability to your organization. Our process will:

• Combine duplicate vendor accounts
• Document and streamline your vendor master list
• Improve your vendor relationships

Better statement collection drives better vendor management. If your accounts payable department is struggling to stay above water, give us a call. We’ll work with your team to improve your operations and recover more money–all without losing any productivity.