Overview
A global energy company with North American operations has partnered with apexanalytix on AP recovery audit since 2016. The most recent engagement spanned three fiscal years across multiple ERP environments and included a full disbursement review and a supplier statement review covering nearly 10,000 suppliers.
The audit recovered multimillion-dollar savings across thousands of claims. What made the results particularly telling was not just the total, but where the money came from.
Challenge
Managing accounts payable across multiple ERP systems, business segments, and a large supplier network creates more opportunities for error than any internal team can realistically monitor. Invoices move through different systems. Business segments operate with different processes. Suppliers manage their own billing and credit workflows, which do not always align with what the customer has on record.
Over a multi-year period and across thousands of suppliers, the financial impact of these gaps compounds quietly. Without a structured audit to cut through the volume, the exposure stays buried.
Solution
apexanalytix conducted a recovery audit covering disbursements over a three-year period, reviewing transactions across multiple ERP platforms. A concurrent supplier statement review examined 90-day aged credits across nearly 10,000 suppliers.
- Disbursement Review: Tested the full population of invoices across both ERP environments against contract terms, payment history, and supplier account data to surface duplicate payments, unapplied credits, and billing discrepancies.
- Supplier Statement Review: Collected account statements from suppliers to identify aged credits that had not been returned or applied against outstanding balances.
- Supplier Engagement: Partnered directly with suppliers to validate exceptions and work toward resolution across a broad range of claim types.
- Business Segment Analysis: Mapped recovery findings to specific business segments to identify where error rates were concentrated, giving the client targeted insight into process and control gaps.
Results
apexanalytix recovered nearly $10 million across thousands of claims. The total is significant, but the concentration behind it is what stands out.
Out of nearly 10,000 supplier accounts reviewed, three suppliers each accounted for nearly $500,000 in recoveries, together representing close to 15% of the total recovery amount. Each one had a distinct root cause. One had a substantial backlog of return credits that had not been applied back to the customer. A second had a mix of container, packaging, and core return credits combined with inconsistent invoice amounts billed over the audit period. The third involved real estate, lease, and CAM (common area maintenance) charges that had been overbilled and gone undetected.
Three suppliers. Three entirely different billing issues. Each one approaching the same dollar threshold. It is a reminder that AP risk rarely concentrates in one place or for one reason.
The audit also broke down recoveries by business segment, revealing that some segments carried significantly higher error rates than others. That kind of visibility helps pinpoint problems that are specific to certain teams, processes, or workflows rather than treating the entire AP environment as a single issue.
Top 6 Root Causes for Overpayment Recoveries
1. Returns
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.
2. 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.
3. Overpayment
Example: The company paid more than the correct amount due, often because of tax errors, billing mistakes, incorrect supplier selection, or system issues.
Recommendation: Implement stronger invoice validation checks across tax, supplier selection, and billing accuracy. Require exception review for high-risk or unusual invoice amounts.
4. Real Estate, Lease, and CAM Credits
Example: Common area maintenance charges or lease costs are billed at incorrect rates or for periods outside the lease terms, resulting in overbilling.
Recommendation: Regularly reconcile lease agreements against invoices received and ensure any adjustments or credits issued by landlords are applied promptly in AP.
5. 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.
6. Possible Duplicate Override
Example: A transaction flagged as a potential duplicate by the system was manually overridden and paid without sufficient review.
Recommendation: Strengthen the approval process for duplicate overrides. Any override should require documented justification and a second level of approval before payment is released.
Conclusion
A multimillion-dollar recovery total across three years reflects the scale of what goes undetected in complex AP environments.
What makes this engagement particularly instructive is not just the size of the recovery, but how few supplier relationships were responsible for such a significant portion of it. Three suppliers. Three different root causes. None of it visible without a structured audit process in place.
That kind of concentration is more common than most AP teams expect. It is also exactly what a structured recovery audit is designed to find. Paired with business segment-level analysis that pinpoints where error rates are highest, apexanalytix gave this company both the recovery and the roadmap to reduce future exposure.
apexanalytix has recovered more than $20 million since the partnership began, a figure that continues to grow with every audit cycle.
