Audits of accounts payable are predictable, and the requests are broadly the same wherever you are. Knowing them in advance turns an audit from an archaeology exercise into a query, because the difference between a short audit and a painful one is almost entirely whether the evidence was captured as it happened or has to be reconstructed afterwards.
The approval trail and the match evidence
For a sample of invoices: who approved, when, for what amount, and what they saw. And what the invoice was matched against, with the result. Both are produced naturally by a system that records them and are near-impossible to reconstruct from mailboxes, particularly for anybody who has since left the organisation.
Supplier record changes
Who created or amended supplier records, especially bank details, when, and on what authority. This is where the highest-value fraud lives, so it attracts attention. A log of changes with the verification recorded answers the question immediately; its absence turns one query into a wider examination.
Segregation and cut-off
Whether the same person can raise, approve and pay, which the records make testable rather than assumed. And whether invoices were recorded in the right period, which is the accrual question. What the correct treatment is for any particular item is your accountant's and your auditor's judgement; producing the underlying detail is payables' part.
Questions people ask about accounts payable audit
How far back will an audit look?
It varies with scope and materiality. Retention of both invoices and their approval history should be set by your own obligations rather than by what an auditor asked for last time.
What is the commonest finding?
Weak evidence of approval, usually because approvals lived in email. It is entirely preventable by capturing them on the record as they happen.
Does automation help with audit?
Substantially, because it captures the trail as a by-product of doing the work rather than as an extra task nobody has time for.