$3.6 million is not one big leak.
It's six small ones nobody
has time to check.
A $120 million company loses about 3% of what it pays out. Not to fraud, and not in one place — across six ordinary failures that each look too small to chase on the day they happen.
Where the 3% goes
Each row is a check that runs on every invoice, not a sample. The percentages are of total outflow.
| What leaks | Why it happens | % of outflow | On $120M | Caught by |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rate above contractThe contract says one number, the invoice says another. Nobody opens the contract for a $40,000 bill.Pricing Agent | The contract says one number, the invoice says another. Nobody opens the contract for a $40,000 bill. | 1.00% | $1.20M | Pricing Agent |
| Duplicate billThe same invoice arrives twice — once on the portal, once by email — and clears both times.Duplicate Agent | The same invoice arrives twice — once on the portal, once by email — and clears both times. | 0.65% | $0.78M | Duplicate Agent |
| Quantity billed over goods receivedThe invoice bills 82 MT, the gate received 78. The GRN is in another system.3-way match Agent | The invoice bills 82 MT, the gate received 78. The GRN is in another system. | 0.45% | $0.54M | 3-way match Agent |
| Early-payment discount not taken2% for paying in ten days, sitting unclaimed because the approval took twelve.Discount Agent | 2% for paying in ten days, sitting unclaimed because the approval took twelve. | 0.35% | $0.42M | Discount Agent |
| Input tax credit not recoveredThe vendor never filed, so the credit was never claimable — discovered at the annual return.GST Agent | The vendor never filed, so the credit was never claimable — discovered at the annual return. | 0.30% | $0.36M | GST Agent |
| TDS deducted at the wrong rateWrong section, or the threshold crossed mid-year and nobody re-rated the vendor.TDS Agent | Wrong section, or the threshold crossed mid-year and nobody re-rated the vendor. | 0.25% | $0.30M | TDS Agent |
| Total | 3.00% | $3.60M |
This is a model, built from the six checks and what they typically recover — not a report of one company's results. It is here so the $3.6 million figure can be argued with rather than taken on faith.
The savings check replaces every number on this page with your own. Ninety days of your highest-spend vendor invoices, run through the same six checks, with the invoice attached to each finding.
What one line looks like
The reason these leaks survive is that no single instance is worth the argument. Here is one line from one invoice.
$105 billed against $100 agreed, on 12,000 units.$60,000 on one line of one invoice. A 5% variance that no approver would notice and no auditor would sample. The same vendor bills 40 times a year.
- It is not an error anyone made. The rate moved when the contract was renewed and the master was never updated.
- It is not detectable at approval. The approver sees a total, not a rate against a contract they have never read.
- It is not detectable at audit. Sampling 5% of invoices finds it in one year out of twenty.
- It is trivially detectable at entry — if something opens the contract every single time, which is the only thing the Pricing Agent does.
Why it adds up instead of cancelling out
These six do not offset each other. A duplicate payment is not recovered by a discount taken; an overcharge is not netted against a tax credit. They are six independent one-way leaks, which is why a small percentage on each becomes a large number together.
It is also why the answer is a team rather than a tool. Each check is individually simple. What is hard is running all six on every transaction, every day, without adding people.
A sample finds the average
Audit samples are designed to estimate a rate of error. They are not designed to recover the specific rupees, and they cannot, because by the time they run the money has gone.
Every transaction finds the money
Checking all of them costs nothing extra once it is an agent doing it, and it catches the item while it can still be stopped rather than after it has cleared.
Before, not after
Five of these six are recoverable only before payment. Once money has left, an overcharge becomes a negotiation and a duplicate becomes a favour.
Your number
Same 3%, applied to what you actually pay out in a year.
At 3% of outflow. Your real number depends on how much of your spend is contracted, how many vendors are MSME-registered, and how your GST credits are running — which is what the savings check measures.
Find out what your own 90 days holds.
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