Sample Accounts Payable Questionnaire for Client

1. Provide and overview of the Accounts Payable operations.
2. Provide samples of vendor master records.
3. Do you differentiate vendor sites which can receive payments and sites which cannot receive payments?
4. Describe the invoice vouchering process.
5. Are recurring expense distributions for fixed or varying amounts?
6. Explain Payment Terms List, Interest Charges, and Discounts?
7. Should invoices be matched completely, partially or both?
8. Explain Invoice Approval Process? Describe the approval process when invoices need to be placed on hold and manually released?
9. What requirement is there to process employee expense reports? Please describe. Provide Sample.
10. What is the current process to generate expense payments to employees?
11. Do your employees have company credit cards? How are company credit cards managed (issued, audited, reconciled, etc.)?
12. List of Supplier / Payment Banks
13. Is there a requirement to use Electronic Funds Transfer?
14. Is there a requirement to use Wire Transfers?
15. Is there a requirement to process Automatic Payments?
16. Is there a requirement to process Manual Payments? If so, is a separate bank account used? 17. Is there a requirement to process Partial Payments?
18. Is there a requirement to process Pre-Payments?
19. Is there a requirement to process Recurring Payments?
20. Is there a requirement to process immediately available ‘Quick Checks’?
21. What is the current procedure for vendor advances?
22. How are vendor advances reconciled when the vendor invoice is submitted?
23. Do you have, or do you require, a priority system for payments? Describe its use.
24. What is your current payment cycle? (How often do you print checks?)
25. If recurring payments are used, what is the normal period cycle for these payments?
26. Is there a requirement to use Computer Generated checks?
27. What is your process to cancel checks?
28. Are all invoices paid in local currency and what currency is used? If not local, list the foreign currencies used.
29. How many payment formats do you have? Provide samples.
30. Do you print the check number on the check/remittance or is it pre-printed?
31. Should a remittance advice note be produced, and when?
32. What is the policy/procedure for handling stop payments?
33. What is the policy/procedure for handling void payments if they have been recorded? 34. What are the requirements for reporting tax payments (e.g. company, rate or tax authority)?
35. Do you have to pay other businesses within the Group
36. Do you use Cash or Accrual Based Accounting?
37. Please provide all copies of Payable reports
38. How long do you do check reconciliation?

Oracle acquires Hyperion

The news is at last out. Oracle Press states "Oracle today announced that it has agreed to buy Hyperion Solutions Corporation (Nasdaq: HYSL), a leading global provider of performance management software solutions, through a cash tender offer for $52.00 per share, or approximately $3.3 billion."
This raises a host of questions for SAP users who rely on Hyperion for their BI needs. Also, this now raises a question mark on Oracle's own BI suite, which have been off-late trying to regain their market share. Will, Oracle put in the same amount of marketing effort for its own BI products after acquiring Hyperion? What will be the future focus of Oracle regarding OLAP technology? Oracle would definitely gain a lot of market and a good BI product range already with Hyperion. Guess a lot of us would now miss the OLAP war of Oracle Express and Hyperion Essbase.