Accounts Payable (AP)

What does accounts payable involve?

Accounts payable is the function that receives supplier invoices, matches them to purchase orders and deliveries, gets them approved, and releases payment. It owns the vendor master file, schedules pay runs, and reconciles what was paid against the bank. Because AP sits at the exact point where a business’s money leaves for external accounts, it is both essential and a prime target for fraud.

A concrete example: an AP clerk receives an invoice that looks like it came from a known supplier, with updated bank details in the footer. Under time pressure at month end, the clerk approves it and the payment goes out. If nobody verified the account owner, the funds land with a scammer rather than the supplier.

Why it matters for Australian finance teams

AP is where invoice fraud, bank detail change scams, and duplicate payments concentrate. The ACCC’s Scamwatch consistently reports tens of millions of dollars a year in Australian business losses to payment redirection and business email compromise, most of it flowing through ordinary AP processes. Manual checks like calling a supplier are easy to spoof and easy to skip when volumes are high, so AP teams need verification built into the payment step.

How ezyshield helps

ezyshield adds a verification checkpoint to the AP workflow: it confirms the person, the business via ABN and ASIC records, and ownership of the bank account before a payment is authorised, and re-verifies whenever bank details change. Every check is written to an append-only audit trail that is logged and never edited or deleted, giving AP evidence for audits and disputes. See how it works and our guide to accounts payable fraud prevention.