The Value of IOFM Certification: A Journey to Success

In this inspiring episode, Monica Brooks interviews Jamie Umpleby, a recently certified attendee who shares her journey to achieving certification at the IOFM Fall Conference and Expo. Jamie opens up about her decision to get certified, the experience of taking the class, and the valuable insights she gained along the way.

Monica and Jamie discuss the certification process, exploring how the knowledge and skills Jamie acquired can make a difference in her career. Whether you’re considering IOFM certification, or looking for motivation to further your own professional development, this episode offers an inside look at the rewards of investing in yourself and your career.

Jamie Umpleby

Jamie Umpleby is the Accounts Payable Manager at OhioHealth Corporation in Columbus, Ohio. She has 20 years of experience in the healthcare industry with positions ranging from Supply Chain to Accounts Payable. Jamie is passionate about team development, Lean practices and increasing automation to support growth while ensuring best practices.

She loves traveling and vacationing anywhere there is a beach!

Monica Brooks

Monica is a dynamic speaker who inspires others to reach their full potential, both professionally and personally. She excels in helping to maximize individuals’ capability in any situation, whether it’s facing new challenges, working with diverse teams, or receiving feedback and coaching. Monica has first-hand successful leadership experience: Before venturing out on her own, she led a team and increased her team members’ overall engagement while helping them build their proficiency. She now applies that experience and knowledge to helping others become more effective in their roles. Monica is certified with Franklin-Covey to facilitate “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” and has led a diverse group of managers through fundamental development programs. Her special spark is sure to leave you feeling inspired and motivated!

Transcription

Grace Chlosta: Welcome to the IOFM podcast. This is a podcast for accounts payable and accounts receivable professionals who want to stay in the know with current AP and AR trends and ideas. We'll be interviewing professionals in this space on a wide variety of subjects, including automation, artificial intelligence, career growth, compliance, leadership, and much more.

Today Monica Brooks will be interviewing a newly certified attendee from IOFM's Fall Conference. Monica is a dynamic speaker who inspires others to reach their full potential, both professionally and personally. She excels in helping to maximize individuals' capability in any situation, whether it's facing new challenges, working with diverse teams, or receiving feedback and coaching. 

00:00:50

Monica has first-hand successful leadership experience: Before venturing out on her own, she led a team and increased her team members' overall engagement while helping them build their proficiency. She now applies that experience and knowledge to helping others become more effective in their roles. Monica is certified with Franklin-Covey to facilitate "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" and has led a diverse group of managers through fundamental development programs. Her special spark is sure to leave you feeling inspired and motivated!

Monica Brooks: All right, Jamie, welcome to the podcast. I'm so excited to have you here. Would you like to do a quick introduction – who you are and what you do?

Jamie Umpleby: Yes. Thank you for having me. My name is Jamie Umpleby. I am an AP manager for a healthcare system back in Ohio. I've been with the company for about 22 years, but I've only been in AP for 7. The first four years was a project manager, and then the AP manager for 3 years –

Monica Brooks: So project manager in accounts payable and then now you're the AP manager?

00:01:51                     

Jamie Umpleby: Yes.

Monica Brooks: Okay, how is that going?

Jamie Umpleby: It's going really well. I really enjoy the team. We have a really great team. We've had a lot of turnover, like organic turnover, so we've had people that retired and were promoted, so we're always excited to help with that development. And then, as we brought on new associates, we've kind of like adjusted the way that we do our interviews and the questions we ask and things like that. So I think right now we have a really strong team that I'm really proud of.

Monica Brooks: That's amazing. That's so good to hear. And I know this is your first time at an IOFM conference. Is that right?

Jamie Umpleby: It is.

Monica Brooks: How's it going so far?

Jamie Umpleby: It's going great.

Monica Brooks: Awesome. And you went right for this. You went right into the AP certification and you told me this morning some really good news. What's the good news.

Jamie Umpleby: I passed the certification!

Monica Brooks: You passed – yes! Congratulations.

Jamie Umpleby: Thank you.

00:02:40                     

Monica Brooks: I want to talk a little bit more about that. Like I said, you just went right for it. You came in, this was your first conference, and you did the certification. What inspired you to pursue that certification?

Jamie Umpleby: So in the healthcare industry, I had always worked very close in the surgery department, so when I came to AP I felt that I did not have enough knowledge. So I'm always trying to think of: What kind of knowledge can I gain that's going to help really support my team?

So when I learned about what IOFM was and there was a conference, that certification was just to help me have that edge and build that knowledge base. 

Monica Brooks: That's great. Now, can you tell me something you learned or a new insight that you're going to take back and whether it's apply it or maybe talk about it or teach other people about it?

00:03:27                     

Jamie Umpleby: I am happy to say that a lot of the things that I learned we're already utilizing. We have it in practice. But I work for a nonprofit company, so I got to learn more about taxes and the sales/use tax and things like that, so that was really interesting.

I think what I'll want to bring back to my team, as we're always trying to prevent fraud, [is] there were some really great discussions on fraud, really great discussions around the vendor master file, because any altercations you make to that is really opening up to fraud if you don't have a really strong practice in place. 

00:04:02                     

Monica Brooks: That's great. So what type of things will you share with your team around fraud, around the vendor master file? What's something that you kind of want to go back and reiterate to them?

Jamie Umpleby: I really enjoyed the opening today and their discussion on fraud – the opening this morning and the discussion around fraud. Some of the statistics around it – it was kind of surprising the amount of fraud discussions that are actually taking place internally.

Monica Brooks: Yes, I caught that, too, because we always focus on external – not always, but most of the time we're like, "What is everybody else out there doing to try to get into our company?" And it kind of flipped it, like, "Oh, don't forget about the internal controls also for people that are working for you."

00:04:51                     

Jamie Umpleby: Yes. That was a really big topic in the certification course yesterday, too, so it was very interesting.

Monica Brooks: Yeah, and I think also our environment continues to change, and so we have to stay on top of those things. Being trained on how to do that is going to be ongoing. Fraud prevention isn't a one-and-done. They're always one step ahead of us, so it's like: How can we also get the knowledge we need to be not fraud-proof, but as close as we possibly can, and to train our team to do the same thing?

Jamie Umpleby: Yes, definitely.

Monica Brooks: I know this was like you did all-day training yesterday and today you're about halfway through. Do you have any insights you've learned so far, besides the keynote in a session you attended?

Jamie Umpleby: We're always looking for AI, machine learning. We have OCR in practice right now, so we do have automation in our company. We have EDI transactions as well, which is automated, but always trying to find the cutting edge. What is best practice? How can that align with your software?

00:05:50

There was a session today about best practice on building your business case to present it to definitely your controller or your CFO, and anything around that project manager. One of the key takeaways that I really enjoyed – just because our company went through a very large project implementation about three years ago. We went from an ERP system to one that is real-time, and it's made such an impact. 

But I feel that we needed stronger support from an AP perspective, so in the session today, when they talked about vetting your suppliers that are coming to you and saying, "Here's our quote. This is what we can do for you," to really stand firm and say, "This is our practice. How can you make it better? How can we align with best practices?" 

00:06:43

So that whole project management piece, to really focus on your department and really make sure that they're listening to you and [that] what they're presenting to you is going to be beneficial. 

Monica Brooks: That's great. Now that you have your feet wet in the conference, do you think you'll be back?

Jamie Umpleby: I hope so. I really am enjoying it so far. One of the things – because the only other conference I've ever been to was a Workday Rising Conference, and I went to that a couple of times.

00:07:11

But this, there's so much impactful information about AP. Some of the other conferences, it's kind of hard to find information that pertains to your world. Here, it's all over the place. 

Monica Brooks: It's all over. That's what I love about coming to this conference is that it's specifically to AP, and even now AR. The question I wanted to ask you when you were talking about things that are going on and things you're learning and AI, how is your team feeling back at work about AI? What's the conversations that are being had around that?

00:07:42                     

Jamie Umpleby: So, for the most part, I think they're on board because what we have been able to prevent to them or talk to them about is we're not trying to replace people. We're trying to take those mundane, very manual tasks and have some type of AI/machine learning/robotic go ahead and process that. so your talent, your skillset of root-cause analysis can really be utilized, [and] putting that into practice.

There are some team members that are just very afraid, but that's where we have to talk to them and just really have this open conversation. "Let's talk about what makes you fearful so I can help educate you on this is what we're looking for. We're not looking to replace you because you're so valuable. We want to make sure that we are utilizing your skills." 

Monica Brooks: Yeah, I think that also applies when we all went to email. I'm sure there were people who resisted that, like, "What about the postman and their job. They're going to lose their job." No, now they have a new purpose. They're delivering packages because everything's gone online now for purchases that we're making.

00:08:43

I think there's always that fear around the really big change, but we always find a way to figure it out. It helps us also become more efficient. And now what skills can they learn to better serve the department? I think that's wonderful. Thank you so much for being here today. It was a pleasure talking with you. 

Jamie Umpleby: You're welcome. Thanks for having me.

Monica Brooks: All right, take care.

Grace Chlosta: Thank you so much for listening to the IOFM podcast. Remember to head on over to the Member Forum to discuss today's episode and provide ideas for our next one. And to stay up to date on IOFM's current events, both in-person and virtually, head on over to IOFM.com.