It's not often that an accounts payable issue gets mentioned on a popular TV show. So when it does, we think it deserves a mention. Do you watch the new show Cane? On it, when the lead character (who is also the president of the family business) discovers his brother has a gambling problem and a big debt as a result, he confronts him. He has his brother's T&E reports for the last six months pulled. After reviewing them, he demands his brother send all T&E expenses to him for approval before being reimbursed.

Clearly, the writer understands business and knows one of the basics of fraud detection. When someone, no matter whether a trusted employee or member of the family, has large debts they will sometimes dip into corporate funds given the slightest opportunity.

Regular readers of my publications no doubt realize that one of my pet peeves is duplicate payments. I believe that with a little care, most organizations can vigorously attack this problem. That's why I'm teaming with Rich Lanza to produce a Cash Leakage Seminar (information below) and why I compiled information into a White Paper-which, horror of horrors-I just realized we never offered to our readers. If you'd like to receive a copy of our free white Duplicate Payment white paper, send a note to publisher@ap-now.com with your contact information. The paper will be sent out on Friday.

A reader (thanks, Mary Ellen!) sent me a note about a fraud article she'd read that probably shouldn't have surprised me; but it did, and saddened me as well. The article focused on another fraud study (one we'll discuss in our fraud Webinar now scheduled for December 11) which noted that 1) the more senior the employee, the greater the damage to the business; and 2) when corporations discover employee fraud, they deal more harshly with middle managers and lower-level employees than with their top managers. What's wrong with this picture? Okay, I won't rant and rave any more today.

The fraud Webinar that we mentioned in last week's e- zine has been scheduled for December 11. I am busily compiling statistics, insights, stories, and advice from several sources in addition to Accounts Payable Now & Tomorrow's own fraud survey for the presentation.

Some of the stories will have your hair stand up. As I read our fraud survey respondents' stories, I'd think, "Now I've seen everything," and then I'd read on only to find another unbelievable tale. We'll print a few more in upcoming editions of this e-zine, but I've probably carried on about fraud enough for one issue.

If you can't make the December 11th date, we will have CDs available shortly after the event.

Getting invoices into AP on a timely basis helps reduce duplicate payments. That's one of the reasons we recommend having invoices come to AP first. It also helps with other control issues. We wondered just how many accounts payable departments are successful in getting this done. If you would be willing to share with us, simply send a note to publisher@ap- now.com with the words "All invoices to AP first" or "Invoices wherever" in the subject line. Please feel free to add your thoughts and/or success stories. We'll share all comments with respondents.

As mentioned above, we are working with Rich Lanza to produce a seminar that provides insights and advice on reducing, if not eliminating, the money that inevitably seeps out of the accounts payable process. The seminar looks at best practices you can implement to stop the outflow as well as ways to recover funds you may not even realize your organization lost.

We've still got a few copies left of last December's issue, which focused on year-end issues. Recently I looked at that issue and realized that virtually all of the advice still held. So, we decided to make available the copies we have left to our readers for just $9.95. This offer will be gone when we run out of issues or at the end of the year - whichever comes first! (And, at the rate we are going, we expect to be out of copies by December 15.)

Thanks for listening.
Mary Schaeffer
Editorial Director & Publisher
Accounts Payable Now & Tomorrow