Invoice fraud – while it may not seem obvious – is becoming increasingly prevalent across many UK businesses. Experian states that SMEs in the UK alone are losing a shocking £9bn through invoice fraud, making it a top concern for businesses to put a stop to.
You may be thinking how can I prevent fraud in MY department? Using our guide, read on to find out how a digital transformation can give you the right tools and knowledge for this to happen in your department.
Monitor Invoices from Suppliers
Ongoing suppliers should be monitored on a regular basis to ensure invoices that do not fit with patterns in recent orders are raised as suspicious. If a regular supplier sends you invoices of around £1000, invoices 10% above or below this should be a concern.
Further, if you only receive 1-2 invoices a month from each supplier, invoices above this should be validated to ensure they are legitimate.
With a paper-based system this can be hard to monitor, however with a digital system, reports can be quickly generated to assess invoice numbers and amounts.
Only accept invoices from approved suppliers
If your organisation regularly deals with a set number of approved suppliers, invoices from new suppliers should be carefully assessed before approval. This can ensure that any invoices from companies you are not familiar with are investigated before any payment is made.
Adopt 3-way matching
Matching invoices against purchase orders and delivery notes is an effective way of preventing invoice fraud. Matching against these three documents can make it much harder for fraudulent documents to make their way into the system.
Matching electronically can save your staff hours of time and prevent any human error from occurring.
Check out your suppliers
Ensuring suppliers need a valid company registration number when submitting documents can make it harder for non-valid suppliers to submit fake invoices for payment. Further, matching a company registration number against a company address can make it harder for fraudsters to pretend to be a legitimate company.
Employ Automation
Automating the invoice process can allow you to meet all the above steps and more. When picking a supplier, you should look for options that allow you to view a detailed analytics dashboard in order to gain insight into your invoices and suppliers.
If you would like to find out more about how to prevent invoice fraud, why not sign up to our FREE April 28th Paperless Transformation Expert webinar “Preventing Invoice Fraud In Your Department”.