A duplicate payment for a larger amount is generally relatively easy to spot, but can require a substantial amount of work to retrieve from the recipient. Your team gets burned out quickly, impacting your overall business productivity. So, it’s better to use the aforementioned https://curriesnstories.com/deferred-revenue-understanding-its-impact-on/ ways and avoid duplicate payments.
When Are Companies Most Likely to Make Duplicate Payments?
Ensure that there are no dark corners of the process where things can go unaccounted for. And if the vendors need a reason to stop sending duplicates, letting them know that each invoice copy could delay payment overall will often entice them to stop this particular practice. Make them aware that each extraneous copy of an invoice could result in days of research on your end that will ultimately slow down their payment. Mary Schaeffer of AP Now has noticed a steady uptick in duplicate payments within the past few years. Companies that previously experienced very few duplicate payments are seeing an increase and, due to lack of expertise in how to handle these situations, are rather confused as to next steps. Cross-check with payment recordsCompare flagged invoices against payment records to confirm if any have already been paid.
- Often, vendors send multiple copies of the same invoice via different methods like mail, email, or fax.
- To see how BILL’s AP automation can help you avoid duplicate payments while streamlining your AP process, watch a demo or start your risk-free trial today — no credit card required.
- This can lead to financial losses for the company and can also damage vendor relationships.
- By investing in robust AP software solutions, businesses can streamline their operations and ensure that all payments undergo proper authorization before being executed.
- For instance, fraudsters could exploit this loophole to submit counterfeit invoices and get unwarranted payments.
- This post explains what you need to know about duplicate payments, including 4 simple tips to help prevent them.
Lack of Standardized Accounts Payable Sops
While the majority of duplicate payments result from manual entry errors or miscommunication, poorly managed accounting departments also increase the likelihood of procurement fraud. Inadequate processes and budgetary controls are often the culprits in cases of duplicate spending. To avoid or detect potential duplicate payments, a company must have visibility into its payment process and control the payments going out the door. Professional recovery audit solutions provide essential protection against duplicate payments. Effective communication is the cornerstone of preventing duplicate payments. Create a centralised system where all invoice-related communications are documented and tracked.
“My remarkable growth as a Solutions Architect”
Comparing this information against your expected tax liability can help confirm a duplicate payment. The “Account Transcript” section provides a detailed record of transactions, including payments and adjustments, which can be downloaded and used as supporting evidence when contacting the IRS. Identifying a duplicate payment requires careful review of financial records. A key indicator is an unexpected credit balance on your IRS account, which can be checked through the IRS website. This balance may not align with your expected tax liability, suggesting a duplicate payment. MHC NorthStar is a powerful workflow automation platform that eliminates both invoice and payment duplication.
- This process aims to identify and recover any duplicate payments made to the same vendor or for the same invoice.
- If you must manually process, ensure that each invoice proceeds through a standard payment workflow (for instance, all invoices from a specific vendor going through the same clerk).
- As we see technology advance with the likes of ChatGPT and AI, automation is becoming the standard for AP teams.
- It’s also important to regularly train employees on the company’s processes and any new AP technology.
- Whether you need to recover existing duplicate payments or prevent future ones, Strategic Audit Solutions has the expertise and technology to help.
- When vendors submit invoices by email, mail, portal, or EDI to different contacts—AP teams without centralized tracking may process both versions.
- As noted above, checks can get lost in the mail, take a long time to arrive, and may not always be deposited immediately upon their receival.
Regardless of how well-honed your processes are and how well-trained your staff is, sometimes you’ll find the best way to avoid duplicate payments is to cut them off at the source. Many times, where the process went wrong was before your team even received the invoice. And while it’s more difficult to manage a process you don’t own, there are ways to convince a vendor to work with you to reduce duplicate payments.
Almost all Accounts Payable system will only flag how to prevent duplicate payments a duplicate invoice if all the data elements of the invoice match exactly. So, insist that all invoices include an appropriate purchase order number, or at least the name of the person who placed the order. The most professional way to do this is to prepare a politely written message explaining this policy to suppliers, and return invoices that don’t include the required information. For one, if a vendor sends in an invoice in messy handwriting, it may be difficult for the optical character recognition (OCR) tool you use to capture that invoice’s data. Each situation calls for a slightly different approach, but maintaining professionalism while being direct about your needs will serve you well.
This makes it nearly impossible for duplicate payments (and other issues) to occur. Non-PO invoices are not suitable for three-way matching, which makes them more difficult to process. These types of invoices can easily lead to duplicate payments, so it is best to avoid using them. For organizations hoping to reduce their duplicate payments, one thing that can be done is to keep an eye out for things vendors might do that could generate an extra payment.
Based on findings, adjust workflows, retrain staff, or implement additional system controls to prevent recurrence. Fortunately, that does not mean you have to accept a bloated, bureaucratic payment system.
Would-be scammers know this Outsource Invoicing to be true, so they attempt to send fraudulent invoices hoping that the AP department won’t notice. Generally, most duplicate invoices aren’t born out of such nefarious circumstances. Instead, AP team members themselves might accidentally create duplicate vendor accounts and send payments to both. It helps catch double invoicing, especially from small or one-time vendors.