As the P&L leader of a transportation company, one of the most frustrating challenges I encountered was receiving unpaid invoices for services rendered months earlier. These weren’t minor line items—they were often tied to maintenance or operations and could total hundreds or even thousands of dollars. Because accounting wasn’t aware of the original expenditure, they didn’t accrue the cost, and it would appear on our P&L in the month the invoice finally arrived, rather than when the expense was actually incurred.
I referred to these as “ghost invoices.” And just like real ghosts, they always seemed to show up at the worst possible time—usually during an already tough month, making our financial performance look even worse and complicating any recovery plans.
These ghost invoices sparked difficult conversations with my team during monthly review calls. So, how did I handle them? Since Ghostbusters wasn’t an option, I implemented a few practical measures to close the communication gaps an…
