Business Process Consultant, USA

Why US companies should fix the process before buying software

A new system copies whatever process it is given. If credit checks happen by email, if purchase orders are raised after the invoice arrives, or if two people each think the other reconciles the merchant account, a new platform will faithfully reproduce the confusion with nicer screens.

Process work first asks plain questions. What triggers the work? Who touches it next? Where does it wait? Which steps add nothing except a signature? Which spreadsheets hold information that the business could not run without? Answering them across departments shows where the time goes, and it often reveals that a slow close or a late shipment is caused upstream by a missing piece of data, not by the team that gets blamed.

Once the current state is clear, leadership can make deliberate choices: simplify a step, move it earlier, give it an owner or drop it. Some fixes need no software at all. Others become clear, prioritized requirements for whatever comes next, whether that is a better use of the tools you already pay for, an ERP project or targeted automation.

The order matters. Agreeing the process first keeps vendor demos honest, because you can ask every vendor to run your flow instead of watching theirs.

Order to cash when sales tax rules vary by state

In US order to cash, sales tax is not a single calculation at invoice time. It is a chain of process steps that start much earlier, and each step needs an owner:

• Customer setup. Who collects an exemption or resale certificate, who checks that it covers the right state, and what happens to orders while it is missing.
• Ship-to details. Whether sales reps capture the true delivery address, since the destination often drives the tax result.
• Product classification. Who decides how a new item or service is treated for tax, and how that decision reaches the billing team.
• Certificate renewals. Who notices when a certificate lapses and who contacts the customer.
• Credit memos and returns. How tax is reversed when an order changes after invoicing.

I map these steps alongside the commercial flow: quote, order, credit check, fulfilment, invoice and cash application. Where your company has started selling into new states, the map also shows who is expected to notice that and raise it with your tax advisor. The tax answers themselves come from your CPA or advisor; my job is to make sure the business process asks the right questions at the right moment and that nothing depends on one person remembering.

Procure to pay with ACH, checks and contractor records

Many US businesses still pay vendors through a mix of ACH, printed checks, card payments and the occasional wire. Each method carries its own risks, and the process around it matters more than the payment rail.

When I map procure to pay, I look closely at:

• Vendor onboarding. How new vendors are requested and approved, where tax identification details are collected for year-end contractor reporting, and who verifies bank details before the first payment.
• Bank detail changes. Whether a change request arriving by email is confirmed through an independent call, since altered remittance details are a common route for fraud.
• Purchase approval. Whether spend is approved before it is committed, or only when the bill arrives.
• Matching. How receipts, purchase orders and bills are compared, and who resolves price or quantity differences.
• Payment runs. Who prepares the run, who releases it in the bank portal, how checks are signed and stored, and whether positive pay files are sent.

The future process separates preparing, approving and releasing payments where staffing allows, and documents a compensating review where it does not. The result is a payables flow that is faster for staff and harder to exploit.

Hire to pay, the close and SOX-style controls for growing companies

Hire to pay in the US crosses HR, managers, payroll providers and finance. Remote hiring adds a twist: an employee in a new state can bring new payroll registrations and withholding rules. I map who raises a new hire, who confirms the work location, who updates the payroll provider and who tells finance, and I flag the point where your payroll provider or advisor must confirm state obligations.

On the record to report side, I trace how journals, accruals, reconciliations and intercompany entries move toward a monthly close, and where the close waits on late inputs from other teams.

Private companies are generally not bound by Sarbanes-Oxley in the way listed companies are, but many growing businesses adopt similar disciplines because lenders, investors, acquirers or a future audit will expect them. In process terms that means:

• Documented approval limits that match actual authority.
• Reconciliations prepared by one person and reviewed by another.
• Evidence that reviews happened, kept where it can be found.
• Clear rules for manual journals and who may post them.

I design these controls to fit your size. Whether a specific framework applies to you is a question for your auditor or legal advisor.

How remote process work runs, and what comes after it

The engagement is fully remote. Interviews and mapping workshops run on video, scheduled around your headquarters time zone from the East Coast to the West Coast, and I draw maps live so people can correct them while we talk. Each session covers a single process, and recordings let colleagues in other states review without another meeting. On-site sessions are possible by arrangement.

Before workshops, I review sample documents: a recent sales order, a vendor bill with its approval trail, a payroll change request and the close checklist if one exists. That keeps live time for the decisions only your people can make.

The handover pack holds before-and-after maps, the approval matrix, procedures for the riskiest steps, a list of open questions for your CPA or advisor, and a prioritized set of requirements. From there, the work can stop, or it can feed the next step. If manual effort is the main problem, my business automation consultant page explains how I approach it in the US. If a new system is likely, requirements continue with an ERP business analyst. The general method is described under business process consulting, with market context on the United States hub.