Before choosing which supplier to pay, remove duplicate charges
When there is not enough cash for every supplier, first check whether the payable list includes the same invoice twice. Keep genuine obligations and corrections clear.
Corporate Recovery Partners
01 / 06
The same charge enters through two doors
The bank balance will not cover the supplier payment run. Before deciding what to propose, you notice the same materials charge entered from both a supervisor’s email and the supplier statement. The list may overstate what is actually owed.
Check the underlying charges before making repayment promises. This is a reconciliation task, not a rule about which creditor to prefer. A duplicate can distort the cash gap, while two similar legitimate invoices must remain in the position you assess.
Match the supplier, invoice number, date, amount and purchase reference. Watch for spaces, prefixes or punctuation added during manual entry. Two numbers that look different may still refer to the same original invoice.
Equally, do not assume every repeated amount is a duplicate. Recurring hire charges can legitimately have the same value across different periods.
Look for a bank transaction and its allocation before approving the charge again. A mark saying “paid” in an email is not enough if no one knows which transaction it refers to.
If the amount was included in a combined payment, find the remittance breakdown. Do not create a second payment while the first remains unresolved.
ASIC explains that company financial records include invoices and receipts and must explain the company’s transactions. Ask your bookkeeper to correct the duplicate entry while retaining the evidence of what happened, rather than silently removing the history.
If the statement still shows a charge you have paid, send the invoice reference and payment details through a trusted channel. Ask for a corrected statement or an explanation of the allocation.
Keep disputed charges identifiable. Do not reduce a different, undisputed invoice merely to make the total match without checking the basis for doing so.
Give one person responsibility for invoice entry and another appropriate person responsibility for approval where practical. Use a consistent reference rule and mark statements as reconciliation documents.
If repeated errors are hiding the true amount owed to suppliers, reconcile the accounts before making promises about repayment. CRP can discuss creditor pressure using that corrected picture.
