This is a good news/better news story. We went to our supply closet late last week to get one of our Travel & Entertainment Best Practices CDs and there were none left. Obviously that shouldn't have happened. But I believe that every problem presents an opportunity and in this case we have the "opportunity" to record the CD again and offer our readers the opportunity to attend. And we'll even include a copy of the Travel & Entertainment Best Practices book at no additional cost!

The "better news" part of this story is below in the section entitled CD sale-and I'm sure you can guess what's coming.

Tracey Reid, president of Reid Unclaimed Property alerted us to the fact that Delaware has passed a bill to reduce the dormancy period for investment-type property. She notes the bill still has to go to the governor for signature, but no one expects it to be vetoed! This is just one more example of the states becoming more aggressive in pursuing unclaimed property, although this one would generally fly under the radar. It is the type of information Reid picks up and reports on in her Due Diligence Chart, one of the several unclaimed property products (can you say that fast five times) we offer.

Reid will lead two AP Now seminars on Unclaimed Property Best Practices-one in Cincinnati on October 3 and the other in Los Angeles on September 26. Information about them can be found at http://ap- now.com/UPseminar.html

She'll get AP Now's Unclaimed Property ball rolling on July 22 with a talk at our Webinar on How to Get in Compliance If You've Never Filed. We'll have CDs two weeks later.

After the T&E CD debacle, we took a look through the closet where we store the CDs. We've got a number of really interesting events planned and need to make room for the CDs from them. Plus, we're getting better at estimating how many copies of each title we'll sell each month. Thus, we've decided to reduce the number of copies we hold of each title while carefully monitoring inventory.

This offer is available only through this ezine so don't look for it on the web.

We've compiled a list of CDs being sold at a reduced price. Most of the price reductions are in the neighborhood of 50%. To see what we have for sale, please send a note to publisher@ap-now.com and we will send you the list, which seconds as an order form. As usual we accept checks and credit card payments. However, the orders will have to be mailed, faxed, or e-mailed (if you scan the order form) here and we will run the credit cards. And all orders must be received by August 31.

We also want to update our duplicate payment survey to identify what's going on in this arena as well as uncover new practices being used to attack this ongoing problem. We hope to determine if new payment practices are making the problem worse as well as what organization's are doing to combat these issues. As always, we'll share the executive summary of the results with all who take the time to participate. Use the link below to take the survey.

Clearly, duplicate payments are an issue for both our readers and the folks at AP Now. That's why we created several products to help our readers with their duplicate payment headaches. (See http://www.ap- now.com/duplicatepayments.html and http://www.ap -now.com/dupepaymentdiagnostic.html)

If you are one of those organizations with a problem of requisitioners requesting the return of the printed check for delivery to the vendor-a really bad practice by the way-ACH provides an end run around it. Identify those vendors whose checks are regularly returned to the person who requested them rather than being mailed. Then target those organizations for your electronic payment program. Once you have them on board, there will be no paper checks to return. Expect to have a row or two with the requisitioners involved-but if the vendor is happy with the process, they may end up getting on board with the program. The above is a short excerpt from an article I wrote for the July issue of Accounts Payable Now & Tomorrow. It was based on a talk I gave at a recent conference and the article is titled, How to Get the Most Our of Your ACH Payment Program. That issue also contains the following articles:

• · Making Lemonade Out of The AP Dumping-Ground Lemon
• · Not Using Positive Pay: There Are More Risks than You May Realize!
• · Petty Cash Fraud (excerpted from the soon to be published Fraud in Accounts Payable book)
• · Issuing a Deceased Employee's Last Paycheck-It often Falls to AP
• · Nine Ways to Enhance Your P-card Program

• A diatribe about Mandatory Resort Fees
• A companion story to the AP Dumping Ground article in the July issue of Accounts Payable Now & Tomorrow
• A look at how much Delaware gains by its recent change in its Unclaimed Property rules

First, a big mea culpa. Why? Although we listed The Top 100 Most Wanted Duplicates last week, we neglected to include the link. So, here it is. Top 100 Most Wanted Duplicates

The top clicks last week were:

• The IRS Notice
• The Future of Accounts Payable
• And, of course, The AP Now Blog

We were disheartened to hear that the Food Bank of Delaware had two tractors and a trailer stolen. Although the trucks were recovered the chicken in the trucks had defrosted and had to be discarded. This left the food bank in a bad way. If you are in a position to help with a small donation of food or funds or if by some miracle you are in the food industry and your organization wishes to make a donation, please go to http://www.fbd.org/ for details. Thanks for listening.

Mary Schaeffer
Accounts Payable Now & Tomorrow, a CRYSTALLUS, Inc. publication