Real-life Solutions to a Very Practical Problem from our print November issue of Accounts Payable Now & Tomorrow.

Do you make payments to vendors via the ACH? Have you ever considered whether the account information provided by the vendor is accurate or whether, perhaps, some less-than-honest employee substituted his or her bank account number for the vendor's account information?

The pre-note activity only verifies that the routing and account number are valid-not that the account number matches the vendor name. This issue was brought to our attention by a reader who posed several excellent questions. Specifically, she raised:

1) What can prevent an employee from providing their personal bank information as if they were a vendor?
2) What about including a fraudulent manually printed check with a fake vendor name?
3) How do we ensure the funds we are transferring actually go to the payee intended?

We asked our always-thoughtful e-zine readers how they addressed these very pertinent issues. "We are stumped too," wrote another reader. "We feel that we are doing all that we can at this point and would be very interested in hearing what others are doing," she added, concerned her firm might have a material weakness in their processes.

The Basic Approach

Several readers report using variations of the voided check approach. They have a form for the vendor to fill out and request a voided check along with it. The reason is simple. Quite frequently people transpose numbers and a few can't tell the difference between their account number and the bank's transit and routing number.

The rest of this lengthy article appears in the November issue of Accounts Payable Now & Tomorrow.

There's still time to register for the information reporting seminar in Chicago next Monday. If you have sent a check and have not received a confirming e- mail from us, please contact us so we can make sure you are included. Inevitably, there are always a few people who Federal Express a check a day or two before the seminar. This is fine but we would appreciate a heads up so we can make sure we've ordered lunch for you. Just drop me a note at marys@ap-now.com to let us know you are coming.

If you cannot make the Chicago event and need this information, you might want to join us on November 29 for a six-hour online presentation of this information. You won't even have to leave your office and for the one fee you can bring your entire staff simply by using a speakerphone. Click here to sign up. http://www.ap-now.com/OnlineSeminar.html

As those of you who clicked on the unclaimed property seminar link last week found out, the information was not posted-probably because I had not sent it over to our wonderful Web person in time. The data is now on the site for you to peruse. We believe this event (to be held next April in Chicago) is extremely important both for those currently reporting and those who are not. If your organization is not currently reporting and remitting unclaimed property you might want to invite your controller and or CFO to accompany you.

We at Accounts Payable Now & Tomorrow continue to be concerned about fraud. As we talk to professionals in the field, we continue to hear stories about frauds both large and small. The question last week about the traveler who routinely requests $100 for out-of-pocket tips reeks (at least to me) of fraud- albeit a small one.

We wonder just how prevalent fraud is and invite you to help us find out. We've developed a survey and will share an Executive Summary of the results with everyone who participates. Click on the link below to get to the fraud survey.

If you are trying to deal with B-Notices and not having a good time of it-and who ever does?-you might be interested to know that there's still time to register for Thursday's B-Notice webinar. IRSCompliance.org's Carol Kassem, a professional with an extensive industry tax background will lead the discussion.

Tuesday November 6 is our much-anticipated 1099- MISC Box-by-Box Webinar As those who deal with it each year are ever so painfully aware, filling it out correctly is not as easy as we'd like. That's why when we decided to devote a one-hour Webinar to this topic, Jerry Michael went out and recruited a speaker from industry to help him with this session. So, not only will attendees benefit from Jerry's broad wealth of knowledge and expertise on this topic, they will also hear from a professional who is responsible for the issuing these forms for one of the largest companies in this country. He is considered one of the leading experts on this topic.

It's been a slow week for the folks wrangling in California so I didn't get a note from Will Yancey this week. That doesn't mean the situation has ironed itself out. It just means that no new shots were fired, so to speak. Yancey and Tracey Reid will dissect the situation and provide expert guidance on the likely outcome and what it will mean for those doing business in California-not just those located in the state.

A special thanks to everyone who contributed to the "Hot Tips on Tips" request we ran in this space last week. We'll have a report on that in the next issue. Until then, thanks for listening.

Mary Schaeffer