Software sold for auditing accounts payable is useful in proportion to what it surfaces without somebody knowing to ask. Five categories cover nearly everything an internal or external audit will examine, and they are also the five where a problem is cheaper to find continuously than annually.
Duplicates and supplier record changes
Payments to the same supplier for the same amount near the same date, whatever the invoice numbers say. And every creation or amendment of a supplier record, especially bank details, with who did it and whether a verification was recorded. These two cover the largest recoverable loss and the largest fraud risk respectively.
Overrides and segregation
Every time a matching tolerance was overridden, an approval bypassed or a threshold exceeded, with the reason. And any instance of the same person raising, approving and paying, including where it happened through cover arrangements during absence. Cover is where segregation quietly lapses, and it lapses invisibly unless something reports it.
Unusual payment patterns
Payments outside the normal run, round-number invoices from unfamiliar suppliers, sudden increases in a supplier's billing frequency, and invoices just below an approval threshold. None of these is proof of anything, and all of them are worth a look. Continuous surfacing beats an annual sample, because the annual sample sees a fraction.
Questions people ask about accounts payable audit software
Do we need dedicated audit software?
Not necessarily. A payables system that can report these five things covers most of it, and the reports matter more than the label on the product.
How often should these be reviewed?
Monthly for supplier changes and overrides, which are the time-critical ones. The rest can be quarterly.
Who should review them?
Somebody outside the payables process, because several of the checks are checks on that process.