How we work
Three phases. A deliberate order.
Every engagement follows the same sequence — because the sequence is the point. Skipping to technology before the process is right is how companies end up with expensive software that automates a broken workflow.
Diagnose
Understand what's actually failing — and what it costs.
Most P2P problems are misdiagnosed. The symptom is a late payment or a duplicate invoice; the cause is an approval process that lives in someone's inbox, or a vendor master that nobody owns. The Diagnose phase maps how the process actually runs — not how the org chart says it runs — and puts numbers to what each failure point costs in cycle time, rework, late fees, and missed early-pay discounts.
What this phase involves
- Structured interviews with AP, procurement, and finance stakeholders
- As-is process mapping — including informal workarounds
- Root cause analysis for each identified failure point
- Cost quantification: cycle time, rework hours, late fees, duplicate payments, missed discounts
Resolve
Fix the process before you touch the technology.
This is the phase most companies skip — and it's the most valuable one. Before any software is selected or configured, we redesign the process: approval hierarchy, ownership, exception handling, vendor onboarding, and payment timing. Many of the most expensive problems clear in this phase at no software cost at all. The ones that remain are now well-defined enough to be solved by the right tool.
What this phase involves
- Approval hierarchy redesign — clear ownership at every step
- Exception and dispute handling protocols
- Vendor master governance and onboarding standards
- Payment timing and early-pay discount capture strategy
Solutionize
Select and implement the right technology — now that you know what right means.
Technology selection without a clear process definition is guesswork. After Resolve, you know exactly what the software needs to do. Solutionize matches that requirement set to the right tools, manages vendor evaluation, and oversees implementation so the technology fits the process — not the other way around.
What this phase involves
- Requirements definition based on the redesigned process
- Vendor evaluation and selection support
- Implementation oversight and change management
- Go-live readiness and post-launch stabilization
Why the order matters
You can't fix what you haven't diagnosed.
Companies that skip straight to software selection are solving for symptoms. They buy a tool, configure it around the broken process, and wonder why adoption is low and the problems persist. The three-phase sequence exists because each phase depends on the one before it. Diagnose tells you what's broken. Resolve tells you what good looks like. Solutionize makes it permanent.
The starting point
The Busby Diagnostic
A one to two week review that tells you exactly what is broken in your procure-to-pay operation, why it is broken, and what it is costing you — with a prioritized roadmap to fix it. Everything after it is quoted from what it finds.
The Busby Diagnostic
A complete root cause analysis of your procure-to-pay operation. You receive a process map, a cost-of-failure summary, and a prioritized fix roadmap — regardless of whether you continue with us.
What you receive
- Root cause analysis
- As-is process map
- Prioritized fix roadmap with cost estimates
Resolve & Solutionize
If the diagnostic reveals work worth doing, we scope the next phases based on what we found. No standard package — the engagement is sized to your actual situation.
Already have a diagnosis?
If you've already done the diagnostic work internally and need help redesigning the process or selecting the right tools, we can engage at Resolve or Solutionize directly.
Not sure which engagement fits?
Start with a 30-minute conversation. We'll tell you where you are and what makes sense.
Schedule a conversation