Overview
This premier biopharmaceutical company develops, manufactures, and distributes innovative medicines and vaccines across more than 180 countries around the world. With over 80,000 employees and nearly 100 global locations, the firm is committed to delivering breakthrough science with uncompromising quality, accessible solutions, and a standard of care that sets the benchmark for the industry.
For more than 20 years, the company has relied on apexanalytix as a trusted global accounts payable recovery audit partner across North America, Europe, and Asia.
Challenge
The company’s scale—including a vast supplier network, billions in annual spend, and multiple divisions with differing approval workflows, system configurations, and operational requirements—creates a complex environment that demands rigorous financial oversight.
With invoices spanning multiple systems and regions, the risks of unclaimed credits and errors from purchase order changes are significant. In 2024, the audit encompassed more than one million invoices and a supplier statement review across 6,000+ suppliers—requiring auditors to analyze over $30 billion in spending.
Solution
To meet this challenge, the company engaged apexanalytix auditors powered by advanced technology to identify duplicate payments, recover unclaimed credits, and surface root causes of financial risk. Because each division operates differently, the audit pinpointed issues tied to specific systems, processes, or teams—clarifying where breakdowns occurred and why some divisions showed higher error rates than others.
Their work focused on three critical areas:
- Disbursement Review of invoices processed between January 1, 2023, and June 30, 2024.
- Supplier Statement Review to capture unprocessed credits older than 120 days.
- Duplicate Recoveries leveraging both transactional data analysis and supplier engagement.
Results
- Delivered $25M in recoveries, consisting of funds recovered from supplier statement reviews and duplicate payments.
- Identified division-specific risk patterns, enabling the client to address issues unique to certain business units
- Uncovered the top root causes of recoveries and recommended process improvements to reduce future errors.
- Provided metrics and trend reports to support benchmarking and continuous improvement.
Top 6 Root Causes for Overpayment Recoveries
Cancelled Invoice, Contract or Service
Example: Unprocessed credits often occur when lines of business do not communicate cancellations or changes quickly, even though they typically know about these adjustments first.
Recommendation: Process or accrue expected credits as soon as they are identified and reduce blanket POs by adjusting available PO funds when changes occur.
Prepayment Exceeded Actual Cost
Example: Some projects require upfront payments through pre-bill or pro forma invoices. When the project costs less than expected, leftover funds remain unused.
Recommendation: Have project teams track spending more closely to spot when projects are overfunded and complete a final reconciliation once the project is finished.
Paid Credit Memo
Example: Suppliers issue credit memos in different formats, which can lead to mistakes—either manually or through the system—causing credits to be missed or applied incorrectly.
Recommendation: Use an approval process that provides stronger oversight, especially for large or high-risk invoices.
Tax Processing Errors
Example: TAX/VAT can be charged or paid incorrectly when a supplier is unaware of the company’s tax-exempt status or when a PO is set up incorrectly, and fixing these errors often requires a supplier-issued credit that may go unnoticed if not promptly identified.
Recommendation: Communicate tax requirements to suppliers, ensure accurate PO tax setup, and conduct periodic reviews to catch and correct issues early.
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.
Multiple Related Suppliers
Example: The same vendor has more than one profile in the vendor master.
Recommendation: Clean up the vendor master to remove duplicate or unnecessary accounts.
Conclusion
Over the course of this long-standing partnership, apexanalytix has delivered more than $245M in recoveries—supporting this global biopharmaceutical leader in reinforcing financial discipline. The 2024 audit further strengthened this progress, generating $25M in recoveries and revealing several areas where financial controls and supplier oversight can be improved.
By pinpointing division-specific risk patterns, the organization is able to strengthen controls tailored to each division’s needs. By uncovering issues tied to distinct systems, processes, and teams, apexanalytix provided actionable insights to refine controls, address emerging risks, and improve accuracy and efficiency across its global operations.
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