Duplicate invoices cost £10m a year.

Duplicate invoices causing companies to pay for the same thing twice are costing UK businesses around #10m a year, according to Deloitte & Touche.

The problem was revealed as the firm piloted its new D&Tect fraud software, finding errors which, if applied to UK businesses, would add up to around #10m. A spokeswoman said: ‘So far on every case where it’s been tried out, 1% of total invoice spend was wasted on double payment.’

She added there were ‘more dubious’ cases where an employee linked to a supplier. ‘It was found that the supplier had the same address as an employee and the supplier had a bogus name.’

Before its launch, the software was tested on 30 companies. ‘In every test,’ said the spokesperson, ‘the software has highlighted some kind of accounting error, being human or fraud. On average, D&Tect helped the companies recover £15,000 each.

The software scans the accounts payable data, identifying whether the same amount has been entered twice. D&Tect also reveals poor controls and other accounting irregularities.

For more on this visit www.deloitte.co.uk.