Outsourcing accounts payable in business marketing strategy

Marketing Plan - Outsourcing Accounts Payable Business

As an industry outsourcing is developing quickly. It is an optimistic experience for most companies that have outsourced, that have inclination to outsource some more, and 45% have increased the capacity of their outsourcing and 42% intend to do so by the end of 2005. (Business Process Outsourcing Adoption & Perspectives in Western Europe) as per one analysis published by U.S. market intelligence firm IDC in July, it has been predicted that the global finance and accounting outsourcing market is required to rise by 9.6% during the ensuing five years to reach U.S.$47.6 billion in 2008. Most of the businesses will outsource such services overseas especially to India and Eastern Europe. As revealed by the Everest Group of outsourcing consultants based in Toronto about 80% to 90% of the finance and accounting volume outsourced by U.S. companies was dealt in overseas. (Bombay bound)

While concurrently improving business effectiveness and flexibility, the need to reduce costs is unexpected. Developing competence and reducing non-value-add processes perceive a way for the Corporate, who are confronting vast pressure on top line growth and profits. Simultaneously post-Enron legislation, mainly the U.S. Sarbanes-Oxley constraint brings pressure to enhance the level of reporting, responsibility and revelation in financial matters. Even other back-office procedures which are important to the business, but which do not generally make a competitive differentiator, like the administration of human resources, are also of importance to legislative and efficiency pressures. The chance of securing procedures being updated and further savings utilized through outsourced economies of scale is initiated up by the developments in technology and by global markets. The lasting value of Outsourcing companies is acknowledged by its improved efficiency and competence of process management, once they are occupied in an outsourcing agreement. (Business Process Outsourcing Adoption & Perspectives in Western Europe)

The outsourcing supplier gives right to use to industry best system and incorporated technology, which makes things easier, homogenize and restructures workflow. The advantages are even more extensive, when they are joint with a lesser-cost background, maybe near shore or offshore with service managements given nearby and nonstop process development. The companies that undergo high pressure to give global integration are those who outsource: 56% of the companies presently outsourcing or executing have a central or federated organization. Another main reason for accepting business process conversion through outsourcing is that the investments released in the preliminary outsource can finance the course improvement phases, mainly if this contains labor arbitrage by an inexpensive location. The business motives for outsourcing seem to be convincing and are optimistic. (Business Process Outsourcing Adoption & Perspectives in Western Europe)

The outsourcing provisions in most of the cases constitute the practical scope of generating varied sources of value. The process of outsourcing makes the company possible to manage its scarce resources distribution in a better way so as to enhance the hold on savings and ensure a part of the savings through contractual assurance to cost and service goals which enable to reduce the risk of the company. It is worth examining each of the sources of value generation: (Accounts payable outsourcing. (http://www.opiglobal.com) Firstly it can be viewed as better distribution of scarce management resources: It is imperative in respect of some companies that they desire to place their senior personnel to concentrate on the fields of competitive differentiation instead of getting them involved in 'commoditized' processes. The concept of outsourcing is considered to be a solution to them. (Business Process Outsourcing Adoption & Perspectives in Western Europe)

Such advantages are considered worthy specifically for the companies with several fields to develop at once and who have limited management talent. In such cases application of an outsourcing provider gears up the all-round modes of operation by allowing several activities to be restructured simultaneously. To illustrate, one large company wanted to enhance its quality assurance services, the mode of its dealing with the largest clients, its procurement processes and the back-office processes simultaneously. Since making all such variations would have enhanced the pressure on management the company decided that it is worthwhile to take decisions to outsource the activities which can conveniently be detached from its core business like the back-office operations and renovate the other three areas internally. (Business Process Outsourcing Adoption & Perspectives in Western Europe)

The Outsourcers evidently have attained the economies of scale more rapidly than that of the individual companies. Above all assisting the companies by means of transitions and entailing a one and well-lubricated service to the varied consumers are taken to be their core business goals. They have a considerable number of people at their ready disposal-people who are skilled as a result of the training been given on better practices in their respective fields. To illustrate, an outsourcer concentrating, on one aspect i.e. finance and accounting for multiple companies can conveniently accommodate that of another company with out much additional cost. It already possess a deep-rooted organization for management of the processes with regard to accounts payable, account receivables, and general ledger, along with an it platform that can conveniently cater to the specific company oriented requirements. A single company is required to have built all-new systems so as to restructure its finance and accounting activities in-house. Speaking otherwise a good outsourcing provider has no necessity to establish the essential infrastructure from the beginning. They can conveniently execute a job of 18 months within a period of 6 to 9 months. (Reaping the benefits of business-process outsourcing)

There is a tremendous growth around the concepts of Accounts Payable, accounts receivable and business process outsourcing during the recent times. This fact is attributed to several facts. The objectives of the company are to process the invoices in a way which is to be more quick, smart and accurate. However, the automation and streamlining invoice processing is seen as a complex affair. In most of the organizations, invoice management entails paper documents like faxes and e-mails along with the organized and unorganized data that is required to be consolidated. There exists also manual hand-offs among the work process which are incompetent and are prone to potential human error. Business processes may not be dexterous enough to entail easy execution of fine tuned vendor payment rules. The work volume and resource distribution within the department is required to indicate the varied prioritization of work based on cash management goals however, mostly it doesn't. The next way out is outsourcing accounts payable. (Accounts Payable: (http://www.global360.com)

The business process outsourcing and accounting normally executed with involvement of the necessary software attributes following are considered as the major growth sectors. Most of the companies have initiated outsourcing the processes involving accounting functions abroad mostly to the locations where the labor is comparatively cheaper. Irrespective of the fact that most are not in favor of outsourcing the major details of the company, many are of the opinion that these are only of less significance entailing consideration. The next objective in the field of outsourcing is the concept of knowledge-based high end activities simultaneously emphasizing more on the quality infrastructure and committed secure and quality services by quality companies. (What are the benefits of account payable outsourcing?) There is nothing new of outsourcing non-core corporate jobs like accounts payable. Small or large companies have been outsourcing that work that gave additional value to the bottom line for many years. (Accounts Payable Processing: BPM Outsourcing) the top two outsourced financial institutions in the U.S. are: payroll/billing/accounts payable and benefits/claims administration. (Less Than Half of Large U.S. And European Companies Say Outsourcing is Cost Effective, PricewaterhouseCoopers Find)

The most commonly outsourced process is the accounts payable with 38% of the companies already outsourcing accounts payable. (Business Process Outsourcing Adoption & Perspectives in Western Europe) Businesses start by outsourcing the primary accounting processes like bookkeeping and accounts receivable and payable management. The study conducted by Everest Group during November, 2003 reveals that out of the 86 dealings registered in U.S. during the period 1991 to October 2003, 81% have been involved in the process of outsourcing of accounts receivable and 65% accounts payable. However, amazingly, the same study reveals that almost one out of two businesses - of 44% completely outsource their accounting and finance activities along with the budget forecasts, treasury and risk management and analysis reports. (Bombay bound)

Accounts Payable - AP is thus one of the business process jobs, which does not add to the bottom-line of the business. In reality, it is an essential business process job that adds no calculated value. (Accounts Payable Processing: BPM Outsourcing) Outsourcing accounts payable can take the shape of 'system administration, processing, settlement, query management and records management'. (Cost effective and efficient business services) There are a number of steps in accounts payable procedure. This consists of all of the steps from the moment a statement comes in from a vendor to the real printing and posting of the check, which could be receiving hardcopy or electronic invoices; entry of data; Resolving mismatched invoices; Imaging and storing invoices by electronic means; Routing of invoices electronically for the purpose of approval; uploading of clear invoices to the general ledger; making check or checking run reports; auditing invoices earlier to payment to make sure of contract compliance and Storage of hardcopy invoices, and replying to vendor queries. (Accounts Payable Processing: BPM Outsourcing) for enhanced managerial competence and price decline, many companies are concentrating a lot on reducing costs and reforming operations. The crisis is mainly severe on non-revenue producing, but vital jobs like accounts payable and purchasing. Accounts payable and procuring processes are main operations, but they are usually regarded as important cost centers. Thus, making constant developments in the accounts payable and procuring departments is an essential step to make sure that the organization is working at its most proficient and can bring in considerable profits. (Driving Continuous Improvements across Accounts Payable & Purchasing Processes)

Lack of appropriate account payable management entails the customers of the company to lose faith that forms a bad influence on the company. However, simultaneously the management of account payables is considered a strenuous task for most of the companies and necessitates skilled labor along with specialized training activities. Only due to this most of the companies outsource their account payable functions to off-shore destinations. With the account payable outsourcing a company is seen to accumulate the surplus of a lot by curtailing operational and HR costs, extend better customer satisfaction by making payments on time, maintain records in a better way by applying modern technologies, estimate the complex operations and become transparent of the delays involved. The Financial and account payable outsourcing services are offered by much quality registered companied in countries like India and China. Such companies also offer related services such as billing service, account receivables, general accounting, and tax management along with the Treasury and cash management. (What are the benefits of account payable outsourcing?)

Temporary or continuing organizations can focus on taking care of their business, by outsourcing their secretarial requirements. (Outsourcing: (www.bkd.com) Outsourcing Accounts Payable processing job, offer stiff power over operational payment, aid enlarged vendor discounts and control bank float by having the choice to manage the invoice payment process. (Accounts Payable Processing: BPM Outsourcing) There can be improved cash flow management; will ease up working capital; lessen business process expenses by increasing annual cost savings from 25% to 50%; bigger power over the accounts payable process; enhanced supplier relations and a better bottom line; enhanced exactness; improved output of managers and employees; improved customer service to managers, employees and vendors and enhanced financial management focus on important matters. (AP Outsourcing: (http://www.lormanagement.com) Thus in spite of whichever industry sector, accounts payable and purchasing are now accepted as business functions that can make both competitive advantages and important bottom line developments.

Generation of a brief outsourcing approach that incorporates particular process essentials and service anticipations is considered as quite a strenuous task. Strict rules are to be developed and adhered for management of the Outsourcing Accounts payable provider selection process. This entails that is it just and unbiased in all respects. Occasionally the companies are at fault of allowing the providers to set aside the prescribed selection process and corresponding communications protocols. This naturally arises with a last-minute entry at the indication of an executive who are not part of the decision team. In addition to this the guidelines for arriving at a decision with regard to the selection process are to be clearly indicated taking into consideration such factors like the price points or qualification of service providers. But the process is not required to hinder the Outsourcing Accounts Payable provider and key stakeholders of the company from involving in regular discussions. The relationships pertaining to Outsourcing Accounts Payable relationships are firmly intertwined with the buyer and seller and the fast interactions among the parties are considered good for the final solution and relationships. The view to keep the Outsourcing Accounts payable provider at a distance is not regarded as a best practice in the industry. (Business Process Outsourcing: Current Trends and Best Practices)

Companies that outsource for cost saving must do a complete possibility research to better appreciate their likely return on investment. But many companies enter into outsourcing agreements without doing a prior cost-benefit research. (Less than Half of Large U.S. And European Companies Say Outsourcing is Cost Effective, PricewaterhouseCoopers Find) Real anticipations are considered to be the fundamentals of better outsourcing accounts payable business deals. The failure of companies in appropriately estimating the savings anticipated from the outsourcing accounts payable business or the prospective developments with regard to their activities to be performed by the outsourcing provider or the company itself marks the indications towards troubled deal. (Reaping the benefits of business-process outsourcing) Outsourcing is sometimes considered by the management to be secured for the dramatic cost-reducing initiatives. In consequence to this the corporations often concentrate only on the initial year surpluses instead of on equilibrating the short- and long-term advantages. There also exists an inclination of the clients to adopt the negotiation shortcuts to enhance the deal with the selected Accounts Payable provider. One such awful case arises when both the parties involved set aside devising of a detailed language for specific business variations, opting rather to depend on future negotiations to re-concentrate on the deal. Waiting up till the post contract signing to fix the financial baseline and service levels is regarded as another 'worst' practice. More frequently the two parties never adhere to it resulting in rapid unevenness of the expectations. (Bombay bound)

When the contract is effected to and the outsource provider commences the process, the company finds a more real outline of the involvements of costs and savings. The company recurrently understands then that the provider is able to retain a major portion of the value of the deal. When such things are found out then there is break down of the trust and the management of the company attempts to conclude the deal to renegotiate the same. To exemplify the same it is worth considering the following scenario. An accounts payable business outsourcing provider contracts to manage the accounting function of a company entailing the company a rebate of 20% on its costs. The managers of the company could find out the rough estimate and conclude that the provider will take up the project with the operating cost that is about 30% less than that dealt in, keeping a margin of 12.5%. However, the outsourcing provider refined the project to outsource it again to India to exploit the cheap labor and infuses automation to it and in the process could achieve the savings of 40% instead of 30% as a result of which the margin hiked to 25%. Thus it depicts that had the company taken into consideration all these aspects of potential savings the deal would have had a different dimension. It would perhaps be justified in stipulating to split the additional value evenly with the enhancement of the savings above 30%. (Reaping the benefits of business-process outsourcing)

The benefits of the deal will be entailed to the companies as well as the service providers in a better way when the mangers are able to calculate accurately all the prospective savings prior to effecting the deal. Often companies are not in favor of conducting a detailed assessment of such facts due to the involvement of much time and the requirement of management attention. Thus taking up a thorough up-front analysis assists a company to make better outsourcing decisions in three primary fields. The analysis thus recommends effective calculations even prior to initiation of the deal. It is worthwhile to take into account all the potentialities involved. An intensive up-front analysis assists an accounts payable business company for both the parties to visualize more apparently the various opportunities of generating value by enhancing the process. Such ideology makes it certain that the value is more fully acquired. With the real expectations of the necessary potentialities of the gain and in infusing such potentialities into the structure of the deal enhance the scope of contentment of both the parties during the continuance of the deal. The next element in this respect is the Plan for change. A detailed up-front assessment assists the companies to take into consideration the major variations in their strategies and thereby safeguards the companies from major expenses as a result of the variations.

Moreover, as each and every executive visualizes most of the internal project teams are ineffective in endorsing the expected benefits of an enterprise. Several factors attribute to such failure of a project team, such as the insufficiency of the project plan, the team is inconsonance with the organizational structure was found to lack the adequate skilled personnel to perform the job or is not effectively managed, the executive that sponsored the project have left, etc. When the project or function is outsourced its advantages is essentially indicated in the contract and are being monitored regularly and the contract involves performance guarantees. To illustrate, in one contract an outsourcing provider assures in writing that it would restructure the billing management for a company as a result of which the cost per invoice would be reduced from $12 to $7 in three years. It has been laid down in the contract that when the cost per invoice is reduced to $6 or below, the two parties would divide the additional benefits. Such contractual deals compel the outsourcing providers to be watchful about any omissions in this regard. A company can even necessitate a provider to split up each performance objectives into a group of performance indicators and quantify such indicators for every employee at regular intervals. (Reaping the benefits of business-process outsourcing)

The customers who outsource their accounts payable process must know whether the company that takes the outsourcing work is capable of tracing the position of each invoice from the time it comes to the time the check is sent; Whether a customer can get reports whenever the status of their Accounts Payable process needed; whether it can electronically forward invoices within a client organization to each person that needs to endorse the invoice or decide an inconsistency; whether it can make sure that invoices are correctly endorsed and only endorsed invoices are paid; if the invoice is for goods requested from a Purchase Order, the company which takes the outsourcing work can ensure to verify that photocopy invoices are not paid; whether it can enter invoice information and also appraise each invoice input for accurateness, making sure the highest quality; whether it can print and mails checks once final sanction is received from the Client. (AP Outsourcing: (http://www.lormanagement.com)

The outsourcing company must assess whether the company which undertakes the outsourcing work can use the high-tech imaging and workflow technology to electronically send invoices inside a client's organization for sanction or difference resolution; whether invoices can be sent based on any information, like account code, dollar amount, vendor, etc., so that invoices can go to the correct manager for sanction and then go to his manager for consent as suitable; whether suitable personnel evaluating the invoice can alter the account code, dollar amount or any other invoice information at any time; whether in order to make checks, the controller or other nominated person can select which checks to pay online and whether this could be done individually and only after the related invoices have been sanctioned.

It is also necessary that the outsourcing company must know whether the manager can look at the invoice images again before granting payment; Retailers can be short-paid; and if once the payments have been sanctioned, the company which takes the outsourcing work can print and send checks from their shared services facility; whether they can manage all invoices, as well as service invoices like utilities, consulting, rent, credit card bills, etc. As well as goods invoices like raw materials, services, equipment, etc. whether they were requested on a Purchase Order or not. The outsourcing company must make sure that Outsourcing Accounts Payable by the company that takes the outsourcing work is an established company with bigger management control. It must also be made sure that the company which takes the outsourcing have huge knowledge in Accounts payable and are highly skilled and inspired; whether they can create a website for every customer in order for them to have a glance at the invoice information and images by vendor, invoice number, PO number, and amount and invoice date. (AP Outsourcing: (http://www.lormanagement.com)

Taking into consideration the rigid issues on the management liabilities of the parties, the value of speed, and the cold realities of project performance entails the executive a far more practical sense of the value of an outsourcing accounts payable business deal than they would attain by totaling the benefits accrued out of the economies of the scale. However, this is considered to be only the initial steps of the assessment process. The companies also are required to assess the alternative- more particularly, what they can perform on their own. Normally, a company evaluates an assessment of the value acquired by outsourcing a process against the current cost of operating the process and not against the enhancements of the company that is required to perform the process by themselves. However, this is considered as a serious flaw. Assessment of the alternatives to outsourcing implies comparison of apples with apples. The outsourcing accounts payable business is considered to be a good deal only when the provider seems to have delivered performance improvements across the company that can perform on its own. The executives must visualize intimately the financial and strategic advantages of maintaining the process internally and restructuring it or build a captive shared-service organization at a cheaper location. (Reaping the benefits of business-process outsourcing)

The executives are required to split up the components of the process under consideration into multiple activities. They are required to standardize each of the activities with the appropriate best performance to indicate the areas that necessitate restructuring. Then after they are required to find out the essential factors required for such enhancements. It is essential to find out whether the process necessitates total restructure. It is also necessary to find out whether the process or the linkages within the company and its crucial clients and suppliers necessarily are automated, the sufficiency of the organizational consolidation, the necessity for its transition to a lower cost area, the necessity of retraining the personnel and variations in their incentives, the necessity of working towards a developed performance oriented culture, pooling the company of its resources with others in the industry to access the enhanced economies of the scale. The next group of factors involves the capabilities of the company to bring about the pinpointed variations in it.

It is also essential to assess whether the company has the required knowledge, skills, people, incentives, capital and broad internal support necessary to move ahead. However, taking up such steps suffer has several weaknesses also. In case of the beginners, the executives are required to be careful about the person they select to entail the initial assessment. The project sponsor in respect of the outsourcing proposal, to illustrate might be quite leaned towards externalization. An organization sitting at the fence like CFO, to illustrate, can assess the preparedness of the company in a better way for the restructure and the quality of the plan. Besides the analysis involves strenuous work and sometimes regarded as hurting the managers of the function being analyzed as they are not prone to spot the essential changes on their own. At last, some companies necessitate the fast liquid cash and they find neither the time nor the required strength for performing such analysis. To them such outsourcing decision is considered to be a 'best guess'. (Reaping the benefits of business-process outsourcing)

The executives are required to place the outcomes of the internal probes contrary to what an outsourcer accounts payable business can entail and measure the essentialities across the multiple facets. It is essential to find out if the outsourcer affords to reduce the costs, if it can attain the benefits earlier, if it enhances the quality of the service, if it upgrades the prevailing it platform to lower new investments, if it responsibly maintains the benefits that it assures in the contract, if it persistently innovates new ideas relating to the process and persistently enhance the efficacy and qualify. One of the means by which the executives can quantify the differences is to share the outcomes of their primary analysis with the chosen set of prospective outsourcers of the accounts payable business and getting their response as to the way though would move across what the company can do internally.

The conclusion to outsource relies upon one or both of the following outcomes: The provider acquires higher absolute savings in comparison to that when the company attains by handling the process with restructuring of its own infrastructure or when the provider is prone to acquire the potential savings since it is capable of managing the restructure and vary the efforts effectively to commit to the objectives. A company that can effectively assess itself internally was a large global corporation with finance and accounting activities extended over more than 100 locations around the globe and operating on more than 30 different it systems. In splitting up of the components of the finance and accounting processes of the company the executives detected a difference of more than 60% between the present internal costs of the company and the costs of accepted best practices. Additionally, the company could not possibly close its books on time partially due to considerable variations in the means that the business units and regional divisions acquire and deal with the financial data. The analysis predicted that the executives are required to consolidate the varied accounts payable locations into a group of regional shared-service centers and divide the accounts payable activities into three specific and highly automated units. In order to entail more value it is essential that the shared service centers be established at convenient places with cheap labor. (Reaping the benefits of business-process outsourcing)

Then the personnel assessed if the out sourcing provider carries out the consolidation more effectively than had the company effectively consolidated its own infrastructure to gain the desired result. They indicated two considerable criticalities in their own efficacies. The have no enough resource to finance both the it investment and their efforts relating to their own capabilities, since the downsizing would necessitate that they pay laid-off workers in specific countries up to a salary for the year. They were actually deficient of the management resources to execute the program. An outsourcing provider contrary to this could entail skilled resources; have enough skill in the process dealings and in fixing the objectives to make it certain that each of the specific unit perform its part and the capital to finance the transformation efforts. Additionally, an outsourcer could conveniently accomplish the program within a period of three years. However, the outsourcing involves some cost and this constitutes the final part of the assessment.

After being aware of the real enhancements in value of the outsourcing and taking into comparison what a provider can accomplish and the company can do of its own, the executives must pile that against the cost of performing the job. The overseas company could be aware that it is required to pass on $200 million- constituting about one-third of the $600 million of value generated by the consolidation over a decade to the provider. However, taking into consideration the other way out, the executives concluded that the cost was worthwhile. Such type of analysis makes the executives aware of the operations of their company and the real value of outsourcing. The awareness is exceptionally useful for organizing the deal with a provider. It makes the company and the provider possible to indicate clear anticipations with regard to workable agreement that entails benefits to the bottom line. (Reaping the benefits of business-process outsourcing)

Let us understand as to how a U.K.-based Towers Perrin Share Plan Services Ltd. was victorious in the outsourcing process. In the present day economy the truth is that companies are doing business ahead of their domestic borders, which exhibits some challenges. For instance, when the companies have branches in many countries, managing employer share or equity programs can be tremendously difficult. U.K.-based Towers Perrin Share Plan Services Ltd., which offers fully adapted, computer-based administration services for more than 40 different types of employer share programs all over the world, confronted such a challenge when it was hired by a major Canadian multinational. The company wanted Towers Perrin to manage release of shares from its employee equity plan by employees in the U.S. And Canada. Towers Perrin would be accountable for making sure the correct amount in the right currency was put in the employee's bank account, after releasing the employee shares. Steven Perry, Towers Share Plan Administrator, says that it comprises of writing out thousands of checks, dealing with dozens of different North American banks and usually spending numerous hours managing the complete process. Towers Perrin started looking for an outsourced payables solution to assist them meet the challenge. (Outsourcing global payments offer a world of opportunity)

Towers Perrin, after examining services given by British banks, selected Scotia bank's Global Mass Payments service, which pays out multi-currency payments universally through Scotia bank's global network. Towers Perrin Manager Mark West says Scotia bank had the only service that could do accurately what they wanted at an affordable cost. Perry says the banks in Britain were levying as much as 10 times the amount per deal. The Global Mass Payments service was enlarged to deal with high-volume, low-value payments like pensions, dividends, and payroll and supplier payments. The service is the best for multinational ventures, governments and correspondent banks that make use of wires or checks for international payouts or deliver frequent global payments. Scotia bank customers can mail their payments universally by direct deposit, check or EDI Electronic Data Interchange, says Harpreet Seetal, Scotia bank Senior Product Manager, removing the heavy cost of international money orders and wire payments, and minimizing foreign exchange costs. Customers mail to Scotia bank a single accounts-payable file in one of several standard layouts like ANSI X.12, ACH, S.W.I.F.T. MT102, or the proprietary Global Mass Payments layout. Electronic and paper-based payment instructions are included in the file. Payments can be intended for many countries in several currencies. In turn, Scotia bank will forward the money to recipients as needed through Scotia bank's widespread global network. Integrating the payables can enhance competence. In the present day economy, central international payment services like Scotia bank's Global Mass Payments service are more and more essential as trade barriers prolong to drop.

As per a study done by the Boston Consulting Group, cross-border payment volume in the Americas was measured at $249 million in 1997 and is projected to attain $488 million by 2007. Between America and Europe, the payment volume is projected to increase from $79 million in 1997 to $175 million in 2007. Trade flow to and inside Southeast Asian nations - ASEAN is projected to surpass these growth rates. Dr. Gerard McArdle, the Managing Director of Finalysis UK, a consultancy focusing in counseling companies on their banking relationships, says that making use of a centralized international payment service makes it comfortable for a company to function in Europe. McArdle elucidates that with the introduction of the Euro, Europe is now in effect a single region, but the truth is that banking services are not identical. This needlessly makes shifting money across borders tricky and luxurious. With a payment service like Scotia bank's, a customer has a common point of contact that removes the requirement of transaction with numerous banks internationally, while making sure that dealings are faultless. To do business internationally, outsourcing account payable business makes it simple and Towers Perrin was able to make profit from the global payment solution. West and Perry of Towers Perrin are satisfied of the paybacks after using the Global Mass Payment service since they can focus on their core business as a result of the services of Global Mass Payments. (Outsourcing global payments offer a world of opportunity)