Category: Finance

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Accounts Payable Audit Will Be A Cost-Saving Exercise

Most small and medium-sized companies deal with a wide range of customers, suppliers and employees. What this means is that many thousands of transactions could be happening every month, with money coming in and going out as invoices are paid and obligations met. Each one of those is a source of potential error, which is why an accounts payable audit can show up some surprising results. There are more than a dozen different kinds of overpayment or mistaken payment than can happen, one of the most common of which are duplicate payments – put simply, when an invoice is paid twice. This, and other types of overpayment, can occur through accident or fraud. If an audit turns up a significant amount of expenditure due to these unnecessary payments – as it almost certainly will – then recovery audit software enables you to regain the lost money.

It is only natural that mistakes will occur with such a complex and wide-ranging accounting system. Human error explains a lot of it: assuming that your payments are processed manually, your accounts team can easily process an invoice twice, or make other mistakes. This is practically unavoidable. Even if it could be addressed, you are not responsible for the invoices sent by your suppliers. They may not be as scrupulous, and some may even be dishonest, realising that they can slip errors past your accounts department that work in their favour.

This may seem like an unusual occurrence, but the fact is that the average SME could be processing thousands of payments or more every single month. Even if a small proportion of these are problematic, the result is cumulative and can be significant. Remember, turnover is not the same as profit. Some estimates suggest that between 0.1 and 0.5 percent of turnover is lost due to duplicate payments and other mistakes. If your company is already struggling then this could make all the difference between sinking and swimming. That’s where the accounts payable audit comes in, locating all of those instances in which overpayments have been made, this month and in the past. Then recovery audit software allows you to chase up those suppliers and other parties who have received more than their due from you. In most cases the explanation will simply be that it was a mistake. In a small minority, though, it could be down to fraud, in which case you may want to take legal action, or at least cease doing business with them.

Please visit https://www.fiscaltec.com/

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Recovery Audit and Duplicate Payments Software …Claim Back What Is Yours

All organisations are prone to accounting mistakes and fraud. It’s a sad fact that accidents and errors happen, in accounts as in every other aspect of your business. It’s equally true that there will always be some people who try to take advantage of any vulnerabilities they locate. Accounting is a complex business; invoices have several fields and if these are filled in or copied incorrectly then you could end up paying too much or claiming too little. Duplicate payments are another oft-encountered problem – where an invoice is settled twice, either accidentally or intentionally. Unless you are specifically looking for them, these can slip under your radar all too easily. The result is that you pay funds out where you shouldn’t, or you don’t claim money that is owed to you. That’s what an accounts payable audit is for. It tells you what the discrepancy is between what’s in your accounts and what’s supposed to be there.

Recovery audit software is designed to show where the problems are, rectify them and stop them happening again. Given the high number of errors in the accounting practices of the average SME, that can have quite a financial bonus.

Recovery audit software might seem like an undesirable expense. However, given that an accounts payable audit can turn up tens or even hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of invoices yet to be claimed for a small business, it should pay for itself the first time you use it. And remember, the longer you leave it the less possibility there is of getting your money back. It doesn’t matter whether the problem is caused by duplicate payments or another of the dozen or so different errors that can occur. If the organisation that owes you money has gone bankrupt or ceased to exist in the meantime, you stand no hope of reclaiming what’s owed to you. Act now – it could result in a nice reward.

Some auditors suggest that as many as 0.1 percent of transactions might be mistaken. Whilst that doesn’t sound like a lot, those errors soon accrue. If your business relies on a large amount of small transactions, it could make a lot of difference – especially since turnover is not the same as profit. If you are just squeezing by, those accidental or fraudulent payments could mean the difference between your enterprise staying afloat or failing.

Please visit http://www.fiscaltechnologies.com/

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Bacs software is safe, fast and simple

Nowadays all most all companies use bacs payments to send sums of money from one bank account to another – whether it’s for their suppliers, clients or other parties. Bacs software can be integrated with your accounting software, meaning that accounting data doesn’t have to be entered several times. This cuts down on lost time and resources, thereby saving you money. Bacs itself is still in use but, in practice, almost all so-called ‘bacs’ payments today are actually FPS, or the ‘faster payments system’. Whereas bacs usually takes three working days, FPS is practically instant. The money usually appears in the receiver’s account within minutes, if that.

There are numerous benefits to using bacs instead of the older alternatives. Although some transactions inevitably have to be completed in cash (although there are technological advances that are making a cashless system a closer reality) you will usually want to cut down on the amount of cash you have on the premises. This presents a risk and has an additional cost in terms of your insurance policy. Cheques are still in use, but these are slow to process – both for you in writing them and in the bank in clearing them. Additionally, you have no idea when they will be cashed. Sometimes people will leave cheques for weeks or more before they can get to a bank. This means that money leaves your account at unexpected times, which is not good for your cash flow.

Larger firms use bacs software routinely because it is so convenient, speedy and safe – there are numerous levels of security built in, and losing money through fraud is almost unheard of. (In the event that something does go awry, you will almost always be refunded.) It’s the smaller companies that resist making bacs payments for longest. Partly this is because there is a small cost of moving across your systems. However, it’s more likely a less measurable cause: ‘We’ve always done things this way.’ As more and more companies use bacs, though, the ones that remain with the less effective and secure systems will be left behind. It is now an inconvenience to be paid by cash or cheque in many cases. A business that is slow to update will be at a disadvantage, since the competition could well be making electronic payments – saving time and money in the process.

Please visit http://www.bottomline.co.uk/