Creating an Efficient Accounts Payable Policy & Procedures Manual

1. Introduction
2. Agenda 00:02:58
3. Introductory Remarks 00:03:56
4. AP Manuals and Remote Work 00:03:59
5. What is a Policy and Procedures Manual? 00:07:47
6. The State of AP Policy and Procedures Manual 00:10:06
7. What It Is Not 00:11:28
8. Crisis Management 00:12:16
9. Problem #1 00:12:32
10. The Remote Work Dilemma 00:15:25
11. Remote Working Expenses  - Having A Policy 00:16:46
12. Remote Working -  Expectations Of Problems And Issues 00:17:54
13. Remote Work: Reimbursement Policy -  Update The Policy 00:19:06
14. Remote Work: Reimbursement Policy - Employees And Unions 00:19:33
15. Remote Work: Reimbursement Policy - Last Considerations 00:20:02
16. The $15 hour Minimum Wage 00:20:58
17. More on Minimum Wage As Of January 1, 2023 00:21:42
18. Getting the Most Out of Your Manual 00:22:27
19. What the Manual Represents 00:22:35
20. Let’s Get the Most Out of It 00:23:39
21. Documentation 00:24:22
22. Training Guide 00:27:52
23. Reference Guide 00:29:01
24. Help with Auditors 00:31:47
25. Other Ways 00:34:33
26. What to Include/Not Include 00:37:36
27. A Manual That Works 00:37:41
28. Instructions 00:40:13
29. Shareable Pages 00:43:11
30. Just AP Processes or More 00:44:49
31. Addendums 00:46:16
32. Getting Started 00:48:51
33. When You Have Nothing 00:48:53
34. Borrow 00:49:31
35. Using Someone Else’s Policy 00:51:19
36. Creating From Scratch 00:54:14
37. After the Outline 00:56:29
38. When the First Draft is Completed 00:58:55
39. Reviewing Accuracy Comments 01:00:24
40. Creating the Final Document 01:01:31
41. The Final Manual 01:03:42
42. Tips on Creating a User-Friendly Manual 01:04:59
43. Don’t Be Overwhelmed 01:05:03
44. Where to Start 01:06:49
45. Making the Policy Readable 01:09:34
46. Making the Policy User-Friendly 01:10:56
47. Things to Avoid 01:01:11:51
48. The Importance of a Table of Contents 01:14:04
49. Sample Information for Each Section 01:15:47
50. Should the Manual Be Printed? 01:17:09
51. Using AI 01:18:46
52. AI Tools 01:18:53
53. How to Use AI 01:19:39
54. How You Can Use AI 01:21:36
55. Some Caveats 01:25:54
56. Can I Use It For Updates? 01:26:56
57. Updating the Policy 01:28:20
58. Frequency 01:28:25
59. The Annual Review 01:31:24
60. Reality Check: Frequency of Updates 01:34:09
61. Timing of Review 01:35:00
62. Best/Worst Practices 01:36:33
63. Best Practices 01:38:38
64. Worst Practices 01:38:04
65. Worst Practices (Cont’d) 01:39:27
66. Concluding Thoughts 01:39:56
67. Don’t’ Forget 01:39:59
68. Thank You/Questions/Comments 01:41:33
69. Presentation Closing 01:42:31

• Accounts Payable (AP) 00:00:07, 00:04:53, 00:08:32, 00:21:25, 00:22:56, 00:31:10, 00:45:04, 00:55:14
• Addendum 00:46:29
• Artificial Intelligence (AI) 00:03:44, 01:18:50
• Audit 00:31:58, 01:36:10
• Bard 01:19:14
• ChatGPT 01:19:11
• Expense Reimbursement 00:07:09, 00:16:56, 00:18:23
• Expense Report 00:35:03, 00:42:46
• Form 1099-MISC 00:05:45 
• Form 1099-NEC 00:05:49
• Form W-9 00:44:07, 01:11:46
• Invoice 01:33:22
• Minimum Wage 00:20:20, 00:21:10
• PDF 00:44:16, 01:17:16
• Policy and Procedures Manual 00:00:08, 00:03:50, 00:08:00, 00:12:19, 00:24:20, 00:31:10, 00:34:42, 00:38:40, 00:48:27, 00:50:59
• Purchase Order 00:39:24
• Vendor 00:44:07, 01:11:51
• Wage 00:20:34

Accounts Payable (AP): The amount of money a company owes creditors (suppliers, etc.) in return for goods and/or services they have delivered.

Addendum: An addendum or appendix, in general, is an addition required to be made to a document by its author subsequent to its printing or publication.

Artificial Intelligence (AI): Artificial intelligence is intelligence demonstrated by machines, as opposed to the natural intelligence displayed by humans or animals.

Audit: A formal examination of an organization's or individual's accounts or financial situation

Bard: Bard is a conversational generative artificial intelligence chatbot developed by Google, based initially on the LaMDA family of large language models and later PaLM.

ChatGPT: ChatGPT, which stands for Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer, is a large language model-based chatbot developed by OpenAI and launched on November 30, 2022, notable for enabling users to refine and steer a conversation towards a desired length, format, style, level of detail, and language used.

Expense Reimbursement: Expense reimbursement is a method for paying employees back when they spend their own money on business-related expenses. These expenses generally occur when an employee is traveling for business but can occur in other work-related situations. (www.thebalancecareers.com)

Expense Report: A report that tracks expenses incurred during the course of performing necessary job functions. Examples include charges for gas, meals, parking or lodging. If your employees spend a lot of money in cash, you need to make sure you have them list these expenditures on an expense report form.

Form 1099-MISC: The Form 1099-MISC is an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) tax return document used to report miscellaneous payments made to nonemployee individuals, such as independent contractors, during the calendar year. (www.shrm.org)

Form 1099-NEC: In the context of 1099 tax filing, NEC stands for “Nonemployee Compensation” (the first letters of the three words None, Employee and Compensation). Most tax payers recognize NEC as box 7 on Form 1099-MISC. NEC is used to report income paid to independent-contractors / the-self-employed (referred to as 1099 employees for simplification purposes). So, while employers report income that gets paid to employees on Box 1 (Wages, tips, other compensation) of the W2 form, payers report income that gets paid to none-employees on Box 7 (NEC) of the 1099-MISC form. As an individual, if you received form 1099-MISC instead of Form W-2 then the payer did not consider you an employee and did not withhold income tax or social security and Medicare tax.

Form W-9: Form W-9 (officially, the "Request for Taxpayer Identification Number and Certification") is used in the United States income tax system by a third party who must file an information return with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). It requests the name, address, and taxpayer identification information of a taxpayer (in the form of a Social Security Number or Employer Identification Number). - Wikipedia (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/)

Invoice: An invoice, bill or tab is a commercial document issued by a seller to a buyer, relating to a sale transaction and indicating the products, quantities, and agreed prices for products or services the seller had provided the buyer. Payment terms are usually stated on the invoice.

Minimum Wage: The lowest wage paid or permitted to be paid specifically fixed by a legal authority or by contract as the least that may be paid either to employed persons generally or to a particular category of employed persons.

PDF: Portable Document Format, a universal document format created by Adobe that allows cross-platform compatibility of documents.

Policy and Procedures Manual: A policies and procedures manual is a comprehensive text that details every aspect of company policy, the procedures for following those policies and the forms needed to complete each process. A policies and procedures manual is a reference tool for managers and supervisors.

Purchase Order: A legal contract between a buyer and a vendor. It lists the materials or services to be purchased on specified terms and conditions (quantity, price / pricing conditions, delivery date).

Vendor: A vendor is a person or business that supplies goods or services to a company. Another term for the vendor is the supplier. In many situations, a company presents the vendor with a purchase order stating the goods or services needed, the price, delivery date, and other terms.

Wage: A fixed regular payment, typically paid on a daily or weekly basis, made by an employer to an employee, especially to a manual or unskilled worker.