FISCAL Technologies world leading, award-winning SAAS solution AP Forensics®, helps local authorities achieve the best value from taxpayers’ money by continuously monitoring accounts payable transactions and suppliers to protect against high-risk payments, fraud, invoicing errors, and compliance issues.
The 2017 UK Annual Fraud Indicator estimates overall Public Sector fraud losses to be £40.4 billion - an increase of +7.5% in one year
Developments in Purchase-to-Pay have significantly increased the complexity of transactions and, as many processes are automated, these transactions are now happening faster and faster. Outsourcing transaction processing to third parties and, upgrading or changing ERP systems in particular, increase the risk of errors or fraud at a time when councils are under pressure to spend frugally and save money where they can.
FISCAL Technologies already protects 17 London local authorities who have saved millions of pounds and countless hours of manual checks and historical recovery costs with AP Forensics®.
So what’s it all about?
FISCAL Technologies AP Forensics® is designed for use by a local authority's own AP, Procurement and Audit departments. It works alongside all Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems on a continuous monitoring basis to reduce the need for time-consuming manual checks and recovery audit fees, saving time and money.
Available through London Ventures, is a FREE without obligation AP Forensics® Finance Risk Review, worth over £5,000. This will analyse and report on your own local authority’s transactional data and include examples of transactions that may have resulted in historical overpayments. The software is furnished via a renewable cloud service which will then continuously monitor all the accounts payable transactions and provide master supplier file analysis to prevent potentially erroneous or fraudulent payments being made.
We spoke to Michael Duffy, Regional Head of Customer Development
· How did you get involved with London Ventures?
When identified by London Ventures as an innovation partner, FISCAL Technologies had already been selected by over 70 UK local authorities. Through the London Ventures program we have been able to create special packages and support specifically for local authorities within the London and are proud of how AP Forensics ® is helping protect spend.
· What do you think is FISCAL’s unique selling point?
FISCAL Technologies is the only audit software firm to focus specifically on continuous monitoring, so even after our Finance Risk Review has identified historical overpayments, local authorities will continue to benefit every day from ongoing error prevention, time and cost savings, and process improvement.
· Why is FISCAL Technologies AP Forensics® an exciting opportunity for London local authorities?
Local authorities have to be seen to be doing everything they can to protect taxpayers’ money and that includes how well they spend it. The Free AP Forensics® Finance Risk Review provides tangible evidence of overpayments and process gaps even when local authorities believe their processes already protect them from most errors or fraud.
Why you should get involved?
Council finance chiefs who have a fiduciary duty to limit risk and ensure compliance need to recognise that many of the standard controls--like three-way matching--are not robust enough to protect from errors and fraud.
FISCAL’s software offers many ways to protect council spend through:
§ Reduced Risk from duplicate payments and invoicing errors
§ Working Capital Protection through preventing overpayments at source
§ Time and resource efficiencies owing to fewer manual checks, historical recovery and raising of credit notes
§ Process Improvement driven by actionable insight from pre-defined reports
§ Strengthened compliance by monitoring and enforcing adherence with established AP policies
§ Counter-Fraud via a consolidated report highlighting high-risk suppliers
§ Increased control due to heightened visibility
§ Master File maintenance by regular proactive cleansing and de-duping
§ Recovery of historical overpayments upon implementation, yielding lost revenue
FISCAL Technologies in a nutshell
FISCAL Technologies provides the most comprehensive protection for local authority accounts payable finances. Like all government departments, London councils are under pressure to spend frugally, which is why recovering historical overpayments and then preventing future errors demonstrates fiscal prudence and leads to long-term savings.
By improving accounts payable governance, setting up clear management processes and consistently tracking key metrics, councils can streamline their processes and inject an error prevention culture into the organisation.
Find out more…
If you want to get involved with FISCAL Technologies as a borough, contact Michael Duffy (mduffy@fiscaltec.com) or Thomas Man (thomas.man@londoncouncils.gov.uk).
Have a look at other innovative products in our portfolio on our current ventures page.