Fraud Prevention Software

Financial fraud has become in the past few years one of the major concerns of companies in many industries determining business owners to seek various prevention methods. In many cases, fraud prevention software is the most important element in keeping companies protected from such offenses, however, it is also vital for the program used to suit the exact needs of the respective business.

PAIDAnalytix has been on the market with dedicated overpayment protection software for several years now and has obtained great results with the clients working so far. Not only can our tool be used for effective management of the accounts payable department in a company, but it can also be used as fraud prevention software.

 

There are many programs that can be used by all types of companies for preventing fraud, however, such a program cannot be used as an all-in-one software that fits all industries, so many times, what works for a business will not do the same great job for another. This is why it is important to check the market for a fraud prevention software that matches the exact particularities of one’s business.
A fraud prevention software should target and anticipate the exact needs of a company through tailored algorithms.

Our accounts payable software can be used for multiple tasks, among which fraud prevention plays an important role. Our software relies on Artificial Intelligence and uses the latest technologies to offer modern solutions to modern problems.

Financial fraud has become in the past few years one of the major concerns of companies in many industries determining business owners to seek various prevention methods. In many cases, a fraud prevention software is the most important element in keeping companies protected from such offenses. Also, it should be noted that most frauds occur in the accounts payable department which is in charge of handling all invoices that need to be paid by an enterprise.

PAIDAnalytix has been on the market with dedicated overpayment protection software for several years now and has obtained great results with the clients working so far. Not only can our tool be used for effective management of the accounts payable department in a company, but it can also be used as a fraud prevention software.
 

Types of accounts payable frauds a company can deal with

In order to know to best use a fraud prevention software, a business owner must first know what the most common types of such offenses are.

There are several types of accounts payable (AP) frauds that usually have to do with invoicing, and the most common are:
 

1. billing schemes which, in some cases, can, unfortunately, be created by company employees,
2. check frauds which can imply switching the name of the payee on a check or adjusting (slightly increasing) the amount of money to be paid,
3. automated clearing house payment (ACH) fraud which is usually connected to electronic transfer of funds between bank accounts,
4. expense reimbursement frauds which imply employees who make personal purchases that are charged at the company’s expense,
5. kickback schemes are among the most difficult to trace because third parties can get involved in the vendor/supplier selection mechanism to the detriment of the company.

Such AP frauds are usually hard to detect, especially when they have been going on for a long time. This is where a fraud prevention software can be useful.

With the help of our accounts payable audit and recovery services, these frauds can be detected, and financial recoveries can be started as soon as possible.

Prevention is the best tool against double payments. However, this is not always possible due to the fact that employees have numerous tasks to complete in a short span of time. In such cases, accounts payable audits can be a helping hand to those working in this department.
 

A basic example of AP fraud

One of the most basic and renowned AP frauds that have made the news in the US is “The 8 Million e-mail” which targeted one of the largest private companies with more than 7.6 US billion in sales and 29,000 employees. It is also one of the oldest businesses in the States.

The scheme started when the accounts payable department received an e-mail stating that one of the vendors has changed the bank account in which the amounts appearing on the invoices have changed and payments should be directed to the new one. Considering these are changes that can occur from time to time, there was nothing suspicious about the notification, however, this is one of the most common causes of accounts payable fraud, and if it could happen to such a large company, it can definitely happen on a smaller scale.

This is why a thorough verification of invoices and confirmation of such changes are a must.

Our fraud prevention software can help by pointing out when changes in the amounts of money have been made, while bank account number changes and confirmations can be further completed by persons in charge of keeping in contact with vendors/suppliers thus reducing losses.
 

Our accounts payable software is very simple to use, which is one of its main strengths given the fact that most companies request efficient tools they can set up and use in the quickest timeframe possible. However, this is not the only characteristic of our program, as you will read below:
 

 

PAID Analytix offers complete accounts payable and audit solutions that encompass fraud prevention to medium and large-size companies that are usually prone to such offenses.
 

As mentioned above, our accounts payable software is easy to install, setup, and use, being ready from the first moments to be put to work. Once installed, the client can enter the information desired based on which personalized results will be provided under the form of a report.

Our software is able to provide protection against fraud in a real-time by covering multiple fraud scenarios.

When it comes to fraud prevention, during the accounts payable audit, our software can provide relevant information on the weaknesses of the accounting software, thus helping business owners to take the necessary measures to improve the protection of the entire department.

If you need additional information on our fraud prevention software and how it can help you, our specialists can explain it in detail. Furthermore, you can also ask us any questions about our recovery audit services.

For accounts payable departments, duplicate payments are a major problem they need to deal with on a monthly basis. They often lead to wasted time and money, and more work in order to determine where the problem came from. However, there are also solutions such as automated software that can help prevent such payments in the future.

 

How to use an accounts payable fraud prevention software to your benefit

Automation and machine learning is what our overpayment prevention software uses in order to raise red flags when detecting suspicious changes. The fact that it does so in just a few minutes is also a great help for employees who do not have the time to go through tens of invoices a day, hundreds a month, let alone double-checking them.

Our fraud prevention software will look and point out:
 

• duplicate invoices,
• changes in the vendor file,
• suspicious trends.

An accounts payable automated software will improve the AP process and help in preventing frauds like the ones presented above without any human intervention and much faster.
 

According to recent surveys, a company reports an average of 6 fraud attempts in a year which implies a significant increase in the risks incurred by businesses as well as higher costs when it comes to the prevention of such crimes.

According to a recent survey conducted on 5,000 companies:
 

AP fraud numbers

If we are to indicate the number of AP frauds that have occurred in the past few years, it is worth noting that:
 

• at the level of 2018, US companies lost around 7 billion USD because of fraud,
• the median loss a company has had to deal with was 130,000 USD per case,
• more worrying is that 22% of the fraud cases led to losses of 1 million USD or more,
• approximately 40% of business owners and managers would pay accountancy fees to a new bank account without checking the accuracy of the new instructions,
• three-quarters of AP frauds were related to fake checks.

For more information on our fraud prevention software, please contact us.

Article by:
Radu Fertonea is the founder of Paid Analytix and Senior Manager with Executive MBA degree (Maastricht School of Management). He was director of operations at Societe Generale European Business Services, in charge with: Management of the Source to Report practice (Procurement, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Management Accounting) | Global redesign of end-to-end source to report activities | Consolidation of the Finance exercise for the European operations of Société Générale (100% coverage target by 2020) | Transition Management, Process Standardization and Continuous Improvement | People Management – team of 150+. With a broad experience in the financial field and after working with large societies which handle thousands of payments every year, came up with the idea which led to the creation of Paid Analytix.