Money Collectors recover profits and cash flow from duplicated payments

Duplicated payments are a bigger problem than most companies realise. Studies by the Accounts Payable Association have shown that two thirds of UK finance professionals have received duplicate invoices, with a third ending up paying them, while other studies suggest duplicate payments make up approximately 1% of all invoices paid.

Accidentally paying the same invoice twice may not be a huge issue if it is an isolated event, but if it is a common occurrence over many years, it could cost businesses hundreds of thousands of pounds, which is still recoverable.

At a time when the financial impacts of Covid-19 have made all businesses review their expenditure, duplicated payments are not a mistake they can afford to make. Action needs to be taken sooner rather than later, or companies risk continuing to make costly overpayments.

How do duplicated payments happen?

Companies use trusted suppliers, but duplicated payments continue to be made leading to loss of revenue. So why are you receiving duplicate invoices and then paying suppliers twice?

Here are the top 5 reasons

• Data entry errors – From the loss of concentration when manually processing hundreds of invoices a day
• Supplier duplicates – Duplicate suppliers in your systems may lead to duplicate invoices being generated
• Paying from multiple source documents – When two separate source documents are submitted for a single payment
• Invoices sent via different methods – Duplicates can occur if invoices are posted, faxed and/or emailed
• Lack of PO number – Duplicate payments may occur if the supplier does not include the PO number

How Can Money Collectors Help?

  Duplicate Payment Recovery Service

At a time when organisations all have challenges of time and staffing to address this issue today, we can deliver much needed cash back into the business, by delivering this review for you.

Our Duplicate Payment Recovery Service, identifies duplicate invoices that have been submitted for payment using risk scoring software to identify the highest risk items, enabling finance teams to commence recovery of duplicated payments that they potentially did not even know were lost. This on average can equate to between £150,000 and £250,000 for a £10m annual spend over 5 years. This also ensures an accurate ledger position and improved cash flow for our clients.

Many companies do not automatically refund the duplicate payments until asked and your duplicate payment will not show on your statement or ledger as they move your overpayments to a suspense account.

Built using innovative technology, the Duplicate Payment Recovery Service utilises a standard workflow with appropriate checks and balances to ensure that each potential duplication is validated, recorded, and actioned appropriately. We carry this out for companies remotely on a completely no recovery no fee basis.

Call to action: Telephone 01544 294224 or e mail mike@moneycollectors.co.uk