Reaching Out – How Companies Engage New Vendors
If this were Jeopardy, the category would be “Initial New Vendor Engagement,” and the $100 category clue would be “53 percent of organizations send new vendors this.”
Are you ready to buzz in on that one?
Correct response: “What is a W-9 form?”
Good! You’re on the board. For the $200, answer: “Just 22 percent of organizations mail this.” Correct response: “What is a Welcome Letter?”
But let’s use the James Holzhouer approach and choose Initial New Vendor Engagement for $1000, Alex. Answer: “Seven percent of organizations do this in regards to initial new vendor engagement.” Correct response: What is “Send Nothing!”
The flip side of that is that 93 percent of organizations reach out to new vendors in some way, whether with a welcome letter or a vendor information form, or simply sending them a W-9 or W-8 form to complete.
The complete picture of how organizations reach out emerges in VendorInfo’s 2019 Vendor Onboarding Management & Compliance Survey and in this chart:
Twenty-nine percent send vendors information on “How to work with us.” Along with the 53 percent that send W-9 or W-8 forms, the same majority percentage say they send a “new vendor form,” which may incorporate a substitute W-9 together with other information they need to gather from the vendor in order to pay them — such as contact information, payment instructions and bank account information for electronic payment. In the “Other” category, bank information for ACH payment was particularly specified.
Of course, such exchange is often done via a paper process. In most organizations, vendor onboarding is still largely a manual process. However, slightly more than a third have an automated approval workflow and approximately one quarter of organizations employ a vendor self-service application to onboard vendors, saving time and money.
For more results, see the full 2019 Vendor Onboarding Management & Compliance Survey.
Related Articles
Explore more insights, strategies, and perspectives related to this topic.
Need Help? We’ve got you covered
Explore answers to common queries and get the information you need from the experts at Financial Operations Networks.
Financial Operations Networks (FON) is a financial operations company whose products help accounts payable teams prevent payment fraud: VendorInfo, a vendor portal; InvoiceInfo, a supplier portal; DisbursementControls.com, a membership resource for disbursement controls; and VIMCOE, which provides accounts payable certification. FON is a Nacha Preferred Partner.
FON strengthens front-line control points across vendor onboarding, supplier maintenance, and payments — verifying vendor information, validating bank account ownership, running compliance checks, and reducing exposure to business email compromise (BEC) before payments are made.
VendorInfo is a vendor portal for onboarding: it verifies tax IDs, screens OFAC and validates bank account ownership before a vendor is paid. InvoiceInfo is a supplier portal for after the invoice: suppliers look up invoice status, payment dates and remittance advice themselves instead of emailing AP. Both sit on top of the same ERP and are often used together.
Yes. FON offers specialized programs including the AP Payment Fraud Prevention Certification and the Accredited Vendor Information Professional (AVIP) Certification to help finance professionals strengthen expertise and advance their careers.
Request a demo and our team will walk you through how FON can strengthen your controls, reduce fraud exposure, and improve AP efficiency based on your organization’s goals.
Our team is happy to help. Reach out and we’ll get back to you quickly.
Talk to our teamBrowse every FAQ