I have sometimes described purchase to pay as sitting at the least glamorous end of the business spectrum. At one end is the sex, drug and rock 'n' roll world of PR, marketing and sales - life at the coal face where business really happens - and then at the other end there's the back office functions like purchasing, finance, internal audit. And if we take a closer look at the back office, sitting quietly right at the wrong end of the glamour spectrum is accounts payable. A colleague once described accounts payable as "the spinsters department".
Jason Busch doesn't spare his vitriol in his criticism of AP suggesting that "most companies would likely be better off
blowing up their AP function". To be fair he does suggest a more constructive fate for AP by describing how they might transform into a high value add supply chain finance operation - something I would strongly endorse. But for the time being, I want to defend AP. Why? Because much of the criticism is unfair and especially when it comes from purchasing.
