Having gotten through COVID-19, many organisations now face the potential of an economic downturn. At times like these, adequate working capital is critical. So how can you find fraud, waste and errors — especially when vendors, contractors and employees are under increased economic pressure themselves?
The need for cost savings is immediate, and whether you’re in the private or public sector, your organisation is undoubtedly losing some revenue to fraud, waste, and errors.
The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) organisations worldwide lose 5% of revenue to fraud. In 2019 alone, the US government made more than $175 billion of improper payments (e.g., sending an incorrect amount or giving money to the wrong person).
So, how much might your organisation be losing? We want you to be able to answer that question — and, of course, to prevent losses like these in the first place. Diligent Robotics optimises the way governance professionals work by automating time-intensive and repetitive — but critical — business operations to help organisations find fraud, waste, and errors — and stop financial leakage fast. But before we get into the benefits, let’s look at two myths that keep organisations in the dark.
1. Our ERP System Is Enough
ERP controls work great when your processes and data are perfect. But when your AP team gets handed an invoice due in two days because it’s been sitting on a manager’s desk for a month or when some data integration has duplicated vendor records, you know that errors and mistakes occur frequently.
2. Our Cost-Recovery Service Handles It
Third-party cost-recovery services are incentivised to find fraud, waste, and errors but not to help you fix anything. Their model profits from detecting errors and fraud, not driving your process improvements. And, when you hand over your data to a cost-recovery vendor, do you know how secure they are?
We’ve helped hundreds of organisations recover revenue lost to internal and external parties.
As you work through the results generated by Robotics, updates to your dashboard track the ROI and savings.
“As organisations move beyond COVID-19 crisis management and into recovery mode, cost reduction efforts will be front and centre.”
Real-World Examples of Money Found Fast
Here are five non-identifying customers who have quickly detected revenue leakage, fraud, and errors with Diligent software:
- A global farm equipment manufacturer found $3.6 million in fraud instantly. Over many years, a maintenance manager received vendor kickbacks for creating fake invoices. These invoices were found based on a strange flag by Benford’s law: there was an unusual spike in the data starting with the digits “47.”
- A university used our solution to help uncover an IT asset hardware misappropriation scheme worth over $350,000. As the program expanded, it found over $100,000 worth of duplicate invoices and achieved $200,000 in savings in grants compliance oversight.
- An $18-billion materials manufacturer looked at suspicious AP payments and invoices. By comparing hundreds of high-risk keywords against their data, they found that an employee was submitting invoices for their child’s Harvard tuition, and another employee had been granting contracts to a business they owned.
- The outlier detection capabilities in Robotics charged a healthcare customer three times the average rate for medical supplies. The ERP system didn’t flag the discrepancy as the vendor altered the units shipped per box, going unnoticed.
- A business services company, whose chief audit executive (CAE) was constantly travelling “on business” to cities where there were no offices, found money fast—on the investigation, they discovered this football-loving CAE was going to sporting events.
A continuous monitoring program powered by Robotics allows for quick and easy identification of errors, such as duplicate payments and erroneous invoices.
The Benefits of Continuous Monitoring Powered by Diligent Robotics
We’ve already established that you’ll see a quick ROI by finding money fast. Below are five more advantages.
1. Expert Support: Our team will help you share your data with our secure cloud environment and apply it against our analytics suite. You can start immediately investigating red flags and find money.—no significant IT support or data scientists are needed.
2. More Recovering, Less Wondering: You can easily monitor 100% of your transactions to stop erroneous and improper payments from going out the door and recover money faster.
3. Data, Data and More Data: You can access many existing Robotics scripts from residential and business addresses to spending and Census data.
4. A Versatile Toolkit: Think of cost containment as a launching point for a complete spend and controls monitoring program. For example, you can apply these tools to analyse revenue leakage, tax compliance, benefits reconciliations, or inappropriate purchase card expenses.
5. Easy-to-understand Results: Your team receives transparent reports directly so you can instantly demonstrate ROI to stakeholders and the board. It’s easy to tweak, tailor, and take ownership of your analytics program.
As organisations brace for a possible recession, cost reduction efforts will be front and centre. Instead of layoffs or budget cuts, reclaim funds rightfully yours to avoid staff impact.
Product Sheet:
NEXT-LEVEL DATA AUTOMATION POWERED BY ROBOTICS