AOC Solutions

This week I had the opportunity to connect with Carol Schick, Vice President/Senior Account Executive with AOC Solutions, Inc. Carol helped me answer the question:

What sets AOC Solutions apart from other A/P Services?

AOC is a company that is focused on unique payment solutions for our clients…period. We do not have other lines of business outside of payment technology to sell as you may see with other companies that sell A/P and other lines outside of A/P or use A/P to get in the door and then try to up-sell from there. All R&D throughout our entire company is put into payment solutions.

Accounts Payable: With this focus over the last 17 years, it has enabled AOC to become a leader in the AP space in creating commercial payment technology for corporate end users including healthcare, higher

Carol Schick, APSC

education, non-profit, public sector and corporations consisting of many Fortune 500 companies. Our A/P solution is at no cost to our clients and brings in a significant revenue stream to our client’s bottom line. Our Straight Through Processing methodology allows us to push payments directly to our clients’ vendors without utilizing a card, ghost account or ACH. Due to this unique payment method, our clients’ vendors enjoy the ability to see Level III data, lower interchange fees, and 100% reconciliation.

Virtual Claims Payments: Today payers are under increased pressures from regulatory and business stakeholders to automate and improve their claims processing and payments in order to realize process efficiencies and cost reductions. AOC handles the claims payment as well as the remittance advice to the payor without a cost to our clients and allowing them to earn revenue from our solution.

Commercial Card Management and Reporting: AOC’s platform offers a scalable design that will deliver a card management and reporting solution to meet or exceed our clients’ needs. Our modular, permission-based cloud solution provides the ability to easily manage all of our clients’ credit card programs including Purchasing, Fleet and Travel & Entertainment (T&E). Our Commercial Card Program offers our clients the ability to earn revenue to their bottom line at no cost to them.

Encompass Mobile: Our unique mobile solution provides administrators and cardholders with access to AOC Solutions Commercial Payments Platform from any mobile device, enabling them to stay on top of their A/P and/or commercial card program.

CardVault Solution: Many of our clients store sensitive card data at their locations or have sensitive card data pass through their systems through e-commerce. We remove card data from our clients’ environment, store that in a secure “vault” and tokenize the card number, sending that back to our clients to use. With this solution, our clients are not vulnerable to card “thieves” as the token is meaningless to them and removing the risk and threat to our clients’ business.

Invoice Processing: From imaging and storage of invoice documents to pre-purchase authorization and reconciled vendor payment, AOC Solutions executes your purchasing policy in accordance with our business preferences

Is AOC Solutions an American Company?

Yes, AOC is an American company founded by Allen O. Cage, Jr., President and CEO, who is a pioneer in the industry. Mr. O ‘Cage was an Army aviator and served for 24 years in top level management and acquisition positions, including the Army Space Program. As part of his experience he has also worked with the Federal Purchase Card Program since its inception in 1988. AOC’s headquarters are located in Chantilly, Virginia with offices throughout the United States and services are available to organizations all over the world.

How many clients do you have in North America and Abroad?

AOC has over 11,000 clients in North America and are presently working on opening up European offices.

How long has AOC Solutions been in business?

AOC Solutions was established in 1996.

Is there a particular ERP system that works best with your product?

We have been able to work with any ERP system due to our unique payment technology since we do not find the need to integrate into our clients’ systems but merely have an interface. This enables our clients to be up and running in a matter of weeks vs. months or years as with an integration. We have agreements in place with SAP and we are a partner of Oracle and Infor (Lawson).

Do we offer outsourcing/offshoring services of any kind?

Our technology and solutions are not considered outsourced solutions as we compliment current AP processes in terms of our electronic payment capabilities at post invoice approval. However in select cases we can also help to automate the front end approval process as well through collecting invoices, creating workflow, and providing data back to our clients. We do not offer offshoring services at this time.

Is access to a “supplier network” part of your services?

AOC has a vast supplier network when it comes to our enrollment capabilities as we have over 400,000 suppliers that accept our electronic payments. This is beneficial to clients as it provides the maximum potential for their program which in turn provides maximum financial benefit.

Robert Ruhno

Founder & Social Media Manager

Accounts Payable Professionals Group

I invite you to join our group today! Click Here

Cambridge Mercantile Group

I spoke with Christopher Morris, Regional Director at Cambridge Mercantile Group at IOFM's Accounts Payable Conference in Las Vegas in October. Cambridge Mercantile Group offers Global Payments services and they promise that they can convert your outgoing paper check payments into electronic payments 75 percent in 90 days.

Christopher, what sets Cambridge Mercantile Group apart from other A/P services? 

Christopher Morris

Our view of the scope of AP Automation is that it’s an end-to-end process with the front-end focused on invoice intake processes and the back-end on payment fulfillment and reconciliation processes.  While we have partnerships with front-end invoice automation companies, Cambridge truly focuses on the back-end; essentially payments automation and the enablement of vendors to receive electronic payments. 

What sets us apart from other AP Automation services is our guarantee to convert 75% percent of an organizations’ paper-based payables to virtual card or ACH payments in 90 days.  Our “Vendorin” portal serves as a supplier network and contains over 10 million active supplier profiles that include the most up-to-date company/contact information, banking details, preferred method of electronic payment and their remittance format and delivery preference.  The network is dynamic in that suppliers actively change their profiles as their business information and banking relationships change.

Is Cambridge Mercantile Group an American company?

Cambridge Mercantile Group is a global company with our world headquarters in Toronto, Canada.  Our US headquarters are on 1359 Broadway, New York, NY as well as 7 regional US office locations.  In all, the company has 20 office locations around the world including the UK and Australia.

How many clients do you have in North America? and Abroad?

Approaching 15,000 clients worldwide 

How long has Cambridge Mercantile Group been in business?

Cambridge has been in business 20 years.

Is there a particular ERP system that works best with your product?

We have clients using most of the major ERP systems (Oracle, SAP, JD Edwards, PeopleSoft) as well as many of the industry specific ERP systems.  They all work well with our product.  We also have many clients using “odd ball” financial systems and even major ERP systems that have been highly customized which sometimes makes it difficult for them to implement payment solutions from banks which are often less flexible than our platform.  Our product is also a very good fit for these situations.

Do you offer outsourcing/offshoring services of any kind?

Our focus is on the conversion of B2B AP checks to electronic payments (card and ACH) and the handling of the subsequent payment and remittance files.  So, the outsourcing we offer is related to the initial outreach and conversion of AP vendors from receiving checks to receiving card and/or ACH payments then the ongoing interaction with vendors to ensure that they keep their electronic payment information up-to-date over time as well as delivering remittance information to each vendor in their preferred format and through their preferred delivery channel.  All of our outsourcing services related to vendor outreach and conversion to electronic payments as well as vendor management and remittance delivery is performed on-shore.

Is access to a "supplier network" part of your services?

Yes, access to the Vendorin Supplier Network is a key component of our service offering.

For more information on Cambridge Mercantile Group, please visit their website: http://www.cambridgefx.com/

Robert Ruhno

Founder & Social Media Manager
Accounts Payable Professionals Group
I invite you to join our group today! Click Here

What sets FileBound apart from other A/P services?

One of the biggest question on everyone's lips at the IOFM Accounts Payable Conference in Las Vegas this October was: What's the difference between all these automation companies? I met with 12 companies regarding their automation products and I want to share with you what I discovered.

So in my first article in of the series, I interviewed FileBound and asked, "What sets you apart from other A/P Automation Services?" 

What sets FileBound apart from other A/P services?

* An AP-specific version of FileBound is available and it can be easily adjusted to automate the structure and workflow for your specific AP practices. This allows for rapid implementation with fewer professional services.

* Cloud-based option reduces capital expense, provides the ability to quickly scale your solution to meet your needs and reduces impact on IT (the software can be deployed on premises).

* Data extraction from invoices and other documents is available as a component of FileBound, so there is no need to acquire, configure, train on and access multiple products. This supports straight-through processing from a single interface.

* Sophisticated mobile capabilities, including mobile capture, secure mobile access to documents and workflows (allowing users to not only see documents, but approve invoices, etc.) and the ability to truly leverage the touch capabilities of mobile devices.

* Document management, capture and workflow capabilities that can address multiple needs with Finance and Accounting and across the enterprise, allowing shared costs and maximum return on investment.

* Provides analytics needed to monitor and report on AP activities.

Is FileBound an American company?

FileBound is a very American company. It was founded in Lincoln, NE, where most of the specific FileBound operations remain. Earlier this year, FileBound became a member of the Upland family of enterprise work management solutions. Upland is based in Austin, TX.

How many clients do you have in North America? and Abroad?

More than 3,000 total.

How long has FileBound been in business?

Since 2001

Is there a particular ERP system that works best with your product?

FileBound is designed for easy integration with virtually any ERP system, giving our customers the flexibility they need. However, we do have some packaged integrations products such as Microsoft Dynamics.

Do you offer outsourcing/Offshoring services of any kind?

FileBound does not directly offer outsourcing/offshoring services (other than subscription-based functionality and professional services). However, FileBound’s extensive certified partner channel can offer these services. Many of our partners specialize in AP or specific verticals, and a number operate outsourced service organizations.

Is access to a "supplier network" part of your services?

Yes, FileBound has an extensive network of partners who can provide consultation, implementation, integration, support and other professional services. These solution providers must meet criteria for training and service delivery in order to represent FileBound products.

       

For more information on FileBound vist: http://www.filebound.com

Robert Ruhno

Founder & Social Media Manager

Accounts Payable Professionals Group