The document discusses common accounts payable risks, including fraud, insufficient supervision, and internal/external fraud types, and emphasizes the importance of mitigating these risks through automation. It outlines how AP automation can enhance audit quality, improve approval processes, and provide better data insights, ultimately reducing fraud and inefficiencies. The conclusion encourages businesses to consider implementing accounts payable automation systems for improved visibility and policy enforcement.

1. Common Accounts Payable Risks
and How to mitigate them
On ServiceNow

2. About
● To identify typical accounts payable risks, you may plan ahead of time and
avoid being deceived or suffering unnecessary losses in your business
● Fraud represents a 5% loss on average to most businesses, which suggests a
$3.7 trillion dollar issue globally, when factoring the Global GDP.

3. Challenges
● Fraud that exploits the accounts payable process
● Limited supervision or loose controls over the
procurement and payment processes.
● On top of the already-due invoice, the vendor will add
late payment penalties.
● The lack of transparency in the financial forecasting of
spend is a sign of a sloppy accounts payable
procedure.

4. Risks arising from types of
internal & external frauds

5. Internal Frauds
1. False billing: Occurs when false invoices are created for self-payments.
2. Fraudulent payments: Unauthorized payments can be made by an employee,
usually via check or ACH.
3. Tampering with financial reporting: After payments have been made, an
employee makes unapproved alterations to financial data.

6. External Frauds
1. Phishing scams:
• Occurs when an external party fraudulently tries to gain access to sensitive
information.
• Unsolicited emails that require a click-through should also be avoided by
businesses.
2. Duplicate payments:
• Vendors can be paid many times if they receive the same invoice in different
formats or if an employee makes a mistake.
3. Unapproved vendors:
• This occurs when a payment is made to a fictional or unauthorised vendor for
products and services that do not exist or are fraudulent.

7. How Does AP Automation
Reduce Risks and Frauds?

8. Digital Audit Trails
● Professionals use technology to secure enhanced access to data, and improve the overall
audit quality.
● With Aavenir’s AP automation, internal audit have greater visibility into Accounts/ financial
data and reports.
● Gain insight into any risks involved and enable accurate financial forecasting.
● An automated audit process reduces the risks within AP by tracking erroneous payments,
validity of payments, vendor discrepancies, and any inconsistencies within the system.
● Allows businesses to remain ahead of the curve when it comes to tax filings and audits.

9. Automated Approval Processes
● Automate the invoice routing process to track an invoice throughout – when it
was submitted, when it was approved, who approved it, and when it was
paid.
● Collaborate to address issues promptly and expedite the approval process.
● Comprehensive approval controls can be implemented and managed more
easily.
● With greater transparency, there is a reduction in risk, and increase in control.

10. AP Workflow Reporting
● The AP team can assess and analyse invoice data to identify any issues or
inefficiencies and make improvements.
● They can identify bottlenecks in the approval process, enabling AP managers
to adjust workloads and predict busier and slower times throughout.
● Aavenir AP automation provides tools to monitor spend.
● Duplicate invoices, additional charges, and suspicious behaviour can all be
identified with the software, which can also perform regular spend analysis.

11. Conclusion
This information to mitigate accounts payable risks will surely have piqued your
interest! We strongly suggest that you investigate the use of accounts payable
automation system to make enforcing policies and obtaining visibility into your AP
data a reality.

12. Free Demo Session
See why enterprises trust aavenir to streamline their procurement-to-payment workflow
together in one place
Visit: https://aavenir.com/demo/
● Aavenir Invoiceflow
● Accounts payable automation solution

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