Accounts Payable Audit: address fraud, save money…

13 July 2018 | Software

Research has shown that duplicate payments can account for between 0.05 and 0.1 percent of transactions. This means that up to one in every thousand payments will be unnecessary. Not only that, but this is just one of many different forms of accounting error – which may be caused by human error or deliberate fraud. A small to medium-sized business can easily be spending thousands of pounds every year by paying money they don’t need to – or not collecting cash that is due to them. An accounts payable audit will identify where the problems are occurring. This can be an eye-opening experience. Many people assume that duplicates and other accounting glitches are not a problem for their business. The immediate reason for this is that they are typically unseen, and it is therefore very easy to underestimate their impact. If you examine several years of accounts, the money wasted can easily run into five or six figures. Recovery audit software can help you to get that back: no mean gift in the current economic climate.

Duplicate payments and other problems happen for a wide range of reasons. There are some fifty regular accounting errors, so there is plenty of scope for overpayments. The average invoice has something like twelve fields, and if these are recorded manually then mistakes can quickly multiply. That’s before you factor in deliberate fraud, where suppliers have submitted unwarranted claims, knowing that they will easily slip under your radar. The problem is that typical accounting software isn’t set up to catch these sorts of issues; it is designed to do a specific job, keeping track of your incomings and outgoings. Although it might do this very well, you need another solution if you want to stop the overpayments than can cripple your business.

Recovery audit software is the solution that can all but halt duplicate payments and other accounting errors. Although their complete elimination is virtually impossible, you can cut them down to far more reasonable levels – with immediate benefits to your cash flow. An accounts payable audit will highlight the extent of the problem and enable you to avoid it in the future. This is essential when money is tight. Additionally, speed is important, since if you have overpaid then it is possible to reclaim the money – assuming the suppliers are still in business. As time passes more and more will cease trading, making it impossible to settle their debts to you.

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