Accounts Payable & Receivable › Payment Runs

How do you prevent and detect duplicate payments across payment runs?

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Answer

Prevent with unique supplier+invoice-number validation, three-way matching, and blocking held items; detect with pre-run duplicate reports, periodic audits comparing amount/date/vendor, and recovery-audit services. When found, seek supplier refund or offset against future invoices, and fix the root cause (e.g., re-keyed invoices).
Real-world example A pre-run duplicate report catches an invoice already paid last cycle, avoiding a second $12,000 payment.

Common follow-ups: What detects near-duplicates? | How are duplicate payments recovered?