From: Leon Klempner <drleonk@gmail.com>
Subject: Receivables/Payables
To: escostudyclub@yahoo.com
Date: Friday, January 14, 2011, 7:55 AM
Does anyone have a simple system of tracking supplies received so that all monthly statements can be easily verifiable before payment?
Leon Klempner
Port Jefferson, NY
Electronic Study Club for Orthodontics 
Try Excel
Accounts payable is a standard business function of accounting software. If you aren’t using an orthodontic practice management computer system, and you just want to keep track of invoices so you can reconcile monthly statements from suppliers, then I suggest you look at Quicken Home & Business. It’s not as complicated as the Quickbooks program, but it works well for me to keep track of personal expenses and rental property. With Quicken Home & Business edition, you can create accounts payable (or rather so-called “credit card” accounts — Quicken accounts payable don’t have a reconcile feature, but credit cards do) for each of your suppliers where you have monthly billing accounts. You post invoices when you get the supplies. When the statement comes, you can reconcile them, that is, the program will show you a list of invoices and you check off which ones are on the statement, enter the opening and closing balances from the statement, and then the program shows you whether your books agree with the statement or by how much they differ.
Ideally, an office accounting program should let you enter orders when you place them, invoices when the orders come in, keep track of partially fulfilled orders and multiple invoices per order, etc. Quicken Home & Business isn’t that complicated, but it does let you reconcile statements against the invoices and you’ll know how much you’re going to owe at any point in time. It’s also good for keeping track of checking accounts and reconciling those statements, too.
The above suggestions are good if you want to track these on the computer. If not, you could use the packing slips or hopefully invoices that come in each shipment. Have your assistant CAREFULLY check off each thing that was received. Stress to her that it is common for mistakes to be made by suppliers and that her job is to catch them. Every little package of brackets needs to be checked.
Then she should put the completed packing slips/invoices into a file. Statements received from the various companies should go into a different folder. When the time comes to pay the bills, your financial person (or you, if you pay your own bills) compares each to the other. Obviously, no bill should be paid unless you can confirm that all the materials were received in good order.
Where we run into problems is with credit cards. A staff member will go to Wal-mart and get paper towels, distilled water, super glue, and candy for deband bags. If she doesn’t make sure that receipt gets into the file, there ends up being a big problem when the credit cards have to be reconciled. I’m not sure how we can totally avoid this. If you say “don’t use credit cards” that’s fine, but you can’t give that staff member a blank check to use at Wal-Mart!
Office Inventory Ordering (Foxfales.com). Very reasonably priced program- easy to use…
We keep it simple. The accounting is done on Quickbooks but to answser your question directly, it is all done manually and easily. All items not orderded automatically each month are posted on an order sheet hanging in our office. From this sheet, orders are placed weekly if needed or ordered monthly if other items are ordered from this company (saves on P&H).
When the order is received, the shipping invoice is checked off and filed with that companies folder. When the statement arrives, the invoices are matched to the statement, placed in the envelope with the statement, then given to me for review before a check is cut from Quickbooks or paid by AMEX.
Anything placed on backorder is highlighted on the invoice, copied, and placed in a bin to be checked on weekly, until the order is received. It is not foolproof, but has worked well for us over the years.
I am very much in favor of using computers for everything, but for ordering, we found good old paper and pencil work well. Years ago we starting using index cards. Each item has a card which lists date, price, quantity and at the top of the card, the company we use. We have another group of cards with each company we order from, which also inlcudes what we buy from that company.
When the item comes up for order, we can do several things. We can see how long the previous order lasted, so that we can adjust the order this time. We can see if we are paying more and possibly look to other companies. But, the best part is that they see what company we ordered this item from and then pull a the index card with the companies name on it which has a list of all items we order from them. They can then check to see if we are running low on any of the other items we order from this company and place a bulk order. This way we limit the number of packages from that company and the overall cost of shipping.
Diane,
As with all actions, if someone does not follow protocol to place receipt in folder, then a consequence must follow. The behavior will change. good luck!
I follow your system and it works well.