What are duplicate payments?
It is a fiscal reality that corporations that do well develop in complexity over the years, which also boosts the number of mistakes. It is also a new corporate reality that corporations are finding it increasingly critical to identify extra ways to increase revenue during these financially challenging times. For both these reasons, a regular recovery audit employing recovery audit software has become an increasingly necessary part of regular business methods. The ultimate result of a recovery audit is an immediate improvement in cash flow as it spots lost monies and performs to secure their recovery and this performs towards keeping the ‘bottom-line’ healthy.
Although the main role of a recovery audit is to recapture lost monies through duplicate payments, a helpful by-product is its position in perfecting business methods and therefore helping to reduce outgoings. In the investigation of businesses accounts processes, a recovery audit will also investigate why a payment error was made and how it was allowed to be made. This is the beginning part in increasing efficiencies in the payments chain. Increased efficiency leads to minimized costs and increased profit margins for corporations.
There are a number of issues that recovery audit software and a recovery audit can discover that contribute to duplicate payments. For most corporations, it’s simply a product of large transaction numbers and having a multitude of clients. The issues of scale mean that even a 0.1% error rate can result in thousands and even millions in lost revenue for a business. Other issues can also be caused by recent, specific events that have happened for the corporation such as quick growth or business mergers, which can lead to, for example, additional systems that don’t integrate properly and which can lead to mistakes. In this instance, the issue is a simple one and has the distinct advantage of only needing a one-off fix in order to fix.
A recovery audit team using professional recovery audit software can also identify deeper, on-going issues that can lead to continued duplicate payments. These are regularly problems concerning a company’s business processes such as inadequate controls, unreliable communication, a lack of standardized procedures and inappropriate employee training. All of these are contributing issues to a growth in duplicate payments and will necessitate a workplace to change its workplace culture and potentially a permanent adjustment in normal business methods and processes in order to address it.
A recovery audit is commonly started through the installation of a piece of recovery audit software. This can be the most economical and simplest method to discover duplicate payments, particularly for small-to-medium companies. A selection of recovery audit software is available on the market, with differences in cost and size in order to provide for every workplace.
For those businesses with complex pricing mechanisms, a considerable number of buyers or are just looking for a more in-depth and thorough audit in the hands of experts, a skilled recovery audit team will demonstrate the greatest value for money. These teams, together with their software, will thoroughly analyze where duplicate payments are happening and can go one step further by proposing answers to any detected errors.
When selecting your recovery audit software, it’s crucial to think about a number of variables. The first factor is whether the audit software is compatible with your accounts software. This is a crucial consideration in order to avoid unforeseen PC errors that can potentially cause problems. Additional issues to bear in mind is whether the price of the programme achieves good value for a workplace of your size, how the programme aims to attain its purpose and what its drawbacks are. If you decide to go with a recovery audit company, you will find that they regularly use particular program that has been created by the audit company itself. Therefore, the analysts should be fully familiar with the software and can implement it seamlessly into a business system while an audit is being held. A recovery audit team will also use data technicians and analysts who can demonstrate what the software can not and, most crucially, advise a business on solutions to address any problems that were contributing to more duplicate payments.
Filed under: Business Software, Schools



