Vendor Payments

Vendor payments are among the most vulnerable areas for errors, fraud, and inefficiencies in local government’s financial management. Even minor oversights can have significant impacts, from duplicate payments and unapproved invoices to misclassified expenses,

UHY’s GEARS services can help local governments and school districts examine vendor payment processes using data analytics to bring transparency, cost efficiency, and accuracy to every transaction.

What You Need to Start:

• Annual Budgets
• Invoice History Reports
• Payment History Reports
• General Ledger

Budgeted and Actual Expenditures Analysis

We start by evaluating your non-personnel actual expenditures for prior years to establish a baseline spending trend and identify any anomalies in spending patterns. We compare this trend to the current budgeted expenditures for alignment and appropriate fluctuations due to internal and external factors.

Next, we will compare the invoice history report by month and year to the actual and budgeted expenditures to identify budget areas consistently exceeding or coming in below budget. Significant differences should be further investigated, including a root cause analysis of the variance. We coordinate this closely with our assessment of your treasury management process.

Disbursement Integrity

We analyze invoices and payments by aggregating and comparing the two datasets to identify duplicate disbursements. We then assess whether duplicate invoices or payments are being issued and whether a trend exists between the vendor, requestor, processor, and timing. Additionally, we assess whether the vendor payment process has the necessary efficient internal controls, oversight, and technology to reduce manual errors and fraud. Any irregularities identified that may point to inefficiencies or fraud should be further investigated.

A detailed, data-driven review of vendor payments can uncover hidden inefficiencies and help ensure funds are used effectively. Let UHY’s GEARS services guide your organization toward more innovative vendor management and better fiscal oversight.