Check out this helpful article featured in University Business and written by our valued customer, Lisa Doherty, procurement analyst with Texas State University. 

As industry statistics continue to rise around the threat of business payment fraud, Lisa shares best practices for a better vendor management process to mitigate these mounting risks -  targeted more often than not at AP and procurement departments. 

As a one-woman shop with 30,000 vendor relationships to manage, Lisa is well versed in the challenges associated with managing the constant flux of information while balancing internal expectations efficiently.  Relying our business identity platform to automate a manual and often error prone vendor management process as well as executing her own daily tasks, Lisa is confident in the accuracy and reliability of vendor information, critical to safeguarding her organization from fraudulent behavior. 

Check out the full article, “5 tips for a clean (and fraud-free!) vendor master file,” HERE and let us know your tips for better vendor management!

Wendy Grayauskie, Assistant Director for Procurement at Villanova University, and Miguel Silva, Procurement Assistant for CSU Monterey Bay, joined us for the 4th installment of our podcast: PaymentWorks Presents Risky Business. 

Below is an edited excerpt from that conversation where they discuss how the title of this blog is what keeps them up at night. You can listen to the full podcast here.

We recently spent time with Valarie Van Vlack, the Treasurer at Texas State University, discussing the role of Treasury in supporting the university’s mission, as well as the ubiquity- and creativity- of fraudsters attempting to scam higher education institutions.  Excerpts are below.  You can listen to the full interview here.

Trying to maintain business-critical services while working from home comes with plenty of challenges, but telecommuting isn’t new for everyone: the Office of Financial Affairs at University of Texas, San Antonio, has been doing it since 2018. As one of the very first finance teams in higher ed to move their processes permanently off campus, they’ve learned a lot about what it takes to operate as a team when everyone is working from home. 

We sat down with Sheri Hardison, AVP for Financial Affairs and University Controller at UTSA, to talk about the benefits and challenges of operating a fully remote finance department - and what her advice is for teams who are just now making that change.

Higher education organizations are a prime target for business payments fraud. So how can procurement and AP departments secure their vendors’ data and payments? A recent PaymentWorks panel discussion highlighted the need for increased focus on managing payee identity within higher ed institutions. Here are some of the key takeaways.