Preventing Duplicate Payments: The Role of Automated Duplicate Matching

Duplicate payments a widespread and costly issue

The issue of duplicate payments is widespread and costly, affecting businesses across industries, regardless of their size. Invoices may get paid more than once due to inconsistent processes, human errors, or perhaps through invoice fraud. The consequences are far-reaching, precipitating financial loss, increased administrative overhead, and negative impacts on supplier relationships.

Not only does payment duplication drain financial resources, but they also erode profitability and impede operational efficiency. Additionally, organisations face the risk of reputational damage if suppliers perceive them as unreliable or untrustworthy. Implementing robust measures to prevent duplicate payments is paramount, safeguarding financial stability, optimising processes, and fostering strong partnerships with suppliers.

How big is the duplicate payments problem?

One indication of the scale of the problem might be extrapolated from research commissioned by SAP Concur, a provider of expense management software. The study ‘How Much Money is Your Business Throwing Away in Duplicate Invoice Payments?’ found that the average cost of duplicate payments is approximately £9,000 ($12,000) per month for small to midsize businesses (SMBs).

The study also found that the average SMB processes 450 invoices per month and has a 1.29% duplication rate, resulting in about six duplicate invoices per month.

If this is scaled-up it’s a dead certainty that a global enterprise, processing anything up to 1.5 million invoices each year, would not be very happy about the numbers that would fall out of the calculation…

What is automated duplicate matching?

APMatching automated duplicate matching is a highly effective and efficient process powered by powerful software technologies. This is a complementary product to our statement-matching and invoice-matching solutions. By meticulously comparing invoices, payment data, and other relevant information, this automated system swiftly identifies potential duplicate payments.

The software extracts invoice data and utilises intelligent algorithms to detect patterns, anomalies, and similarities, enabling enterprise businesses to proactively perform duplicate matching.

This automated approach not only saves valuable time and resources but also minimises the risk of financial losses and maintains the integrity of payment processes. By leveraging APMatching technology, enterprises enhance accuracy, streamline operations, and mitigate the potential negative impacts associated with duplicate payments.

Why is automated duplicate matching important?

Automated duplicate matching is important because it provides excellent benefits for enterprise AP departments, including:

• Reduced financial losses – research indicates the potential scale of the problem that duplicate matching eliminates. Enterprises save a significant amount of money by using APMatching to manage their exposure to duplicate payments.
• Increased efficiency – manually identifying and preventing duplicate payments is a time-consuming and labour-intensive process. Automated duplicate matching frees up employees to focus on other tasks, such as processing new invoices and managing supplier relationships.
• Improved compliance – generally speaking, preventing duplication is a principle enshrined within financial regulation instruments such as Sabox and MiFID. APMatching lets enterprises apply this principle to invoice processing to prevent payment duplication, one of the most costly business finance problems.
• Enhanced relationships with suppliers – duplicate payments often undermine supplier relationships. When suppliers get paid twice for duplicated invoices, it may damage confidence because it raises questions over fiscal probity and poor control of the P2P process. Automated duplicate matching prevents this and supports strong relationships with suppliers.
• Reduced admin overhead – manual processing and identifying duplicate invoices is labour-intensive, time-consuming and prone to errors. Should payment duplication be discovered, time is soaked up on both sides in processing credit notes or refunds. End the unnecessary admin burden with APMatching.

Get on top of payment duplication with APMatching

See how APMatching accounts payable automation software eliminates duplicate payments. Take a personalised demo with one of our representatives, and we’ll show you how the software eliminates tedious, time-consuming manual invoice processing and automates duplicate invoice detection.

If you like what you see, we’ll give you full support so that you can more fully evaluate APMatching with a Proof of Concept (PoC), demonstrating how effective it is using your own data.