#overpayment

A community in Georgia is trying a number of legal moves to keep an ICE prison from setting up shop in the area. The most interesting is to have the ICE facility declared a "public nuisance".

A small Georgia town’s federal lawsuit opposing the Trump administration’s plans to turn a warehouse into one of the largest immigration detention centers in the US has the potential to create a wide impact as it uses novel legal arguments, experts said. The town of Social Circle’s complaint goes further than other recently filed lawsuits around the same issues, which assert that the US federal government has not carried out environmental impact assessments for proposed detention centers, as required by the National Environmental Policy Act (Nepa). The town’s lawsuit goes on to allege that the homeland security department and ICE have also violated the federal Administrative Procedures Act (APA) – which “requires reasoned decision-making by federal agencies, including consideration of adversely affected interests and any reasonable alternatives”, according to the complaint. Additionally, the complaint asserts that locating what ICE has called “megacenters” in the small town of about 5,000 residents would violate Georgia’s “public nuisance” law – meaning it would “harm their health, safety, and wellbeing”.

You know how Trump cons people into thinking he's such a great deal maker? The Trump administration paid $99 million more for this property than what it was worth. SAD!

(Attorney Adam) Lauridsen pointed to the town’s interactions with the agencies after it became clear that the federal government had purchased a warehouse for $128m in early February – nearly five times its assessed value of $29m last year, (City Manager Eric) Taylor told the Guardian shortly after the sale went through.

More proof that Trump is a sucker and loser. It would be nice if we could remove Trump by simply declaring him to be a public nuisance.

Can You Check for Unclaimed Tax Refunds?

It was a time when spreadsheets symbolized control. Internal audit teams relied on the team to reconcile bills, keep track of the exceptions, and record the results. They were dependable, flexible, and cost-effective. For many years, it was enough. However, the financial environment of an enterprise has changed more quickly than the methods for auditing using spreadsheets have.

Today, the finance and audit teams oversee millions of transactions in ERPs, suppliers portals, procurement platforms, and the lifecycle management of contracts. The relationships between vendors have become more complicated. Contract structures can include rebates, layered and dynamic pricing, service level obligations, and regional-specific conditions.

With this in mind, the spreadsheets of today are not simply inefficient. They are now considered a risk. This change is driving what finance executives refer to as Internal Audit 2.0. It is a shift from manual audits to technology-enabled auditing powered through internal audit software solutions and monitoring systems that are intelligent.

The Spreadsheet Problem Nobody Talks About

Spreadsheets are seldom the point of failure. The issue is less obvious.

The majority of organizations start with the best intentions:

Export ERP information

Reconcile transactions

Note exceptions manually

Make sure audit evidence is stored in shared files

Examine findings regularly

On a smaller scale, it is feasible. On the other hand, at an enterprise level, the limitations are obvious. Multiple versions are circulated simultaneously. Manual formulas break. Ownership of the formulas becomes unclear. Audit evidence can be found in disconnected documents. Most importantly, spreadsheet reviews rely heavily on human efforts as well as institutional memory.

This causes inconsistency. When it comes to AP or contract audits, inconsistent results lead to leakage that is not noticed. This is the reason why companies are investing more and more in adopting internal audit software solutions that are specifically designed to ensure continuous visibility rather than periodic manual audits.

Why AP and Contract Reviews Are Especially Vulnerable

Contract compliance and accounts payable processes produce huge amounts of information. A single payment can be contingent on:

ERP transaction records

Terms of the contract

Purchase orders

Vendor master data

Delivery confirmations

Pricing schedules

Amendment history

Traditional spreadsheet workflows have a difficult time connecting these layers in a consistent manner.

The Hidden Cost of Manual Reviews

Many companies underestimate the cost of operating spreadsheet-based auditing, as the expense isn't always evident in the budget line.

The cost is in other places:

Review delays

Reconciliations that are resource-intensive

More lengthy dispute cycles

Coverage for audits is not as extensive.

Errors with higher frequency

Teams from within collect weeks of data before the moment when analysis commences. When the findings are revealed, it has been months or even years since the initial transaction.

This delay is not good. Within AP as well as vendor-compliant settings, recovery becomes more difficult when the supporting documentation gets older, and the relationship with suppliers’ changes.

Internal Audit 2.0: From Static Reviews to Continuous Monitoring

A new generation of auditors will be fundamentally different. Instead of importing data to spreadsheets that are not connected to modern systems for auditing internal processes, connect directly to the operational systems.

This is a complete change.

Instead of reviewing data after the actual event, audit teams get continuous monitoring of contracts and transactions when they change.

The design typically incorporates:

ERP systems

Contract lifecycle management (CLM) platforms

Procurement Systems for Procurement

Supplier databases

Workflow tools

Payment platforms

This integration allows for continuous monitoring.

How Modern Audit Software Changes Contract Compliance

The compliance of contracts has suffered historically from ownership divisions.

Procurement Negotiations

Legal Approvals

Finance Processes

Yet, very few teams are able to check whether invoices meet the terms of the contract continuously. This is the place where audit compliance software provides significant value.

Modern platforms link invoices directly to contractual obligations. They automatically verify:

Accuracy of pricing

Rebate eligibility

Contract Amendments to the contract

Service-level conditions

Discount structures

Billing exceptions

Instead of comparing invoices manually against existing agreements, the system checks for validation on a continuous basis.

In addition, it increases accountability. If discrepancies are discovered earlier, the suppliers and internal teams can address the issues before they escalate into bigger disputes or financial risks. This shifts the focus of recovery to preventive.

Why ERP Systems Alone Are Not Enough

A common misconception persists:

"We already have an ERP. Isn't that sufficient? "

Not entirely. ERPs are transactional systems. They handle activity extremely well. But they're not made to carry out independent auditing intelligence.

They rely on the rules they have configured. The rules that conflict with them often include:

Complex contract logic

Cross-system dependencies

Vendor behavior patterns

The detection of historical anomalies

Dynamic compliance validation

This is the reason that organizations often add internal auditor software on top of existing ERP environments, rather than substituting them.

Conclusion

Internal audit has entered the next phase. The growth of AP environments and contract governance has revealed the weaknesses of manual, spreadsheet-driven reviews. What was once a useful tool has now become a blind spot that companies cannot afford to pay for.

Finance executives who are adopting internal audit software solutions and cutting-edge audit compliance software aren't just digitizing traditional procedures. They are creating real-time control environments that can prevent leaks, enhancing the governance of their organizations, and increasing financial confidence.

The AP recovery audit industry has been around for a long time. The concept is widely recognized: a third-party company examines your payment history, identifies overpayments and credits, makes claims on your behalf, and then takes a share of the money they collect. For many companies, it has proved to be an honest but unassuming source of value added.

The traditional model, however, isn't without a limit. The speed at which human reviewers can access data limits it, as does the amount of data access firms can negotiate, the range of patterns analysts can discern, and the inherent incentive to concentrate on recovering large amounts of easily recorded data. The industry has improved over the years; however, its basic structure remains the same.

AI has changed the equation. It's not incremental; it's structural. What does that mean for companies considering a new method for recovering accounts payable?

The Limitations of Traditional Recovery Audit

To understand what AI changes are, it's helpful to know the conventional AP recovery audits perform and where they fall short.

Auditors run traditional businesses to request data from ERP systems, then load it into their proprietary tools and run a set of rules-based queries designed to identify the most common errors — duplicate invoices, inaccurate discounts, credits not applied, and pricing variations. They then submit results for the AP team to verify and file.

This procedure is performed. It locates the real value of money. However, it is subject to several design limitations:

It is a periodic and retrospective process. Audits are typically retrospective and periodic. between 12 and 36 months. They are carried out annually or biannually. Any errors that are outside of the window of lookback are not recorded. The errors that occur between audit cycles are compounded and go unnoticed.

Rule-based detection is not without limits. Human-designed queries can only catch the patterns that they were made to detect. They don't catch the patterns they weren't intended for. And in highly complex, high-volume AP environments, there are lots of them.

Incentive misalignment favors big, simple claims. Recovery companies are compensated by contingency. Their purpose is to pursue lucrative, well-proven recovery claims. Difficult-to-prove claims under $15,000 are often not pursued, even if they're valid.

Data access is managed, not automated. Auditors work with the data extracts you supply. They typically don't have access to the entire contracts repository, procurement systems, or trade management systems that could allow them to reconcile their billing against the entire scope of your contracts.

What AI-Powered AP Recovery Audit Changes

Artificial Intelligence-powered AP recovery audit is based on an entirely different structure. Instead of a monthly retroactive review, this allows for automated, continuous analysis of AP transactions as they occur.

A variety of distinct capabilities differentiate AI-driven methods from traditional ones:

Pattern Detection Beyond Pre-Defined Rules

Machine learning models trained on massive transaction datasets detect anomalies that traditional systems overlook. Pricing drifts that are subtle and occur throughout several invoice cycles. The invoice patterns that correspond to specific vendor behaviors. The relationship between payment timing and frequency of errors. These patterns can be found in data, but AI doesn't find them. Human-designed queries usually don't.

Cross-System Data Integration

These AI-powered systems are built to interface with ERP systems, contract repositories, procurement platforms, and trade management platforms in a single go. This means that an accounts payable recovery audit can reconcile invoices not only against payments but also against contracts, purchase orders, and delivery confirmations across all relevant systems at once.

Continuous Monitoring Rather Than Periodic Review

The most important benefit of AI-powered auditing is its transition from periodic audits to ongoing audits. The errors are discovered in the moment, and even the context for resolving the issue is fresh. This helps avoid the compounding that occurs when errors go undetected for 12-24 months.

Prioritization That Goes Beyond Claim Size

Artificial Intelligence-powered systems can prioritize the recovery effort based on recovery probabilities and the complexity of claims, the sensitivity of supplier relationships, and the value of process improvement, not only the size of a dollar. This creates a more comprehensive recovery program that better informs the improvement plan for the process.

What Finance and Procurement Leaders Should Evaluate

When you are evaluating AI-powered AP recovery auditing solutions, the questions worth asking are more than the standard product pitch from the vendor:

What platforms does the platform interface with natively? What is the average timeframe of integration?

How does the detection model perform, and how can it evolve as it processes more transactional information?

What's the procedure to validate and claim results? How many internal resources does it need?

How does the platform handle supplier communications and dispute resolution?

What reports can the platform offer on process improvement, not just recovery, but also error prevention?

These questions show the actual benefit of a product rather than any claim for recovery in a sales presentation.

The Competitive Reality

Businesses that have embraced an AI-powered accounts payable recovery audit have more than just the ability to recover money. They're doing it more quickly, with less investment in internal resources, and through a continual improvement process that minimizes root-cause mistakes over time. This is a way to improve audit quality that regular audits cannot.

The recovery audit industry has been a real source of value for many years. However, the limits of that model are evident, and those who recognize them early will have an advantage in the structure of financial control that others will try to duplicate for years.

The time of AP recovery as a routine, reactive activity has ended. The issue is whether your company will lead this transition or fall into it.

Final Thoughts

The shift from traditional to AI-powered AP recovery audits isn’t just a technology upgrade—it’s a change in how organizations think about financial control. Instead of looking backward to recover what was lost, leading companies are building systems that continuously identify, validate, and prevent leakage in real time. That shift creates stronger visibility, faster recovery cycles, and more reliable financial outcomes. In a high-volume, multi-system environment, that level of control is no longer optional—it’s a competitive advantage.

Let's begin with something the majority of finance professionals won't speak in public, but they know is the truth. 

Despite all the automation, dashboards, and ERP upgrades, a majority of auditing remains somewhat manual.

Spreadsheets still exist

Sampling still happens

Audits are still viewed as initiatives rather than as continuous insights

Now, here's the actual question:

Will this method keep up with the pace of change in the world of finance today?

In the end, finance and accounting transformation isn't just about digitalizing workflows anymore. It's about fundamentally transforming how businesses think about and manage spending. This is exactly where spend intelligence comes into play.

Manual Audits aren't Enough for Modern Finance

Manual audits didn't always pose a major issue. They actually worked very well in a simpler environment: fewer vendors, fewer systems, and lower volume. However, that isn't the case today.

Today, finance teams deal with:

Multiple ERP systems across regions

Thousands of vendors offering various pricing structures

Constant updates to the contract and changes

Millions of transactions flowing each day

Also, when audits rely on sample reviews or routine checks, important details may be missed. In high-volume environments, this is where the risk begins to increase.

What does Spend Intelligence Really Mean?

The concept of spend intelligence is all about visibility.

Not only being aware of how much you paid, but also understanding:

Where did the money go

If it is aligned with the agreed terms

If the money ought to be used for this or that

The difference is

"We invested $10 million working with this company."

vs.

"We are aware of exactly how $10 million was spent across invoices, contracts, and also payments."

This 2nd level of clarity is where real control begins.

The Role of AI in Audits

Here is the point at which AI in audits begins to alter the rules.

The traditional audits are based on rules.

They search for:

Duplicate payments

Error patterns that have been identified

Obvious mismatches

AI does something different. It looks for anomalies.

Instead of asking

"Was the invoice copied?"

It asks:

"Does this transaction act differently than what we typically encounter?"

This is how it begins with identifying:

Subtle pricing deviations

Contract mismatches

Unusual vendor billing behaviour

Cross-system inconsistencies

These are the types of problems that may not show up on standard audits, but can have substantial financial consequences.

Where Accounts Payable Automation Pays Off

The majority of organizations today have already invested in accounts payable automation.

With this:

Invoices process more quickly

Approvals are the same as different

Manual effort is reduced

However, here's something worth taking a moment to think about:

Automation improves efficiency but doesn't guarantee accuracy.

If an incorrect invoice enters the system, automation will process it quickly. It won't always question it. That's why automation needs intelligence layered on top of it.

One drives speed while the other drives correctness. Without both, you're only solving half the problem.

From Audits to Continuous Intelligence

The true financial shift is taking place.

Transition from

"Let's examine this every so often."

to

"Let's learn this throughout the day."

This change alters the way companies manage.

Errors are identified earlier

Recovery becomes simpler

Patterns become visible over time

Decision-making becomes more proactive

Instead of reacting to any problems, finance teams begin anticipating problems.

Why is this Vital for Finance Directors?

At the leadership level, this concerns more than just audits. This is about controlling.

Precisely, it is about the ability to address questions such as:

Are we paying vendors too much and not even realizing it?

Are our contracts being enforced properly?

Are we missing recoverable value?

In the absence of spend intelligence, these solutions are often founded on assumptions.

The Danger of Keeping the Status Quo

There's also a less obvious risk that doesn't get enough attention, and that is complacency.

Audit processes "seem to be working" and are rarely questioned. Reports appear to be fresh, and exceptions appear limited. Over time, teams start to trust the system in its current form.

But here's the twist!

Most leaks don't appear as an exception; they are hidden within the normal.

In isolation, they don't trigger alarms. In the aggregate, they diminish the margins.

If finance teams do not shift their focus to increased spending, these patterns could persist for a long time, unnoticed, unchallenged, and undisturbed.

The Future of Finance & Accounting

If you look ahead, it's not just about conducting additional audits.

It's about creating structures that will:

Continuously evaluate your spend

Identify risks in real time

Learn from the patterns of the past

Provide actionable insights

In this environment, audits aren't going away. They change from a compliance task to a strategic function.

Final Words

Most companies do not have a problem with spending. They're already investing millions of dollars across vendors' systems, processes, and systems.

The issue is: What percentage of that expenditure is being validated efficiently?

As the system's complexity increases, the number of manual audits is not only inefficient but also dangerous. The future is in finance teams that do more than manage spending effectively; they also understand it in depth.

Well, if you are still using periodic reviews or manual checks, you are probably seeing only a small portion of the overall picture. Discover Dollar helps finance teams move beyond traditional audits. It uses AI-powered spend intelligence to analyze large volumes of transactions across systems. This helps uncover hidden leakages, pricing errors, and missed recovery opportunities.

An overview of the most frequent accounts payable mistakes—such as duplicate payments, missed credits, and billing discrepancies—that silently drain profits and impact financial performance.

Enterprise organizations consider procurement as a cost-savings function; in 2026, finance and procurement leaders will shift this thinking to also include procurement as a revenue-generating function, particularly as a result of the procurement data stream.

The negative revenue impact may not always come from lost or future sales, but also from inefficient spend management, unrealized contract entitlements, and insufficient insight into the provider's performance. The opportunities, therefore, remain likely undiscovered: in new sales, in unspent or wasted spend, in unfulfilled or inefficient spend, in non-analytics-driven managed spend, and in disconnected systems from large spreadsheets.

The modern procurement resource analytics spend speaks to revenue as a function of spend visibility, contract compliance, and cash flow, which alters procurement from a cost centre to become a primary strategic driver.

Why the Revenue is Hidden in Procurement

The procurement funnel results in negative revenue, but not a result of data fraud or mismanagement, but rather:

Inadequate integration of procurement data

Respondent supplier's inconsistent pricing

Lost price breaks

Failure to exercise contractual terms

Payment process inefficiencies

Typically, a finance team's spend behaviour analysis is based on data from a single system; thus, the analysis focuses on spend behaviour and the system-of-record flow.

Modern procurement analysis. Extend this single-system analysis to multiple systems; thus, integrate spend behaviour analysis data system record flows to ascertain where money may be lost or not made.

Identifying Contract Leakage and Missed Benefits

The more analytics a procurement team has, the better they understand the terms of a contract that are frequently overlooked, such as volume, discounts, rebates, and early payment terms. Terms such as these go understudied in the absence of contract analytics and often go unnoticed in procurement cases. 

The more analytics a procurement team has at their disposal, the more its ability to monitor, measure, and track contract compliance in real time, and the more that ability can assist in determining the pricing gap, or the absence of one.

In contract analytics, even minor percentage improvements in overall contract compliance can yield significant revenue recovery at the Enterprise level.

Improving Supplier Performance and Negotiation Power

Supplier performance analytics provide powerful insights for the procurement team, including payment behaviour, pricing behaviour, and delivery timing. 

That data can help the procurement team identify underperforming suppliers.

Analytics also provides that data to the procurement team to help them determine who should be rewarded with preferred supplier status and why, thereby strengthening their negotiating power when it comes time to renew their contracts.

More Payment Analytics can Unlock Cash Flow Potential

The timing of payments can influence cash flow and working capital, and a business may not be able to optimize cash efficiency without insight into invoice status and payment schedules.

The combination of procurement and finance analytics can enable: 

More alignment between procurement commitments and payments 

Spotting opportunities to take early-payment discounts 

Greater control regarding the timing of payments 

The right payment strategies can unlock a large amount of cash without constraining spending.

The Importance of Merged Procurement and Finance Analytics

When procurement analytics is combined with finance operation analytics, it is at its most effective. Having a limited scope of insights is not as effective as having combined data for enterprise-level impact.

When procurement and finance analytics are in sync, organizations receive:

Comprehensive visibility from purchase to payment

Improved planning and forecasting

Enhanced control and governance

This kind of integration designates procurement as a more prominent player than a mere transactional function.

Why Modern Analytics Outperform Traditional Reporting

Traditional reports involve a static document that looks back at the history of a given report. Modern analytics are dynamic, forward-looking, and actionable.

Modern procurement analytics do the following:

Updates an organization's insights based on occurring transactions

Provides proactive support on risks and opportunities

Provides support in the plethora of decisions an organization may need to make

The shift in reporting in modern analytics allows the organization to adjust before losing additional value, rather than reporting after the fact.

Conclusion

In 2026, the gap between the majority of organizations and the few high-performing ones will broadly be defined by the utilization of data. Revenue that was previously 'stranded' by poor demand and supply constraints will now be freed through the strategic application of analytics in procurement, along with spending containment, contract enforcement, and optimized collections.

A function that was previously seen merely as a cost-control mechanism is now a function that protects and recovers revenue.

Solutions such as Discover Dollar integrate procurement with accounts payable data to enhance visibility, accuracy, and financial control. 

By enhancing invoice-level insights and payment data, Discover Dollar enables smarter procurement and helps organizations unlock value that would otherwise be trapped.