Fraud

Andrew Jesse, VP Basware UK, shows how taking control of the purchase-to-pay (P2P) cycle can help reduce cash loss

Overview of Duplicate Payments

Duplicate payments are an overpayment error occurring within the accounts payable department. The Institute of Internal Auditors suggests duplicate payments make up between 0.5% and 0.1% of annual invoice payments (www.theiia.org), which means one in a 1000 payments could be a duplicate. If your organisation makes £50 million in annual invoice payments you are likely paying out £50,000 or more in duplicate payments per year.

By Pete Loughlin, Purchasing Insight

Purchase to pay process, compliance controls, segregation of responsibilities – all things which to a business  can, and are,  seen as obstacles to just getting things done. But, they’re a necessary evil without which fraud would run rife.

So what are the most common purchase to pay frauds? We can’t necessarily know which are employed most often, but based on common knowledge and a bit of personal experience we think these are good candidates for the top six.

In these days of greater reliance on technology to save us from the perils of fraudulent activity, it’s interesting to consider that tip-offs and accidental discovery remain the two most pertinent methods of detection.