Transparent Continuous Monitoring

A potent, on-demand service that allows remediation of Accounts Payable (AP) issues before they convert into bleeders and loss of working capital.

Visible results.

Proposition

For whom?For any organization with an AP transaction volume and vendor master file that are sufficiently large to be prone to errors and fraud.

Why?Because you wish to prevent leakage of working capital and to prevent fraud. Since you also wish to improve business processes, compliance, governance, vendor management, risk management, and internal auditing and reporting.

What?Transparent offers TCM and TCM+. Solid solutions to continuously monitor AP process and vendor master data, to make them bullet proof.

How?TCM and TCM+ run off-site and require only a minimum of technical interference. There are no initial fees, making the solution very accessible, as well as affordable with a positive ROI!

Traditional recovery audit versus continuous monitoring

It is sound practice to perform periodical recovery audits of Accounts-Payable (AP) data. If done correctly, these audits expose common issues such as duplicate payments, overpayments, VAT problems, open credits, fraud, etc. These issues can be converted into powerful management information regarding, e.g., quality and improvement opportunities of AP process and vendor management. In addition, recovery audits actually allow for the identification, verification, and recovery of lost working capital.

Clearly, however sound recovery audits may be, they are intrinsically reactive, enabling repair of issues after they have occurred. As a consequence, not surprisingly, a significant part of the identified issues can never be resolved. E.g.,

think of a vendor that recently went out of business and therefore is unable to return the received overpayment. So why not implement preventive measures, allowing you to detect and straighten out issues before they really go wrong? If that can be done with a cost-effective, low-resource solution, you have a winning system.

Value of continuous monitoring

Continuous monitoring is an uninterrupted, automated process that allows management to receive and follow up exception alerts as soon as issues arise with the implemented controls and ongoing transactions. This can imply a tremendous boost for efficacy and bottom-line results. To be more specific, Transparent Continuous Monitoring (TCM) holds the following benefits.

• Detection in real time and proactive remediation of process and master-data issues

• Continuous process improvement• Improved and accelerated KPI reporting• Higher quality and cost-efficiency for monitoring

of transactions as well as controls• Higher quality and cost-efficiency of (continuous) internal audit• Improved adherence to ethical and compliance standards• Continuous supply of risk intelligence to risk management

TCM thus delivers a competitive edge and increases the business’ value to all stakeholders.

TCM

Transparent Continuous Monitoring (TCM) is comprised of several modules, made available through a secured, web-based interface.

OverpaymentsAll AP transactions can be monitored on a permanent basis. Exceptions will be generated in real time as soon as anomalies (are about to) happen, such as:• Duplicate payments• Erroneous payments• Missed discounts• Unclaimed VAT

FraudWith this module, AP transactions are also continuously screened in real time for suspect patterns, indicating potential fraud, such as:• Artificially invented invoice amounts• Fictitious vendor data• Abnormal invoice volumes

Master DataThe vendor master file is continuously monitored and exception alerts are generated in real time as soon as anomalies are found, such as:• Duplicate vendor name• Duplicate bank account• Vendor with incomplete address informationAlso, this module allow to cleanse the master vendor file!

Segregation of DutiesThe existing segregations and changes to the segregations of duties are continuously monitored and exceptions are generated when inconsistencies originate, such as:• Invoice booking and payment by the same person• Vendor record creation and invoice booking by the same person

AnalyticsThrough this module, you will have dozens of reports, showing you the history and current status of your process and data. Some examples are:• Root-cause analysis behind exceptions• Types and numbers of exceptions• Extent of contamination of the vendor master file• Inactive vendors, grief vendors, etc.• Agreed payment terms versus actual payment dates• VAT analysis• Invoicing volumes and amounts per time period, per vendor, etc.

Exception handlingA user-friendly interface is provided to efficiently deal with all incoming exceptions. Resolution stage, activity management, document storing and access: such functionality greatly facilitates the follow-up of incoming exception alerts.

TCM+

Receiving exceptions is very valuable. Resolving them, even using the practical exception-handling tool, requires the proper amount of attention and expertise. You may not wish to invest these.

Transparent has over a decade of experience, investigating and resolving anomalies in AP. We therefore offer our clients the possibility to make use of TCM+, which is the regular TCM software solution, extended with our in-house analysis and recovery capabilities. Our teams of analysts and vendor-facing experts will work behind the screens in your name, and will feedback their results into the system, so that you can easily track the status at any time.

Upon your request, we will even make the necessary amendments in your systems, so that your AP process and vendor master data will be error-proof and cost-efficient without your intervention.

StatementsIn conjunction with TCM+, it makes perfect sense to also include our statements service. Our statements team will periodically request your vendors to submit a statement of open amounts. This involves the tedious process of looking up updated contact information, contacting vendors world-wide in their own language, deploying a sequence of letters and phone calls, until all statements have been properly received.

Technical Deployment

Working with TCM is easy. The software is on demand, i.e., runs in Transparent’s secured environment and can be remotely accessed via a web interface. Getting TCM to work with your systems only requires one historical data download plus the installation of a simple but very robust interface that will allow the continuous monitoring of your ERP system and vendor master data. In our experience, most clients are ready to go within a matter of days or weeks.

E: sales@transparent.eu | W: www.transparent.eu