New Year’s Resolutions for the
Professional Side of Your
Accounts Payable and Accounting Life

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It’s that time of the year; the time when we all plan for the holidays and how next year really will be different. If you are like most professionals those thoughts tend to focus on the personal side without much regard for your career.

• Try and think positively about additional workload. View the upcoming changes in corporate reporting as an opportunity rather than just more work for accounts payable.
  
  
• Make sure you do a good job keeping management apprised of the additional responsibilities taken on by your department. This can be done with a simple memo updating management on new tasks. Given the massive changes coming, it might be a good idea to begin educating management on what’s on the horizon, if they are not already aware.
  
  
• Set up a separate email address in accounts payable to receive electronic invoices.
  
  
• Add a new skill to your professional repertoire. It can be how to use a new software, a foreign language, another facet of accounts payable, another facet of accounting etc.
  
  
• Make staff training a priority. If the organization doesn’t have much budgeted for training, find ways to do it yourself.
  
  
• If you have not gotten a W-9 from every vendor or have not already begun a massive TIN Solicitation effort, start immediately. You can’t lose.
  
  
• When was the last time you cleaned out your files, e-mail or desk. Schedule those efforts periodically throughout the year so the task does not become daunting.
  
  
• Have you ever given a talk in public? If not, make it a goal to do so this year. There are many opportunities for those who look. Professional associations both at the national and local level often welcome practitioners with hands on experience. If you are concerned about your skills, join a local Toastmaster to practice.
  
  
• Schedule a discussion with your boss to find out what additional tasks you might take on so that you could be promoted within the next few years.
  
  
• Keep notes throughout the year end close observing where the snafus are and what you can do to avoid them next year.
  
  
• Make a conscious effort to praise and thank appropriately and where others can observe.
  
  
• Do something outside your comfort zone. This might be volunteering to be on an inter-department committee, take on a one-time task no one else wants, or perhaps even offer to do some research on a process your boss wants implemented in accounts payable but you’ve been resisting. This could include e-invoicing, using the ACH, using TIN Matching, working more closely with purchasing etc. 

 And of course, don’t forget to thank your staff for a job well done.

This was excerpted from the December issue of the Accounts Payable Now & Tomorrow newsletter. Start a subscription to the Accounts Payable Now & Tomorrow newsletter, or The CFO & Controller’s Accounts Payable Management Journal.

And speaking of training, don't forget the Spring 1099 seminar or a one-day Advanced AP seminar. (dates to be posted early January 2011).

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