The Internal Revenue Service today issued the 2009 optional standard mileage rates used to calculate the deductible costs of operating an automobile for business, charitable, medical or moving purposes.

Beginning on Jan. 1, 2009, the standard mileage rates for the use of a car (also vans, pickups, or panel trucks) will be:

• 55 cents per mile for business miles driven
• 24 cents per mile driven for medical or moving purposes
• 14 cents per mile driven in service of charitable organizations

The new rates for business, medical and moving purposes are slightly lower than rates for the second half of 2008 that were raised by a special adjustment mid-year in response to a spike in gasoline prices. The rate for charitable purposes is set by law and is unchanged from 2008.

The business mileage rate was 50.5 cents in the first half of 2008 and 58.5 cents in the second half. The medical and moving rate was 19 cents in the first half and 27 cents in the second half.

To see the entire announcement go to http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=200505,00.html 

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What follows is a short excerpt from the book, Fraud in Accounts Payable: How to Prevent It just published by John Wiley & Sons.

If I were to simplify this chapter into a few lines, it would be this: Poor accounts payable practices unintentionally promote fraud, while strong ones prevent it and duplicate payments. Your employees know where all the weaknesses in your processes are. So if you use any of the practices discussed in the rest of this chapter, you are opening the door should one of your employees decide he or she would like to supplement his or her income at your expense. So let’s take a look at the ten really bad accounts payable practices that facilitate fraud.

1. Allowing employees to share passwords and user IDs. This happens all the time, and then when fraud occurs it is impossible to figure out who did it although you can be certain of one thing: it wasn’t the person whose password was used. Have a transparent company policy, shared with every employee, about how seriously you take this issue. Make it clear that if passwords are shared the employees involved will be fired.

2. Employees who write their passwords and User IDs on a piece of paper or yellow sticky Post-It and then tape it to their computer for easy reference—both theirs and, unfortunately, the crook passing along the blame for the theft he or she committed.

The rest of these tactics are in Chapter 13 in Fraud in Accounts Payable: How to Prevent It.

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It all started with a note from one of my readers. She had a vendor who was demanding her organization accept invoices either by email or fax. They were refusing to mail invoices. She wanted to know if it was legit and if others were experiencing the same thing.

When I posted the query in our weekly ezine I got many responses; so many that we ended up creating a White Paper called, The Demise of the Paper Invoice, based on the responses plus a few additional articles. 

The process got me thinking. The Accounts Payable arena is changing and its changing rapidly. Best practices, such as only paying from an original invoice, no longer always work. After all, with the advent of e-invoicing, adobe files and the like, there can be many original invoices.

That recognition got me thinking about other practices we consider to represent best practices and I began to realize that a lot is changing. With that came the decision to have our 2008 low-cost webinar focus on those practices which although recently considered to be best practices, no longer hold water. We are calling the session … Accounts Payable Best Practices No More.

I refer to these practices as Floppy Accounts Payable Practices in tribute, if you will, to the floppy disks I once thought I could not live without! I’d be interested to hear what others think about the evolution of accounts payable best practices.

© 2008 All rights reserved. Mary S. Schaeffer, CRYSTALLUS, Inc. and Accounts Payable Now & Tomorrow

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Accounts Payable Now & Tomorrow, a CRYSTALLUS, Inc. publication, has created an online resource center loaded with diagnostic tools, articles, tips and links to resources to help companies prevent, identify and reclaim duplicate payments.

“In the best of times,” says Mary Schaeffer, the newsletter’s publisher and nationally recognized accounts payable expert, “duplicate payments are an annoyance that dilute earnings.” In the current tight economic environment duplicate payments can mean the difference between staying in business and not. 

Schaeffer believes every organization willing to make the effort can eliminate 99+% of all duplicates. The diagnostics (offered free of charge) on the hub will help professionals identify their potential problem areas. “Once you know where your potential for duplicate payments are,” says Schaeffer, “closing those loopholes is within the grasp of every organization willing to make the effort.

The Duplicate Payment Resource Center is available free of charge to anyone with Internet access. Visitors can start by taking AP Now’s Duplicate Payment Challenge. They are then invited to use all the links to other diagnostics, articles, tips and resources.

The hub sponsored by CRYSTALLUS, Inc, the publisher of the Accounts Payable Now & Tomorrow newsletter is also supported by Bottomline Technologies, OVERPAID PAYABLES RECOVERY, Inc., Professional Auditing Services of America, apexanalytix, Concur, ExpenseWatch.com, Reid Unclaimed Property, and Compliance Technologies International, LLP.

Go to the Duplicate Payment Resource Center.

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There’s a Business Week story estimating 20 of the 50 states are in a budget deficit and at least 10 may not be able to meet payroll without help.

California went to the Feds asking for $7 billion – about one third of its projected shortfall, although that request was rescinded. The list at the end of this posting shows the states with the biggest deficits as a percentage of their budget. When I saw these numbers my eyes popped. This could not be good news for those not reporting their unclaimed property obligations, I thought. Or was I on the wrong track. Apparently not.

I asked a handful of Unclaimed Property experts which states they thought would step up audit and enforcement efforts in an attempt to bolster their coffers. In a nutshell, their opinions boil down to this: New York, California and Florida are most likely to increase audits.

Here are some additional thoughts on the topic.

1) New Jersey also showed up on a few lists.

2) A combo of Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia & Tennessee because these six states have just signed on with a 3d party audit firm that is performing multi-state audits on their behalf right now.

3) New York and Florida are large population states with a history of UP enforcement.

4) Nevada is also likely to be more vigilant since Nevada is second to Delaware as a state for favorable incorporation laws,

5) The greatest UP exposure is driven be sheer number of transactions.   Thus, states with the largest population probably have the largest number of transactions.

Several weeks ago, Accounts Payable Now & Tomorrow held an all-day intensive seminar on Unclaimed Property. We recorded the session. The five and a half hours of Unclaimed Property intelligence are available for sale. Information about that offering can be seen at
http://www.ap-now.com/UPseminar.html

State               Estimated Deficit

California                    22.0%

Arizona                       19.9

Florida                        19.8

Nevada                       16.0

Nevada                       13.1

New York                      9.8

Alabama                       9.5

Georgia                        8.7

New Jersey                   7.7

Maryland                      7.2

Return to Accounts Payable Now & Tomorrow home page

 © 2008 CRYSTALLUS, Inc. & Accounts Payable Now & Tomorrow

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This is actually good news for holders of Unclaimed Property that should be reported to the state of California - probably the first in a long time. Whether you have unclaimed property that falls under the accounts payable umbrella, as many of our readers do, or another arena, this news applies to you.

As you may know, there was talk of requiring organizations holding unclaimed property reportable to the state of California to do two due diligence mailings. Gov. Schwarzenegger, along with many in the holder community, apparently thought this was overkill. Here’s his veto letter.

To Members of the California State Senate:

I am returning Senate Bill 1319 without my signature.

This bill would impose additional reporting requirements on holders of unclaimed property and increase the penalties for not reporting unclaimed property to the State Controller.

While I share the goal of returning unclaimed properties to their rightful owners, I cannot support increased reporting requirements and penalties at this time.  In 2007, the budget bill I signed included numerous reforms to the Unclaimed Property Law and established better notification procedures.  These changes should have the chance to be properly implemented and examined prior to any further changes to the law.