Accounts Payable is a file or Account that contain money that aperson or company owes to suppliers, but has not paid yet. when you receive an invoice you add it to the file, and then you remove it when you pay. Thus, Account paybles is a form credit that suppliers offer to their purchases by allowing them to apy for a product or service after it has already been received.
The profession is unregulated, though there are internation standard setting bodies, an example of which is the INTERNATIONS Accounts Payable PROFESSIONALS (IAPP). an assiciation of more than 5000 members in the United States, Cananda, and U K.
" Account payable is a strategic, value - added accounting fucntion that performs the primary non-payroll disbursement function in an organisation. As such, the AP operation plays a critical role in the financial cycle of the organisations. AP enables an organisation to the accomplish by bringing a systematic, disciplaned approach to evaluate and improve the effectiveness of the entire payable process. In addition to the traditional AP activities where by liabilities to third party entries (suppliers, vendors,taxing authorities) are recognized and paid based on the credit policies agreed to between the company and its supplies.AP departments have taken on much wider roles including fraud prevetion, cost reduction, workflow system solution, cashflow management system, internal controls and vendors financing".
