Duplicate Invoice Check – Part 1

Introduction:

When I was sent on my first assignment on starting out my career as an apprentice with an
Auditing firm, the first instruction that was handed out was to cross check all the Invoices with
their Purchase orders and the GR documents.

If all the documents were in place they had to be marked with a green tick. And if by any chance
any instance was noticed wherein all the documents were not in place, it was a probable
duplicate invoice posted in the system and it had to be marked with a red mark to be digged in
further.

At that time, I used to wonder if there was any automated system to do this manual task or even
better to prevent any of this from happening, it would have been great.

SAP has an answer to address this issue.

Object of the document:

This document is an attempt to analyze the issue of duplicate invoice postings and ways to
prevent them.

The document covers:

 Brief introduction to Duplicate Invoices

 Possible reasons for Duplicate Invoice Postings
 Holistic approach to be adopted to prevent Duplicate Invoice Postings
 Detailed overview of the processes available in SAP to prevent Duplicate Invoice
Postings
 Example illustrating the duplicate invoice check process in SAP

Duplicate Invoices:

Duplicate Invoice postings happen when a single invoice received from a vendor is posted in the
system more than once and consequently paid more than once.

Reasons for Duplicate Invoice Posting:

Duplicate Invoices might be posted in the SAP system because of various reasons such as:

 Vendors sending invoices more than once because of delay in payments or

misplacement of invoices
 Invoices posted twice because of simple inefficiency of accounting staff
 Duplicate Invoices posted by staff with an intention to defraud the organization

Duplicate Invoice Posting which can be prevented:

Duplicate invoice postings and consequent payments made as a result of AP staff colluding with
vendors with an intention to defraud the organization would require targeted efforts to detect and
prevent.

In cases other than the above, duplicate invoice postings can be prevented by adopting the
inbuilt features and processes in SAP.

Holistic Approach to Prevent Duplicate Invoice Postings:

Implementing the inbuilt processes in SAP for checking Duplicate Invoice Postings will not
eliminate the risk of duplicate invoice posting arising because of collusion of AP staff to commit
fraud.

But it will certainly help in making the system more robust and reduce the chances of duplicate
entries because of reasons other than fraud.

A holistic approach to mitigate the risk of duplicate invoice postings includes:

 Restricting the access to create vendor masters to authorized people only and preferably
staff from non-AP functions
 Putting in place framework for preventing creation of duplicate vendors
 Creating a framework for identifying and blocking vendors that do not have any
transactions in say, previous three months
 Making certain fields like Bank Account Number, Alternate Payee etc. in the vendor
master as sensitive fields, requiring approval by authorized persons, for making changes
 Use the PO process for most, if not all procurements
 Use the three way check (Purchase Order, Goods Receipt and Invoice Verification)
 Limit the usage of Non-PO processes for procurement
 Adopting the process of parking, posting and approving of invoices by different users, to
record invoices.
 Making the Header Reference Number field as a mandatory field for all the document
types used for posting vendor invoices
 Making requisite configuration settings to achieve the duplicate invoice checks in case of
Logistics Invoices.
 Finally, creating programs for identifying duplicate payments which have passed through
despite the best efforts

Processes to be adopted in SAP to carry out a check for Duplicate Invoice Posting:

In SAP there is an inbuilt check for ensuring that duplicate invoices are not posted.

The check can be achieved by a combination of the following:

 Vendor Master data maintained with Indicator for duplicate invoices and credit memos
checked
 Message to be displayed on entering a duplicate invoice should be maintained as – Error
Message Type
 Additional parameters configured in SPRO to control the fields to be checked in case of
Logistics Invoice Verification
 Making the Reference document number field as a mandatory field for all the document
types used for posting vendor invoices
 Maintain the field – Check Flag for Double Invoices and Credit Memos (LFB1-REPRF),
as mandatory, for the account groups being used for vendors

Duplicate Invoice Check – Relationship with Invoice Type:

The Duplicate Invoice check carried out by the system will depend upon whether the invoice is a:

 FI Document or
 Logistics Invoice document

Process Flow of Duplicate Invoice Check depending upon Invoice Type:

Fields checked in case of Logistics Invoice Verifiaction:

In case of Logistics Invoice, the following six fields would be checked to identify duplicate
invoices in standard SAP:

 Company Code
 Vendor
 Currency
 Gross Invoice Amount
 Reference document number
 Invoice Date
Out of the above fields, there is an option available to skip the checking of any of the
following three fields while trying to identify duplicate invoices:

 Company Code
 Reference document number
 Invoice Date

This can be acheived by carrying out the requisite configuration in the transaction – OMRDC.

Whether the duplicate invoice checks would consider the fields Company Code, Reference
Document Number and Invoice Date would depend upon whether these fields are configured as
activated or deactivated in OMRDC.

Description Transaction Code

Set Check for Duplicate Invoices OMRDC

Screenshot of Duplicate Invoice Check Configuration:

Fields checked in case of FI Invoices:

The fields to be checked to identify duplicate invoices in the case of FI invoices depend upon
whether the reference document number is filled or not.

Reference document number is NOT filled up:

In the cases where the reference document number field is not filled up, the following fields
would be checked to identify duplicate invoices:

 Company Code
 Vendor
 Currency
 Invoice Date
 Amount in document currency
Reference document number is filled up:

In the cases where the reference document number field is filled up, the following fields would be
checked to identify duplicate invoices:

 Company Code
 Vendor
 Currency
 Invoice Date
 Reference document number

Illustration of Duplicate Invoice Check:

SAP Configuration – Define the field Double invoice validation as mandatory field:

Maintaining the field status of the field – Double invoice validation as a required entry field will
ensure that whenever a vendor master is created the field Check Flag for Double Invoices or
Credit Memos in the Payment Data tab of the company code segment of the vendor master is
always checked.

Description Transaction Code

Define Screen Layout per Company Code (Vendors) SPRO

Screenshot of Field Status of Double Invoice validation field marked as mandatory:

Master data – Maintain Vendor Master:

 Description Transaction Code
Create/Change vendor master FK01/FK02/XK01/XK02

Screenshot of Vendor Master Data:

SAP Configuration – Change Message Control:

Maintain the message – Check whether document has already been entered under number
& & & as an Error message type.

This will put a hard stop to the process of duplicate invoice being posted in the system.

If the message is not maintained as an error message the system will display the message as a
warning or information and allow the user to go ahead and post the duplicate invoice.

Description Transaction Code

Check Message Control OBA5
Screenshot of Error Message maintained:

SAP Configuration – Maintain Document Type:

Maintain the field – Reference Document Number (XBLNR) in all the document types used for
posting vendor invoices as requiring an entry while posting invoices.

This will make the user mandatorily enter a Vendor Invoice number in the field. This will aid in the
process of duplicate invoice check in the system.

Description Transaction Code

Maintain/Change Document Types OBA7
Screenshot of Document Type with Reference document number field marked as
mandatory:

Transactional data 1 – for illustrating Duplicate Invoice Check process:

Description Transaction Code

Enter Vendor Invoice FB60

Post an Invoice against a vendor.

In the example an invoice is posted against a vendor with the following parameters:

 Company Code – 0001

 Vendor – TESTVENDOR
 Currency – EUR
 Invoice Date – 19.12.2012
 Reference document number – DUPL1
Screenshot of Document entered

A document is posted with number 1900000005 as displayed above.

Transactional data 2 – for illustrating Duplicate Invoice Check process:

Description Transaction Code

Enter Vendor Invoice FB60

Try to post a Duplicate Invoice against the same vendor with the same parameters as already
mentioned above.

In this example an invoice is tried to be posted against the same vendor with the identical input
parameters as already entered for document – 1900000005:

 Company Code – 0001

 Vendor – TESTVENDOR
 Currency – EUR
 Invoice Date – 19.12.2012
 Reference document number – DUPL1

After entering the input parameters when the save button is clicked an error message is
displayed – Check whether document has already been entered under number 0001
1900000005 2012
Error Message Screen Shot:

For further details and illustrations please refer to the SCN document
– http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-35424