Re: Accounting Vendors

I wholeheartedly support using new technology. It's the union 
featherbedding, nasty little creatures called auditors, owners, etc. that 
all require pieces of paper. I had a client in Alaska. These folks do oil 
field construction and maintenance work on the North Slope. Their 
customers are the oil companies, and the work is mostly T&M. Without 
exception, here's the way things are done:

An oil company project manager instructs my client what he wants done.
The work is done, and the timesheet goes to the office to be entered by 
the time keeper for that shift (3 shifts per day).
The workers get paid via the payroll system.
The timesheet is returned to the oil company project manager so that he 
can assign an authorization for expenditure (AFE) number to that 
timesheet.
The timesheet is returned to my client so that the AFE number can be 
entered into the billing system, and additionally attached to those 
timecard records.
The invoices are sent to the oil company for payment. The supporting 
documentation MUST contain the AFE number that was assigned by the oil 
company project manager.

And you wonder why gas prices are so high.  :-))