Introduction
No matter the precautions being taken, in any high volume transactional situation, mistakes do get made. Whether they are made by a human, a process or a machine-level mismatch, money is overpaid despite any sensible levels of caution. Unless you add so many precuations that you are losing more money than if you made an occassional overpayment, it is always worth bringing in a no-find/no-fee audit company to keep your accounts payable safe from overpayments.
An accounts payable recovery audit is a mandatory part of keeping a peaceful mind as head of AP. Misallocation, multiple allocation and part allocation of funds to different order can cause mayhem when checking supplier balances, and the clearest head is one from outside of the system. If you can get an external audit of your accounts payable department as part of an ongoing partnership with an external audit partner, you can make use of their audit and subsequent reporting to help keep your books up-to-date and clear.
The sheer volume of transactions making their way through accounts payable can make overpayments inevitable in larger organisations. In our experience, overpayments typically occur for one or more of the following reasons:
- Human error mis-keying invoice details or invoice numbers
- Suppliers becoming duplicated i.e. set up twice or more under different names
- Staff turnover - new staff keying invoicing for the same service a second time without knowledge of the previous
- Takeovers, mergers and reorganisations of contract disturbing records or causing duplications
- Duplicates of systems and/or use of more than one system for payments duplicating previous payments from the old system
- Delayed payment has resulted in a re-issued invoice that may be hurried through due to the 'perceived lateness' of the payment finally being made.
- Deliberate circumvention of the controls put in place to get an invoice paid
- Complicated, time-consuming payment authorisation processes
How we proceed
We provide an in-depth review of the clients’ accounts payable transactions to:
- Identify potential overpayments
- Review associated transactions to confirm subsequent clearance
- Validate potential overpayments back to copy invoices
- Collect from the supplier on client’s behalf, if required
- Create appropriate clearing documentation
Our approach is flexible and client-focused, based on the understanding that every department has unique processes and requirements.
Our process outline
- Obtaining the data: We work with your accounts and/or IT teams so as to be sure we have what we need from our first data export. This saves time and ensures that no IT or AP time is wasted. It also enables us to start work as soon as possible and means that any recoveries can start as close to the time of error as possible making recoveries speedier and more efficient.
- Conducting the review: Our review are predominantly performed off-system, off-site and out of sight; with Twice2Much, the time commitment from your staff will be limited to a couple of days during the entire assignment.
- Recovering lost profits: We identify potential duplicates, and then recover them on your behalf as a complete identification and recovery service. As part of our recovery schedule we produce the appropriate documentation to reflect collections in your ledgers. As part of the service, we provide a variety of management reports recording historical errors and also identifying system weaknesses.