“Creating through agility, to ensure everyone feels seen and heard.”
Heather Demers has an APM certification via IOFM, is Six Sigma certified, and is an Accounts Payable Manager in Chicago. She has worked in Accounts Payable departments since 2012 and has a passion for process improvement.
Originally from Canada, Heather has her BA from UNC at Asheville, an AA in Accounting from College of DuPage, and graduated from Keller School of Management MBA program. She lives in the suburbs of Chicago along with her partner Robb, two children, and two cats.
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Happy to chat about AP and how you can improve your department, connect on lessons learned, or gab about the newest technology emerging in the finance world.
Once upon a time, there was an Accounts Payable Group that was behind by 20,000 invoices in their data entry and imaging system.
One day, I decided to pull the data from the imaging system, reviewed how long it took each processor to do each step of the process, and test different vendor’s invoice through the OCR system.
Because of that, we were able to find out that the OCR system was populating only 80% of the fields of an invoice and not the expected no touch data entry of 80% of invoices.
Because of that, we found that of the 15% of no touch data entry populating invoices 20% had incorrect data entered.
Because of that, we brought in the imaging company to do a health check of the system and found that it was functioning as expected.
Until finally, management was able to conclude the initial expectations of reduction of work, thus reduction of workforce, was wrong. Management increased the AP group’s workforce, cleaned up the backlog, and met the business’ need.
Once upon a time, there was an Accounts Payable group whose senior processors data entry work was inaccurate.
One day, a senior processor found a new opportunity outside of the company leaving an open senior processor position.
Because of that, I was able to rebuild the structure of the group by creating two part time processors to focus on data entry processing.
Because of that, the AP group increased hands doing the processing of invoices, thus creating layers of review for contorls.
Because of that, a senior processor was promoted to supervisor and a hierarchy was created to build career paths for those in the group.
Until finally, the AP processing accuracy increased and the employee budget decreased.
Once upon a time, there was a company without an AP department causing no controls over payment processing or vendor creation.
One day, the CAO hired me to create the process from scratch.
Because of that, I was able to build out procedures and processes within the company’s need.
Because of that, the company was able to create controls around payments, thus leading to controls around cashflow.
Because of that, accounting was able to focus on proactively solving issues rather than putting out fires.
Until finally, AP became an intricate part of the accounting and treasury team as a support and process department.
What is Accounts Payable? 