The Two AP Problems That Cost Real Money
Accounts payable data quality problems cluster around two expensive categories:
Duplicate payments: You pay the same vendor invoice twice. Common causes: the vendor sent the invoice twice (original + reminder), your team entered it twice from different documents, or a system import created a duplicate.
Missed early payment discounts: A vendor offers 2% off if paid within 10 days. Your AP process regularly takes 30 days to process invoices. You're routinely paying full price on invoices where 2% discounts were available.
Both have straightforward data solutions.
Preventing Duplicate Payments
The single invoice number rule: Every vendor invoice has a unique number (the vendor-assigned invoice number, not your system's auto-generated one). If you attempt to enter an invoice with the same vendor + same invoice number that's already in your system, your accounting software should warn you or reject it.
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Set up your accounting software to require vendor invoice numbers. Enable duplicate detection. If yours doesn't have this feature, add a manual check: before entering any invoice, search your system for that vendor + approximate amount + date range.
Three-way matching: Before paying, verify the invoice matches the purchase order and the receiving document. If goods were ordered, received, and invoiced at the same amount, pay. Any mismatch requires investigation before payment.
Vendor statement reconciliation: Monthly, request statements from your 10 most active vendors and reconcile them to your AP records. Any invoice on their statement that you don't have in your system needs to be entered. Any invoice in your system that they don't show as outstanding might already be paid (or never valid).
Capturing Early Payment Discounts
Invoice date visibility: You can't take a 10-day discount if your AP process takes 15 days just to touch the invoice. Invoice receipt date must be captured in your system, not just the invoice date.
Terms tracking: Every vendor's standard payment terms should be in your vendor record. When an invoice is entered, the system should calculate the discount deadline automatically.
AP aging by discount deadline: Run an AP report sorted by discount deadline, not due date. Pay invoices with available discounts in that order. The 2% discount on a $5,000 invoice is $100 — real money.
The Monthly AP Data Review
Once a month, spend 30 minutes reviewing:
- Duplicate invoices: any vendor with two open invoices for very similar amounts?
- Old open invoices: anything over 90 days that should have been paid or disputed?
- Vendor credits: any credits sitting unapplied that could offset outstanding invoices?
Sohovi automatically finds every duplicate in your dataset — including near-matches — and shows you exactly which rows are affected.
