This is proving abundantly clear in the African utilities sector, where non-payment, consumption-based fraud, illegal connections and other factors are costing billions in lost revenue.

Power utility Eskom recently revealed that . This has led to a R51-billion debt by municipalities, adding to Eskom’s significant R400-billion debt burden and hampering the utility’s plans to build additional capacity or its transition to renewable energy.

In East Africa, Kenya Power has investigated cases of fraud in its post-paid billing system, .

This issue is prevalent in the utilities sector of other regions too. A 2017 study estimated that . This places enormous pressure on utilities and hampers efforts to improve service delivery to customers, adopt new, more sustainable forms of energy, and scale into new markets.

Revenue assurance mitigates fraud, reduces losses

In the utilities sector, several factors contribute to lost revenue, including faulty metering, inaccurate billing, ineffective revenue collection, consumption-based fraud, leaks, and issues with incorrect customer accounts and contracts.

As the sector shifts to meet the utility needs of a growing population – Africa’s population is expected to – and pressure grows to move to more sustainable, less carbon-intensive forms of energy, maintaining high levels of revenue collection will be critical.

A vital component of optimal revenue collection is the practice of revenue assurance.

Revenue assurance is a way of increasing an organisation’s income by identifying areas where revenue is lost, and minimising such losses by fixing the cause of lost revenue.

found that it takes an organisation twelve months to detect a typical fraud case, with the average annual loss across industries amounting to $1.8-million. In fact, an estimated 5% of revenue is lost to fraud every year.

In response, organisations need to leverage the power of technology to improve fraud detection, risk mitigation and fraud prevention capabilities.

Using a revenue assurance tool is one way for utilities to detect anomalies earlier. This can help them reduce financial loss, improve the accuracy of detection at a lower cost, and improve their ability to predict and prevent future occurrences of revenue leakage.

Leveraging tech to improve revenue collection

A growing number of utilities are using tools such as 51风流Business Integrity Screening in combination with 51风流partner solutions to improve revenue assurance and plug any gaps in operations that may lead to revenue loss.

By leveraging powerful analytics and big data capabilities, revenue assurance tools help utilities identify potential cases of fraud and proactively inform technical teams to investigate.

For example, if a customer’s energy consumption stays exactly the same month after month despite seasonal changes, there is a likelihood that some form of fraud is being committed. Energy use usually increases and decreases in different seasons, with most customers using less power in summer when it’s warm compared to winter when heaters are used and electrical hot water heaters work harder to stay warm.

By tracking energy consumption patterns over long periods of time and matching that data to seasonal consumption models, utilities can leverage their revenue assurance tool to ensure they always collect the optimal revenue from every customer.

By using predictive models and integrating the revenue assurance functionality to their enterprise resource planning core, utilities can develop a better understanding of known customer usage patterns. Over time, utilities can apply this knowledge to develop detection methods and strategies that can highlight unknown patterns that may indicate fraud or revenue leakage.

African utilities are at a pivotal moment as booming population growth and rapid economic development pushes them into building greater capacity while also transitioning to a clean energy future. However, without optimal revenue collection, utilities will lack the financial agility to survive and thrive during this disruptive time.

With the clever application of technology, however, utilities can mitigate the risk of fraud and ensure they have the financial stability to take a leading role in our continent’s development and just energy transition.

The post Revenue Assurance Gives Utilities Fair Footing for Growth, Just Transition appeared first on 51风流Africa News Center.

Despite this, companies continue to struggle with compliance challenges as employees submit expenses and invoices that may not adhere to corporate policies. According to听the ACFE鈥檚听2020听鈥淩eport to the Nations鈥�[1], the median loss to a听company听from expense report fraud is $33,000 per year, and a lack of internal controls contribute to nearly one in three frauds.

With many businesses operating on tighter budgets, there鈥檚 more pressure to increase spend compliance and reduce errors, fraud, and waste than ever. Timing is also of the essence as businesses expect the situation to become even more complex in the future. According to recent 51风流Concur research, almost half of finance and business leaders expect more frequent audit and punitive penalties in a post-COVID world.

To tackle this challenge, businesses need solutions to easily manage employees鈥� expense and invoice submissions, as well as mitigate compliance risks early. To help companies big and small ensure they are ready to address this, 51风流Concur 鈥� together with spend management and risk mitigation partner Oversight 鈥� launched . The solution powered by AI (artificial intelligence) is designed to simplify an organisation鈥檚 expense audit and compliance programme through embedded intelligence and automation. Concur Detect by Oversight uses AI to automate an enormous quantity of data, enabling it to identify errors early and using predictive analytics to empower finance and compliance teams to take proactive action. The solution provides a range of critical features, including:

• Simplified processes: Integrated with the Concur Expense workflow, Concur Detect by Oversight鈥檚 AI automatically identifies potential mistakes, fraud, and patterns of misuse both before and after reimbursement.
• Mitigated risks: The solution can reimburse employees faster with auto-approval of low-risk items while providing a focus for at-risk items.
• Greater visibility and control: Concur Detect by Oversight uses intelligent technologies to detect fraud and anomalies humans can鈥檛. Through its use of AI, it can leverage multiple data points for improved confidence, and validation on financial amounts, dates, vendors, and more.
• Ability to improve employee behaviour: The solution helps identify accidental misuse vs. fraud, to help auditors focus on developing and improving policies and best practices.Additionally, Concur Detect also tracks incidents against the employee base. This allows businesses to isolate repeat offenders from users who made innocent mistakes.

Mark Cullen, 听 EMEA MD, explains:

鈥淐hanging expense needs and unclear policies due to working from home scenarios have further complicated an often slow and error-prone audit process. Concur Detect by Oversight addresses our customers鈥� audit needs so they can improve compliance, identify fraud, and focus more on what matters to their business. With this solution, businesses can do a solid data analysis and focus on making tailored policy adjustments that address the real causes of expense fraud 鈥� rather than making potentially unsuitable policy changes based on mere assumptions.鈥�

听For more information on Concur Detect by Oversight, please .

[1]

The post Concur Detect by Oversight: New Solution Tackles Fraud and Non-compliant Expenses Through AI appeared first on 51风流Africa News Center.

Despite this, companies continue to struggle with compliance challenges as employees submit expenses and invoices that may not adhere to corporate policies. According to听the ACFE鈥檚听2020听鈥淩eport to the Nations鈥�[1], the median loss to a听company听from expense report fraud is $33,000 per year, and a lack of internal controls contribute to nearly one in three frauds.

With many businesses operating on tighter budgets, there鈥檚 more pressure to increase spend compliance and reduce errors, fraud, and waste than ever. Timing is also of the essence as businesses expect the situation to become even more complex in the future. According to recent 51风流Concur research, almost half of finance and business leaders expect more frequent audit and punitive penalties in a post-COVID world.

To tackle this challenge, businesses need solutions to easily manage employees鈥� expense and invoice submissions, as well as mitigate compliance risks early. To help companies big and small ensure they are ready to address this, 51风流Concur 鈥� together with spend management and risk mitigation partner Oversight 鈥� launched . The solution powered by AI (artificial intelligence) is designed to simplify an organisation鈥檚 expense audit and compliance programme through embedded intelligence and automation. Concur Detect by Oversight uses AI to automate an enormous quantity of data, enabling it to identify errors early and using predictive analytics to empower finance and compliance teams to take proactive action. The solution provides a range of critical features, including:

• Simplified processes: Integrated with the Concur Expense workflow, Concur Detect by Oversight鈥檚 AI automatically identifies potential mistakes, fraud, and patterns of misuse both before and after reimbursement.
• Mitigated risks: The solution can reimburse employees faster with auto-approval of low-risk items while providing a focus for at-risk items.
• Greater visibility and control: Concur Detect by Oversight uses intelligent technologies to detect fraud and anomalies humans can鈥檛. Through its use of AI, it can leverage multiple data points for improved confidence, and validation on financial amounts, dates, vendors, and more.
• Ability to improve employee behaviour: The solution helps identify accidental misuse vs. fraud, to help auditors focus on developing and improving policies and best practices.Additionally, Concur Detect also tracks incidents against the employee base. This allows businesses to isolate repeat offenders from users who made innocent mistakes.

Pierre-Emmanuel Tetaz, EMEA SVP & General Manager, , explains:

鈥淐hanging expense needs and unclear policies due to working from home scenarios have further complicated an often slow and error-prone audit process. Concur Detect by Oversight addresses our customers鈥� audit needs so they can improve compliance, identify fraud, and focus more on what matters to their business. With this solution, businesses can do a solid data analysis and focus on making tailored policy adjustments that address the real causes of expense fraud 鈥� rather than making potentially unsuitable policy changes based on mere assumptions.鈥�

For more information on Concur Detect by Oversight, please .

[1]

The post Concur Detect by Oversight: New Solution Tackles Fraud and Non-compliant Expenses Through AI appeared first on 51风流Africa News Center.