Complex, 100+ page invoices are commonplace in many industries. From billion-dollar construction projects to O&M costs to contract labor, companies across the spectrum deal with huge, multifarious contracts and the dense P2P processes that go along with them.
Yet errors in invoices continue to happen. Cost recovery leader CPRS, Inc., estimates that 1 in every 15 invoices contains some form of error and has identified more than $165 million in excess billings and overpayments in the past two years. This is at a time when AP automation software and Total Spend Management (TSM) platforms are at their finest, promising to ‘guard your spend, prevent bad math, and scale smarter.’
“The issues we’re finding are in the invoice itself – you have to physically open up the invoice and put a set of eyes on it,” said Matt Holmes, CPRS Vice President of Audit Operations and leader of the CPRS Contract Compliance Team. “Everyone talks about AI as the solution, but we continue to see the need for a ‘human in the loop’ as part of the process. AI is only as good as the person reviewing the data, who has the expertise to understand the data, and to report if AI tracked everything correctly.”
CPRS supports corporate teams
by providing AI-driven billing validation processes.
CPRS provides claims process management, comprehensive testing through its AI-driven Pearl™ application, and proactive communication with stakeholders to remediate root causes of errors, ensuring ongoing compliance.
After reviewing millions of pages of complex invoices and finding billions of dollars in errors, CPRS has a deep understanding of where errors occur, and how to fix them. For 2025, they have identified the “Top 5 Invoicing Errors” that companies, accounts payable teams, and finance departments need to look for.
The Top 5 Invoicing Errors
- Incorrect Labor Hours
Contract labor hours are one of the most common areas for invoice errors, Holmes said. “What’s put on the invoice and the back-end documentation are often not the same.” Taxes on labor, labor classifications, and more can have issues. “We’ve seen a $20/hour general laborer billed as a $150/hour supervisor two months later. That is an impossible shift in skills that just can’t happen.” - Improperly Billed Small Tools & Consumables
Contracts and their associated invoices often lump small tools and consumables into a blanket purchase order, making them ripe for errors and mismanagement. “For something as small as a hammer or as large as a generator, if the client doesn’t get to keep it, they should not be charged for it,” Holmes said. For one client, CPRS found $474,000 in small tools and consumables that should not have been billed to the job. - Over-Reliance on Software
Even with today’s AP automation software and TSM platforms, errors continue. “If you think an EDI means every invoice is perfect, it’s not,” Holmes said. “We see invoices entered incorrectly, we find holes in EDI systems that get exposed, and we find bad math.” - Following the Negotiated Contract
While many procurement teams do an excellent job negotiating contracts, who makes sure the negotiated rates and pricing are adhered to on the invoices? While reviewing a contract that took the client 8 months to finalize, CPRS identified rates for a specific generator were not included in one of the many amendments, a potential $75,000 mistake. - Poor Math
“It sounds simple, but we find a lot of calculation errors,” Holmes added. “What is typed in the ERP system may not match what is on the invoice. Or someone does the math wrong. Or the full $100,000 PO is billed, but only $87,000 worth of invoices are submitted.”
- Incorrect Labor Hours
CPRS combines proprietary, AI-powered technology with the industry’s most-experienced audit team to identify payment errors and recover overpayments. Its innovative P2P and S2P audit technologies work with today’s enterprise systems to find both problems and solutions that help improve processes and recover costs. The CPRS Contract Compliance Team interprets and tests governing agreements against high-volume invoicing, targeting key areas like labor, equipment, materials, subcontracts, and travel.
“A human will always be involved at some step of the invoicing process, creating opportunities for error – and improvement,” Holmes concluded.
Contact the CPRS Contract Compliance Team to get errors out of your accounts payables.
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