The Accounts Payable Network.

The Accounts Payable Network (TAPN), an Atlanta-based provider of Web-based A/P services, research and tools, has released a full-fledged version of its Tools Suite. The suite consists of over 200 downloadable tools, templates, and protocols designed to help businesses and financial executives manage the accounts payable function.

The Atlanta-based company offers customers complete access to its website (www.tapn.com), which they can use as they see fit--to do research, ask questions, read up on recent articles about A/P or download tools. "In addition to disbursements, today's AP professionals also must evaluate technologies, guard against fraud, manage staff and comply with increasingly complex government regulations," says CEO Phil Binkow. "AP Tools Suite provides broad, deep resources that help accounts payables staffs efficiently manage all of these responsibilities."

Launched in January 2003, TAPN, a unit of Financial Operations Network, has about 1,900 customer companies and 3,000 users, Binkow said in an interview. It targets organizations with more than 500 employees, and has landed an assortment of customers, ranging from multinationals like Johnson & Johnson and Intel Corp. to government entities like the U.S. House of Representatives to universities like Harvard and Emory.

Customers are processing anywhere from 10,000 transactions a year up to millions, Binkow says. "A/P touches everybody," he says, and while smaller organizations may be the most in need of TAPN services, "the site is so robust that it does help larger companies," who will use the site to benchmark or to update policies, he adds.

A/P policies are clearly part of the internal controls that the Sarbanes-Oxley Act addresses, Binkow notes. The Tools Suite provides Sarbanes-Oxley management reports, an accounts payable code of conduct, flowcharts and risk assessment checklists for keeping organizations compliant.

TAPN charges a seat-based fee structure that starts with a single seat for $695 a year. For multiple users, the rates are tiered: 2-5, $195 a seat; 6-10, $149; and over 10, $99.

Web: www.tapn.com