When MediaNews Group, a Denver-based publisher of 54 newspapers with more than $1 billion in revenue, moved purchasing and accounts payable to a new shared service center in Colorado Springs three years ago, the company saw a way to gain efficiencies by upgrading its purchasing card program from a niche offering used primarily for corporate travel and entertainment to a preferred way of making all but large capital purchases.
"We moved 8,000 transactions a month to our p-card program and reduced staff by about six [full-time employees] through natural attrition," explains Linda Bradford, MediaNews' vice president for shared services. That represents a third of the company's payments and 15% of its operating spend, Bradford notes.
Before the company turned to p-cards, making purchases involved a laborious process of generating purchase orders and routing them for approval, placing orders, receiving goods and invoices, matching invoices to POs and goods received, routing the POs for approval and then printing and mailing checks. Now end users simply buy what they need directly from vendors, pay with their p-cards, reconcile their statements at the end of the month and route the statements and supporting documentation to supervisors for approval, Bradford explains.
Continue Reading for Free
Register and gain access to:
- Thought leadership on regulatory changes, economic trends, corporate success stories, and tactical solutions for treasurers, CFOs, risk managers, controllers, and other finance professionals
- Informative weekly newsletter featuring news, analysis, real-world case studies, and other critical content
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical coverage of the employee benefits and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.