5. What Do We Mean by Control ‘Issues’
5
The processes that ensure:
Efficient and effective operations
Reliable and accurate reporting
Fraud resistant operation
Internal
External
Regulatory compliant
6. Common Issues: Duplicate Vendors in Master Vendor
File
6
Duplicate payments
The invoice is submitted for entry twice
Different options for receipt and payment of invoices, including outsourcing.
Data entry errors
Manual checks requests
Correspondence issues
Supplier is using a different site/location.
Duplicate Name problem with Supplier conversion
Internal control issue
Controls Inappropriately configured
Controls are not regularly overridden
AP processors take shortcuts when creating vendor entries
Misreading a number or letter (for example: 0 instead of O, or 5 instead of S).
Transposing numbers (for example: 56 instead of 65)
Mis-keying (or simply omitting) punctuation (such as hyphens and slashes)
Omitting leading or trailing zeroes
Segregation of duties concern
Standardization and normalization are crucial
Preventing creating new ones
Identifying existing duplicate ones
Rigid coding standards
8. Advanced Controls
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Layer of automated controls over ERP controls
Continuously monitor key controls
Detect and Report issues as they occur
Prevent issues from occurring
Quickly see high risk issues with exception based
dashboards
Address issues that affect the bottom line
Reduces operational risk and process effectiveness
32. Tangible Business Benefits32
Fewer duplicate payments: Vendor master cleanup eliminates the duplicate vendor files and vendor
coding issues that significantly contribute to duplicate payments.
Reduced fraud: The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners estimates that the average company loses 5
percent of its annual revenues to fraud. Cleaning and maintaining a vendor master file provides the visibility
and controls required to help reduce fraudulent payments.
Increased staff productivity: Clean vendor files make it easier to find vendors in your system. This makes
it less likely that staff will create a duplicate vendor record, and ensures that staff does not waste their time
maintaining files that should have been deleted.
Improved analysis and management of spending: By showing which vendors are parts of the same
corporate entity, vendor master cleanup helps companies analyze and manage spending to negotiate
better discount terms and proactively manage their debit balances.
Streamlined regulatory compliance: Vendor master data management drives compliance with regulations
and internal controls, as well as compliance with 1099 tax legislation.
Reduced costs: Compared to traditional manual processes, an ongoing vendor master data maintenance
program significantly reduces the costs of managing supplier information.
