Accounts payable teams lose 0.1–0.5% of total spend to duplicate payments that evade standard system checks due to subtle variations in invoice numbers, supplier names, and other data quirks.

Workarounds Described

• Uses Excel SUBSTITUTE to normalize invoice numbers before running COUNTIFS
• Manually cleans supplier names into separate column (strip Ltd/Limited/punctuation)
• Runs conditional checks on supplier + amount + date ±60 days to find reminders
• Groups by supplier + week + category to detect split entries below approval limits
• Manually cross-references negative entries (credit notes) against paid invoices

Implied Software Gaps

• Automated normalization of invoice numbers and vendor names to catch variant duplicates
• Automated detection of same-amount-different-reference invoices within a date window
• Automated matching of credit notes to paid invoices with alert for orphans

DuplicateDetect AI

An AI-powered AP audit tool that automatically normalizes invoice and vendor data, then runs multi-pattern checks for duplicate payments. Unlike generic ERP modules, it catches subtle variants, split entries, and orphaned credits, recovering significant spend without manual Excel work.

Existing Solutions Mentioned