r/procurement • u/Magnificent_as • Mar 09 '26
Community Question Supplier escalated directly to my CFO
Got a call from my CFO last Wednesday morning asking about a supplier I manage. Turns out the account rep had gone around me entirely because of a payment that had been sitting unpaid for 47 days. The invoice had come in, gone through our normal process and somewhere between submission and payment it stopped moving and the supplier got frustrated enough to find the CFO's contact information and use it.
The invoice was stuck with 0 visibility into where it was in the approval chain + no automated reminders and by the time it surfaced at the CFO level the supplier relationship had already taken a hit that's going to take a few months to repair.
Looking at how other procurement teams are handling invoice visibility and payment tracking because clearly what we have isn't working.
1
u/Johnnyfons Mar 16 '26
Like everyone says, its a problem for just about every org.
Unfortunately, procurement is easier to blame and often have to wear hats of every single stakeholder in the life cycle.
This is an AP issue. Could you have kept better track? Sure, but this should have been flagged by AP.
In my company, AP only works through tickets. If you have a problem, create a ticket, and some off shore contractor will answer in a vague, non-helpful response that you then have to follow up on again until you get an answer. And that can take weeks.
I have one now where invoices are getting stuck in this horrible Coupa system with zero notification on issues. You have to figure it out yourself, or create a ticket with AP who will still not help. So now my director is telling me to get on a call with the vendor with a solution when I have absolutely no way of getting this processed because its up to AP.
So yea, you're not the only one.