Business Intelligence

Using Business Intelligence to Prevent Payment Errors

High volumes, data complexity, and multiple data sources can cause payment errors. Stopping them can feel like an impossible task.

 

Utilizing powerful analytics with data visualization makes the task of payment error prevention easy.  Business intelligence solutions provide insight into areas of the payment process. The raw data holds lots of information, and analytics helps examine it, turning the information into actionable insights that drive efficiency and grow your profits.

Causes of Overpayment

  • High volume of invoices (and vendors) increases risk
  • Duplication within the vendor master file creates opportunities for multiple invoice postings that escape controls.
  • Manual entry – there is always a risk of keystroke errors with manual data entry.
  • OCR – Incorrect character recognition, often in multiple fields, can create duplicate invoice records.
  • Fraud – fraudulently created or submitted invoices can be difficult to detect.

A Shift to Business Intelligence Solutions

Accounts payable teams are moving away from being solely transactionally focused and are working to add strategic functions that add profit and value to the entire organization. 

 

Business intelligence and BI reporting is a critical part of this shift, delivering the ability to unify information from multiple sources without the need for an IT department to run complex and time-consuming reports.

 

Having information more readily available arms you to:

  • Analyze data for patterns & trends
  • Identify potential overpayments
  • Enhance controls
  • Identify duplicate vendor records
  • Leverage vendor relationships
  • Simplify 1099 reporting
  • Report and measure business performance by division, location, ERP, pay type & more
  • Make timely and accurate data-driven decisions
  • Improved profits

Two Steps to Protection

  1. Vendor maintenance application – The vendor master file is often a source of payment errors. A clean vendor file minimizes the opportunity for duplicate postings making everything in the payment process work better.
     
  2. Duplicate payment application – These applications utilize a wide variety of tests and look at more data points than a typical ERP system. Early detection and prevention are key to minimizing the time and effort required from your team

An Effective Plan and Workflow

Success requires a well-thought-out plan and a workflow process to manage and action the results. Some feel that utilizing a duplicate payment application (DPA) creates additional work for the payables team. While the team will need to review and take action, it is much more efficient to stop an overpayment before it happens than to unwind one that has already been paid. A DPA also identifies potential risks so that proactive measures can be taken to mitigate them. 

 

A business intelligence solution that includes a duplicate payment application and a vendor management application helps businesses gain insights, improve accuracy and efficiency, improve their risk management strategy, and make clear data-driven decisions.

Reporting With Data Visualization

Presenting data in a visual format helps businesses optimize operations and improve efficiency.  With data visualization, a company can not only prevent duplicate payments but see root cause analysis and other payment data information identifying actions that will help prevent errors in the future.

Why is Data Visualization So Important for BI?

90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual. Humans are naturally visual beings. Data visualization helps people see data in a familiar, engaging, interactive way.  Information is absorbed at a glance and people understand the insights hidden beneath the numbers. This visual experience encourages and facilitates data-driven decisions.

The Results

The right business intelligence solution will better equip financial departments to create value for their teams and stakeholders with visualizations, reports, or dashboards that help address business challenges and answer pressing questions. The result — significant cost savings and improved efficiency profitability.

 

A complete BI Solution to make better more informed accounts payable decisions faster and more efficiently is our Illumis business intelligence suite (IBIS).

 

A SaaS solution that combines analytics and visualization to help you easily find answers and take action on opportunities hidden in your data.

 

IBIS uses more than 30 years of data collection that spans industry, habits, and supplier contacts to interpret and analyze your data – helping you flag irregularities before they become issues.

 

If this sounds good to you, talk to us. IBIS by Illumis provides bright ideas for better profits.

Mary Olofsson headshot

Mary Olofsson

Audit Quality Manager

Mary joined Illumis in 2013 as an analyst with a keen eye for identifying discrepancies, turning them into recoveries for our clients. During her tenure she developed into a Lead Analyst where she has been instrumental as an advisor not only to the audit teams, but also our client contacts to ensure an effective and productive experience. Mary has much experience in several of the largest ERP systems our clients use, allowing her to effectively work hand in hand with clients to resolve issues as they arise. This longstanding experience, aids in her ability with the analysts on individual skill building and knowledge sharing, as well as providing attentive detail to clients and suppliers.

Tony Brush

President / CEO

Working for Illumis for 21 years, Brush has been instrumental in the growth of the company. Brush served as Vice President at Illumis before stepping into the role of President / CEO and has been involved in all aspects of the company’s business throughout his career.

 

Brush’s approach to his role centers on the motto of Illumis, Bright Ideas for Better Profits. Known for his loyalty, team building, and tough but fair expectations, he empowers employees to deliver, therefore fostering a company culture that ensures customers can count on people.