AP audit recovery is the review of paid vendor invoices to find money a company overpaid and get it back: duplicate payments, prices above the purchase order or contract, and rebates or credits nobody claimed. Most companies hire an outside firm for the work and pay it a share of what it recovers.
Rever runs checks of the same kind on your own records, through read-only connections. Spend Guard screens bills for duplicates and price drift before the payment run, and the zero-day scan makes the first pass over your connected records, with the evidence behind each finding. The zero-day scan article compares the scan with an accounts payable recovery audit step by step.
Fee models for AP audit recovery
Contingency is the common model. The firm pays for its own analysts and software, and you pay it an agreed share of each recovery it secures. The share, the minimum engagement size and the definition of a recovery sit in the contract, and each firm sets its own.
Some firms offer a fixed fee or an hourly rate for a defined scope instead, and some mix the two: a fixed fee for the data work and a smaller share of recoveries. Finance teams sign contingency contracts because the arithmetic looks free at the start. You pay nothing until the firm finds money, and you pay the fee out of the recovery itself.
What sets the cost
Four terms in the engagement letter decide what you pay and what you get for it.
- Scope. A review of AP disbursements alone takes less work than one that adds vendor statements, contract compliance, freight or sales tax. Firms price each added stream into the share or the fee.
- Lookback. The firm reviews a stretch of closed periods. A longer lookback finds more, and your vendor contracts can limit how far back a claim holds.
- Data. Your team extracts paid invoices, payment files, the vendor master and the contracts, answers the firm's questions and pulls the documents behind each claim. That time does not appear on the firm's invoice.
- Vendor contact. The firm writes to vendors to file claims, and some contracts let it take credits against open invoices. Your purchasing team hears about it from the vendor first.
What the fee leaves out
The first cost outside the percentage is time. The firm reviews payments after the cash has left, often a year or more after. A duplicate you paid in March sits with the vendor until an analyst finds it, and a vendor that has since sold its business or closed may never pay it back.
The second is the definition of a recovery. Read the contract for what the firm can bill on: a refund cheque, a credit you take against a future invoice, or a claim the vendor has accepted and not yet settled. A fee on accepted claims can fall due before any cash comes back. Ask for the fee to attach to cash received or a credit applied, the same test Rever uses before it counts anything as recovered.
The cause of each overpayment also stays with you. The firm finds the duplicate, and the gap that let it through stays open until your team closes it. After the recovery audit covers that work, finding by finding.
The mid-market gap
A firm paid from recoveries needs a population large enough to fund its analysts. Many firms set a floor on annual spend or invoice volume before they take an engagement, and a company with mid-market payables can fall under it. A firm that does take the work may run a lighter review, with fewer streams and a shorter lookback, because the expected fee will not pay for more.
The overpayments happen anyway. A mid-market AP team pays duplicate invoices and drifted prices for the same reasons a large one does: a vendor resends an invoice under a new number, or a price change never reaches the purchase order. With no firm coming back to look, that money stays with the vendor.
Checks before payment and after
Rever connects read-only to your ERP, banks and documents, and its agents run the recovery checks as bills arrive.
Before payment, Spend Guard screens each bill for exact and near duplicates and for price drift against the order or contract, and requests an Inbox-approved hold before the payment run. Matcher ties the bill to its order, receipt and contract terms field by field. A duplicate you hold before payment needs no claim, no vendor letter and no fee. The Spend Guard agent page sets out its full scope.
After payment, the zero-day scan applies the relevant reconciliations, verifications and controls to the in-scope population of your connected records and reveals initial findings with the evidence behind them. Entitlement recalculates the rebates and credits your vendor terms make available, and the accounts payable audit checklist lists each check with the agent that runs it. Your team approves each claim from the Inbox, and Rever counts a finding as recovered only when cash is received or a credit is applied.
Rever's pricing page prices packages on scope: entities, sources and agents. The zero-day scan is free and self-serve, and Growth pricing follows a free Proof of Value on a limited period of your data.
