Accounts Payable and Data Quality: Driving Sustained Improvement Through An Integrated Approach

Executive Summary/Abstract: Poor accounts payable data quality has a direct negative impact on an organization’s cash flow. Even so, many organizations still experience data quality problems in their accounts payable process. We have seen a variety of approaches used to assess and address this problem. However, these approaches tend to be applied in a “one off” manner and not in an integrated and sustained manner. The integrated use of business process mapping, data quality control assessments, and data analysis can identify data quality problems in the accounts payable area and be used to drive corrective actions resulting in cash flow savings. When combined with data quality continuous monitoring and improvement techniques, cash flow savings are sustained. 7th International Conference on Information Quality (IQ-2002)