Home › The four checks

The four checks, in full.

Each one is a separate pass over the whole batch. We do not blend them into a score, because a score hides the one thing you actually needed to look at.

The same invoice, paid twice

One invoice number submitted twice, in any combination of files. A batch assembled from three sources and one supplier's invoice appearing in two of them is the ordinary way this happens.

Also caught: the same amount on the same day under two different invoice numbers, and one supplier with two bank accounts on file at once.

This is the finding that is hardest to spot by eye and easiest to prove on paper, because the payment reference gives it away.

Next: unpaid

Invoice INV-2024-0187 Paid

Supplier: Northwind Supply Co
Amount: GBP 12,480.00
Payment ref: PAY-88412

Invoice INV-2024-0187 Paid again

Supplier: Northwind Supply Co
Amount: GBP 12,480.00
Payment ref: PAY-88412

One debt, two payments GBP 12,480.00 recorded as recoverable, subject to your supplier's credit terms and how long ago it was paid.

Overdue invoices by age of debt
Current		GBP 8,120
1-30 days		GBP 17,340
31-60 days		GBP 24,910
61-90 days		GBP 11,205
Over 90 days		GBP 9,870
Overdue in total		GBP 63,325

Illustrative figures. Not a client.

Invoiced, and never paid

Overdue invoices bucketed by how late they are, because a seventy-day debt and a seven-day one are not the same conversation with a customer.

Invoices marked paid with nothing to match them to are called out as well, because a payment reference that matches no invoice is usually a payment reference that was read wrong.

An invoice with no due date is listed as having no due date. We never infer one from the payment terms, because an inferred date becomes a wrong number on your report and you will not know which figures to trust.

Next: missing

Invoices missing from a clean run

A supplier's own numbering usually runs without gaps. When one does, the missing number is a question worth asking: ordered, delivered, never billed.

Also caught: missing invoice numbers, missing totals, missing vendor names, a purchase order only one invoice refers to, and a subtotal plus tax that does not add up to the stated total.

A gap is a prompt, not a claim. Most of them turn out to be a cancelled order or an internal re-issue, and the report says so rather than assuming a loss.

Next: misrouted

INV-2001 INV-2002 INV-2003 INV-2004 INV-2005

2003 is not in the batch Ask the supplier what 2003 was before assuming anything. The answer is often a credit note or an internal re-issue.

Also under this check

Missing invoice numbers, missing totals, missing vendor names, a purchase order only one invoice refers to, and a subtotal plus tax that does not reconcile to the total.

Invoice INV-2024-0233 Review

Supplier: Harbour Freight Ltd
Remit to: Vertex Trading FZE
Remit email: ap@vertex-trading.example
Supplier domain: harbourfreight.example
Cost centre: CC-9907

Three independent things disagree The named company, the email domain, and the supplier's usual cost centre. One of those is a typo. Three at once is a pattern worth stopping a payment over.

Payment instructions pointing elsewhere

Payment details naming a company other than the supplier. A remittance email on a domain that is not the supplier's. Bill-to naming a different legal entity than that supplier's other invoices do. An invoice coded outside that supplier's usual cost centre.

This is the fraud shape, and it is why we read the invoice as a document rather than as a row in a table. A table does not have a remit-to block.

We report the disagreement. We do not accuse anyone, and a report is never to be used as an accusation against your own staff. It is about the process.

Back to the top See the register these produce

The limit of this list

Four checks is the whole service.

We do not audit your accounts, we do not give tax or legal advice, and we do not sell software. If a matter needs a statutory auditor or a tax adviser, we say so and refer it out with a warm handover rather than attempt it.

Why we are this narrow

A finding you cannot prove is worse than no finding at all, because the next twenty-nine stop being believed.