As part of a project counter fraud planning

a greater focus should be placed on detection and data analysis?

Let me give you an example.

An organisation identified during an audit of payments to suppliers 

that there was a high percentage of over invoicing.

Such an audit allows for financial recovery under the contract, however,

should greater consistency in data analysis and financial recovery be introduced?

and how would this add to fraud prevention figures.

There are many opportunities and data points to analyse fraud and corruption risk.

Start by using a couple of data points in each area before expanding your analysis.

Vendor onboarding

Data matching of any supplier relationship with 

• current suppliers executives and shareholders and staff to look for matches
• executives and shareholders against other supplier data.

Any match may give you an indication of conflicts of interest, corruption or supplier collusion.

Procurement route

Verifying the level of single source procurement──including procurement 

• above a financial threshold, or 
• just below the tender threshold 
• to the same supplier;

Consider tender risk areas including bidding patterns such as 

• the number of responses or 
• the same contractors on the same/similar types of bids
• comparison of bid submission for data matches to assess for collusion.

Contract management

Common threats within contract management includes false or inflated invoicing for 

• quality, quantities, time and resources.

Onsite surveillance and analysis of contractor 

• numbers, timesheets and specifications will give you an indicator of the levels of fraud.

Accounts payable

Invoice receipt──in addition to verifying completion of requirement, compare

• contract rates with rates invoiced and hours worked.

Asset management

To identify irregularity or losses──are you able to match 

• a requisition, purchase order and invoice with 
• goods receipt and registration on an asset register.

Are there patterns of loss including 

• volume and type of goods, 
• use of single source procurement route 
• against losses to assess for insider collusion.

People and resources

Some of the simplest fraud to commit onsite includes 

• the use of scarce resources such as project managers 
• on different projects that may facilitate
•  false invoicing for numbers of staff, hours worked and 
• billing against more than one contract

Onsite visits to verify numbers and hours are essential.

Quality and quantities

If there is a quality concern or concern of overstated materials, 

• a contractor audit and analysis should be made 
• between contractor materials purchased against the contract specification and materials invoiced.

Any analysis, if necessary can be followed up by a bigger audit to identify the level of loss.

The simplest and most efficient way, in many cases, is the recovery of monies within a contract.

Be suspicious when looking at the data and expect to find irregularity.