History AP Audit Industry
Since the 1960s, $6 billion of AP overpayments have been identified and recovered by AP Audit Firms for companies being audited. The industry continues to evolve and expand.
- Manual AP Audits: During the 1960s and 1970s the retail industry started manually auditing their paid invoices and found sizeable overpayments. Paper invoices, purchase orders and remittance advice detail were analyzed.
- AP Audit Firms Form: As a result of the findings in the retail industry, AP audit firms start to form in the 1970s, often by Controllers of the affected companies. Seeing an opportunity, these audit firms started to audit other industries.
- PCs and Databases: During the 1980s, use of the PC and databases to store, sort and identify possible overpayments began to be used by the AP Audit firms.
- EDI, Electronic Data Interchange: By the beginning of the 1990s, EDI or Electronic Data Interchange became more widely used. Data was exchanged between clients and the AP Audit firms. This reduced the dependence of manual audit of paper records.
- Computer Assisted Audits: AP Audit firms started introducing proprietary but generic AP Audit software during the 1990s. This software managed selected data interchanged with the firms being audited. The data was transferred into a common medium for the generic software to process. These computer assisted audits supplemented the continuing manual paper audits.
- Consolidation in AP Audit Industry: Consolidation in the AP Audit industry became more prevalent starting in the 1990s. Acquisitions of firms with expertise in specific areas became evident.
- First System Specific Audit Software Introduced by AmeriSystems: The first system specific software for firms using Geac E:Series (formerly Dun and Bradstreet Software) was introduced in 1999. Firms using Geac E:Series could load and run AP Audit Software specifically designed for their version of Geac software. The Audit was completed offsite in one day without any burden of on-site auditors.
- Oracle System Specific Audit Software Introduced by AmeriSystems: The second system specific software was introduced in 2002 for users of Oracle Payables software. As with the Geac E:Series system specific software, firms could load and run the software for their specific release of Oracle. The audit was completed offsite and in one days for six years of checks written.
- “Virtual” System Specific AP Audit Software: In the future, there will be a “virtual” and system specific AP Audit software available that will audit a firms AP while it is being processed to prevent errors from occurring on the front end. System specific software works with or is a part of the firms existing AP software.
Source: AmeriSystems, December 2007
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