Case Study

In a previous project we reviewed £989,528,000 in payables covering a 30-month period. This translates into an average annual accounts payable transaction volume of approximately £395,000,000.

From data acquisition to the first confirmed recoveries was less than 4 weeks. The Client spent around 3 hours finance team hours (plus data acquisition) to help us set up our audit programme. From then on we utilised less than 1 hour of Client time per week for the rest of the audit. For the AP segment of this audit we spent a total of 5 weeks at the Client's offices, the rest of the audit work being carried out at our own offices.

Our total findings of £1,137,237 reflect 0.1149% of the total AP spend for the 30-month period.

Caatalyst analysed 829,567 transactions and confirmed and recovered 385 uncorrected errors (average value £2,953.86). The classification of items by Audit Segment and value/percentage of the total is shown in the graph below:

To achieve these results we contacted 2,586 suppliers from a total of 3,196, i.e., 80% of all live suppliers. We contacted and obtained statements or transaction histories from 96% of suppliers with an annual AP turnover in excess of £3,000.

Our duplicate payment audit uncovered 67 items, the largest being for £86,564.

We carried out a Property Audit which resulted in cash recoveries of £120,000, the largest class being incorrect lease start dates. The remainder of our Contracts Audit recovered £243,000 on behalf of the Client

Due to the implementation of some of the Caatalyst Best Practice Recommendations and participation in the Accounts Payable Audit lead by Caatalyst, our second audit 18 months later reduced the pro-rata total recovered by 48%.