Tips for confirming vendor legitimacy.Fraud is a vastly underappreciated challenge, says Jim Arnold, president and founder of APEX Analytix, a provider of accounts payable auditing, procurement and spend analysis and audit software. He offers the following tips to prevent accounts/payable fraud: * Confirm Vendors' Existence in the Public Domain. Ensure that new vendors are legitimate entities and not shell companies or phantom vendors by confirming their existence in the public domain. There are numerous free Internet research This article is about using the Internet for research; for the field of research about the Internet, see Internet studies. Internet research is the practice of using the Internet, especially the World Wide Web, for research. tools available, including 411locate.com, anywho.com, dexonline.com and infospace.com. Several reputable subscription services exist for this purpose as well, among them ChoicePoint, Dun & Bradstreet, Hoover's and Austin-Tetra. * Match TINs with IRS An abbreviation for the Internal Revenue Service, a federal agency charged with the responsibility of administering and enforcing internal revenue laws. Records. Available through irs.gov, the TIN (Taxpayer Identification Number) Matching Program matches a payee The person who is to receive the stated amount of money on a check, bill, or note. payee n. the one named on a check or promissory note to receive payment. PAYEE. The person in whose favor a bill of exchange is made payable. W-9 name and TIN with IRS records. By confirming that new vendors are indeed taxpaying entities, you reduce risk of vendor fraud by phantom vendors. * Develop a Vendor Profile Form. Beyond the information gathered in a W-9, each new vendor should submit a vendor profile form developed by your organization to gather more assurance that the company is legitimate. This information may include officer names, physical business address, daytime phone number, sales tax sales tax, levy on the sale of goods or services, generally calculated as a percentage of the selling price, and sometimes called a purchase tax. It is usually collected in the form of an extra charge by the retailer, who remits the tax to the government. certificate, business license, product catalog catalog, descriptive list, on cards or in a book, of the contents of a library. Assurbanipal's library at Nineveh was cataloged on shelves of slate. The first known subject catalog was compiled by Callimachus at the Alexandrian Library in the 3d cent. B.C. , annual reports, etc. * Monitor Vendor Attributes. Dozens of vendor attributes indicate a higher propensity towards fraud, and systems should be in place to "flag" these vendors as potential risks. Some of these attributes include initials in a vendor's name, PO Box, high-risk Zip code zip code System of postal-zone codes (zip stands for “zone improvement plan”) introduced in the U.S. in 1963 to improve mail delivery and exploit electronic reading and sorting capabilities. or country, multiple vendors at address, private mail service, employee/vendor address match, consecutive invoice numbering, suspect foreign businesses and prison addresses. |
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