Overview
A major global food and beverage company serves customers in more than 200 countries, managing some of the world’s most recognizable brands. With such a massive supply chain and thousands of suppliers, keeping payments accurate is a serious challenge. To stay in control, the company needs strong financial oversight and smart audit strategies that can quickly spot mistakes, recover lost money, and keep operations running smoothly.
For over a decade, the company has turned to apexanalytix as a trusted partner across North America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa, Latin America, and Europe. With powerful technology and deep audit expertise, apexanalytix helps the company shine a spotlight on its financial processes—revealing hidden value and strengthening financial accuracy across its global operations.
Challenge
As the company’s supplier network and spend continue to grow, so does the complexity of managing disbursements across multiple systems, geographies, and categories. apexanalytix supports the client by uncovering lost dollars and identifying trends and root causes behind payment errors—an approach that remained essential throughout the 2024 audit.
Solution
The team addressed significant scale and operational complexity, conducting a comprehensive disbursement review that analyzed 6 million invoices across $34B in expenditures. In parallel, a supplier statement review was performed, focusing on 90-day aged credits and engaging 8,500 suppliers—providing a deeper look into outstanding balances and unprocessed credits across the global supplier base.
Beyond core AP recovery, the engagement incorporated specialized services including pre-escheatment, unclaimed property, and Canada withholding tax reviews—expanding visibility into financial risk and enhancing overall compliance.
Results
The 2024 audit returned $20M in total cash value, including $13M from AP recovery and $7M from additional audit services. These recoveries were accompanied by insights that highlighted several underlying causes of financial leakage and opportunities to strengthen financial accuracy.
Trend analysis revealed recurring error patterns dating back to 2020—driven by payment system inconsistencies, invoice coding challenges, and duplicate or related supplier records. Among top suppliers, common issues included incorrect PO pricing, unprocessed credits tied to returns, and invoices paid by the wrong division. By pinpointing division-specific risk patterns, apexanalytix delivered targeted insights that enable more effective internal controls and reduced future exposure.
Top 6 Root Causes for Overpayment Recoveries
Different Payment Systems
Example: When duplicate payments are processed using multiple payable systems.
Recommendation: Standardize payment processes across systems and regularly reconcile transactions between them to catch duplicates before payment is issued.
Multiple Related Suppliers
Example: The same vendor has more than one profile in the vendor master that may be similar (e.g., Johnson Supply and Johnsons Supply).
Recommendation: Clean up the vendor master to remove duplicate or unnecessary accounts.
Inconsistent Invoice Coding
Example: Invoices are coded incorrectly or differently than expected, which can cause them to be routed, recorded, or paid incorrectly.
Recommendation: Be consistent through clearer processes, better personnel training, and stronger system checks.
Duplicate Payments
Example: Duplicate payments identified through the supplier statement review process that are either undetectable in the data or fall outside of the range reviewed in the disbursement review.
Recommendation: Review more supplier statements regularly and improve data reconciliation so duplicates missed in normal reviews can be identified sooner.
Pricing Discrepancy
Example: The price billed on the invoice does not match the agreed rate in the contract or purchase order.
Recommendation: Use automated three-way matching and ensure contract rates and PO pricing are kept up to date, so discrepancies are flagged and corrected before payment.
Return Credits
Example: When goods returned to the supplier for which a credit was not properly communicated to Accounts Payable.
Recommendation: Strengthen communication between operations and AP so returns are shared immediately and require suppliers to issue credit memos promptly for all returned items.
Conclusion
Since 2012, this leading food and beverage company and apexanalytix have built a trusted partnership that has delivered more than $100M in recoveries and driven meaningful process improvements across global operations. This collaboration has strengthened financial controls, improved supplier oversight, and surfaced systemic issues that might have otherwise gone undetected.
The 2024 audit reinforced this value by returning $20M and providing clear visibility into process and system breakdowns. These insights equip the organization with targeted recommendations to reduce future leakage, enhance accuracy, and build a more resilient financial ecosystem—supporting long-term visibility, stronger controls, and sustained financial benefits.
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