Today APEX Analytix is introducing a new cloud-based delivery platform for FirstStrike®, the company’s industry-leading family of procure-to-pay software for overpayment prevention, fraud detection and vendor management.
The announcement was made concurrently at the Institute of Financial Operations’ “Fusion 2012” conference in Nashville and at the Shared Services Outsourcing Network’s “European Shared Services & Outsourcing Week 2012” in Amsterdam.
To date FirstStrike has saved companies more than $2 billion in overpayments by detecting and preventing costly errors. APEX Analytix now will provide the software as a cloud-based service, supported by a highly secure infrastructure and managed services.
Companies will have an end-to-end, scalable environment that acts as an extension of their internal information technology resources, without any infrastructure investment. They also will have ready access to the latest software releases and upgrades and to comprehensive support delivered by the APEX Analytix team.
“Cloud-based FirstStrike solutions make it easier than ever for companies to monitor for overpayments and fraud, analyze shared services center metrics and improve their efficiency and cash flow,” says Steve Yurko, CEO of APEX Analytix. “With APEX Analytix managing and maintaining FirstStrike and the underlying infrastructure, companies can focus instead on continuously protecting and improving their operations.”
The FirstStrike modules now available over the cloud include:
- FirstStrike Accounts Payable, which prevents overpayments, improves cash flow and tracks accounts payable metrics.
- FirstStrike Purchasing, which detects pricing errors, analyzes spending and produces reports to support continuous procure-to-pay improvements.
- FirstStrike Retail, which serves the unique and highly sophisticated purchasing and recovery audit needs of the retail industry.
- FirstStrike Fraud Detect, which analyzes vendor, invoice and employee data and ranks potential fraudsters by risk score.
- FirstStrike Vendor Portal, which enables vendors to check the status of their invoices and payments online in real-time, without having to contact a company’s accounts payable department.
FirstStrike uses secure, encrypted protocols to pull relevant procure-to-pay data daily from ERP platforms and legacy systems – creating a single, consolidated database for analysis and reporting. APEX Analytix stores the information in a SAS 70/SSAE 16-compliant data center with high availability, redundancy and fail-over capabilities. The data compiled can be segregated by business unit, geography or other parameters as required–from initial data capture to reporting and analytics.
APEX Analytix, a global leader in services and software to safeguard disbursements, identify fraud and improve performance across the procure-to-pay cycle, today announced it has added two new senior executives to support the company’s global growth strategy.
Scot Spear has joined APEX Analytix as Senior Vice President of Global Sales and Marketing, while Walt Kristick has joined as Chief Information Officer. The new hires were selected to expand APEX Analytix’s market leadership in North America, broaden the company’s footprint internationally and extend its technology leadership in recovery auditing, overpayment prevention and fraud detection.
World-Class Sales Leadership
Spear comes to APEX Analytix from ABB/Ventyx, a global supplier of industrial enterprise software, where he served as senior vice president for International Sales and Operations. He is a former sales vice president for IBM and for ERP software provider JD Edwards. He joins APEX Analytix with a very successful track record of building and maintaining world-class sales and marketing organizations globally.
Proven Technology Innovator
Kristick comes to APEX Analytix with more than two decades of experience in the software and financial services industries, both as a technology leader and applications innovator. His technology leadership is expected to expand the measureable value delivered to APEX Analytix clients through the company’s industry-leading FirstStrike® suite of applications and by taking advantage of evolving technologies. Kristick is a former senior vice president at iQor, one of the largest and fastest-growing technology and services companies in the world. He previously served as CIO at Receivables Management Services and as former managing director of global commercial technology for Marsh, one of the world’s largest insurance brokers.
“Both Scot and Walt bring key skills that are vital to our clients and to bolstering our organization’s mission as a pioneer of software, audit and consulting solutions that drive measurable value safeguarding disbursements globally,” says Steve Yurko, CEO of APEX Analytix. “We expect that their experience will contribute significantly to increasing our market share in North America, building a much stronger presence internationally and helping our clients take advantage of new and evolving technologies vital to improving their accounts payable and shared services operations.”
Both Spear and Kristick will be based at APEX Analytix headquarters in Greensboro, N.C.
One of the more anticipated presentations at the IAPP Fusion Conference next week will come from APEX Analytix founder Jim Arnold. He will present strategies for "Mining the Hidden Value Streams in Procure-to-Pay" on May 16th from 11:15am to 12:15pm.
Arnold will be diving into topics that cover (just to list a few):
- Supplier Relationship Management
- Vendor Portal Statistics and Usage
- FirstStrike eCapture
- Vendor Risk Analysis
- Cash Discounts
His presentation will be great for every firm seeking best practices for:
- Visibility and transparency
- Payment accuracy and efficiency
- Case in the procure-to-pay value stream
Arnold founded APEX in 1988, and it has become a world class provider for audit technology and services.
Be sure to join Jim Arnold at the IAPP Fusion Conference on the 16th. Other speakers representing APEX Analytix will be Joseph Collins and Jeremy Dotson.
“You need to have a redesign because familiarity breeds a kind of complacency.” – Timothy White
As Accounts Payable evolves how do we know that measurement techniques are evolving as well? For years benchmarking has traditionally fallen into five major categories:
1. A/P Infrastructure
2. Processing/Automation
3. Payables Controls
4. Risk Management
5. Cash Management
But the question is; are these still the right categories for today’s payables shops? In this session there will be no formal presentation and no lecture – this is a creative session to explore and redesign from the ground up. Grouped together we will collaborate in groups to pick apart benchmarking and see what, if anything can be done better or differently.
Don’t miss this opportunity to work side by side with the best thought leaders in the industry. This will be a fun and enlightening session that will generate some valuable insight for all!
This session will be facilitated by Joseph Collins on May 16th from 11:15am-12:15pm. Collins is a seasoned presenter who creates a unique environment of entertainment, engagement and learning by incorporating multiple elements from his background in AP, global training, internal audit, payroll, IT, sales, marketing, customer service, team building, employee relations and psychology.
Other speakers representing APEX Analytix will be Jim Arnold and Jeremy Dotson.
Come learn how your peers are improving their retail audit operational efficiency, whether your audit focus is internal, external, or a combination of both. On May 16th from 1:45 to 2:45pm, Jeremy Dotson will share how other retail organizations are successfully reducing average cost per claim, establishing and maintaining strong retailer-supplier relationships, and increasing internal catch rates.
Re-evaluate your current strategies to enhance your recovery efforts and improve the accuracy of your long-term global retail transactional process. Find out how you can improve your cash management strategy by taking advantage of promotional allowances, rebates, and cash discounts.
Other speakers representing APEX Analytix will be Joseph Collins and Founder Jim Arnold.
