As staff and resource costs hit record highs, organisations everywhere are feeling the pinch. But in the fight to keep outgoings down to a minimum, are decision-makers missing some obvious monetary leaks?
Duplicate invoice payments continue to occur with unerring regulatory. At a time when both public and private sector organisations are re-evaluating their expenditure, the drip effect of these unnecessary duplicate payments can make a significant dent in already squeezed budgets.
This means that organisations are not only losing time to manual invoice processing – they could also stand to lose hundreds of thousands of pounds down the line.
Finance leaders cannot afford to ignore these potential losses. Fortunately, cutting-edge technology is helping organisations to recover duplicate payments and ensure the ongoing accuracy of their ledgers. With a Duplicate Payment Recovery service and Supplier Statement Reconciliation, organisations can lift the burden on their finance teams and make sure that every penny is accounted for.
Are you paying double?
When back-office staff are having to process hundreds of invoices a day, it is easy to see how a slight lapse in concentration can result in inaccuracies. In fact, even the most time-consuming and costly invoice validation processes are often prone to error.
Currently though, only 25% of accounts payable (AP) professionals identify duplicate invoices or payments as pain points of AP operations. But the problem is bigger than many organisations realise. In total, duplicate payments make up approximately 0.5% of all invoices paid.
This is no small change. While accidentally paying the same invoice twice may not be a disaster if it is an isolated event, an accumulation over several years could see losses swell into six figures, severely impacting the financial health of an organisation.
Recovering lost funds
Happily, this money is still recoverable. But organisations across the public and commercial sector now need to be more proactive in using the right approach.
Liberata’s Duplicate Payment Recovery service helps organisations to save money in these tough times. The in-house technology utilises a proprietary workflow with appropriate checks and balances to ensure that each potential duplication is appropriately validated, recorded, and actioned. Liberata then recovers duplicate payments on behalf of the organisation,which on average can equate to between £750,000 and £1.250,000 for a £50 million annual spend over five years.
Moreover, the service is risk-free: should no funds be recovered, no fee is payable, giving customers the peace of mind of knowing that no additional money is going to waste.
The bonus is that, as well as recovering money organisations did not realise was lost, the service helps them to gain valuable insight into how their processes can be modernised and improved for the future.
Protecting your spend
It is not enough to act after the horse has bolted. Instead of just relying on the recovery of lost funds, it is best to put the measures in place now to ensure that you are paying correctly from the outset.
Therefore, supplier statement reconciliation is a vital tool for organisations to have in the drive towards controlling costs. Traditionally overlooked by busy finance teams, a reliance on outdated and time-consuming manual processes has often been a barrier to efficient reconciliation. This inevitably leads to duplicate payments, missed credits and ultimately unnecessary losses.
Liberata’s Supplier Statement Reconciliation service delivers a comprehensive managed service to complete the reconciliations on behalf of an organisation, improving payment protections and freeing up staff to focus on more profit-generating activities.
A specialist team of experts is supported by proprietary technology to identify errors and omissions, uncovering duplicate payments, cleansing GRNI accounts, and often finding credits, discounts and adjustments that even the shrewdest Accounts Payable teams missed first time around.
To give decision-makers even more confidence in the accuracy of their ledgers, all organisations using the solution receive insightful reports to identify where systems, procedures and policies can be futureproofed. At Liberata, we’re fully aware of the pressures organisations are under with costs, which is why our solution is designed to give long-term, end-to-end support to keep unnecessary outgoings to a minimum.
Overpayments are a quiet drain on funds for many organisations. To make every penny count and improve stewardship, organisations now need to keep on top of their finances with innovative technology. The right managed services solution will empower organisations to strengthen their processes and recover lost funds, enabling them to move away from the error-prone processes that are costing them dear.
Contact us to find out more about Liberata’s Finance and Accounting services.
