By: Lee Jacobs, Head of Product for SquareWorks Automate
Payment fraud won’t slow down in 2025 but there are more tools to help. Here’s how to automate payments, implement check printing controls, and safely onboard new vendors to reduce your risk.
The Association for Financial Professionals (AFP) Payments Fraud and Control Survey found that 80% of organizations fell victim to an attempted or actual payment fraud attack in 2023, an increase of 15% from 2022. A report from Creditsafe found that the number of organizations that said they had been hit with up to six fraud cases in the first three quarters of 2024 was the same number as was reported in all of 2023. More than half of companies lost more than 30% of their total revenue.
With fraudsters becoming increasingly sophisticated, businesses need effective tools to stay ahead. Fortunately, Lee Jacobs—a seasoned fintech leader, expert in end-to-end AP automation, and Head of Product for SquareWorks Automate—has shared key strategies to protect your business.
Common attack types
Payment fraud most often stems from criminals posing as suppliers seeking to direct payment of real invoices to fraudulent bank accounts. Suppliers can also send duplicate or inflated invoices by mistake or intentionally, and employees can set up fraudulent billing schemes for their own bank accounts.
According to the AFP survey, fraudsters primarily target:
- Checks (65%)
- ACH debits (33%)
- Wire transfers (24%)
- Corporate/commercial credit cards (20%
- ACH credits (19%)
3 ways to mitigate risk with AP automation
The best way to scale fraud protection is with technology – making it a primary reason more AP teams will expand their automation in 2025. According to the IOFM 2024 benchmarking AP performance report, 60% of finance professionals report automating AP to increase controls and reduce risk. Here are three ways you can get started.
- Advanced vendor onboarding
An automated vendor onboarding process will help reduce the chances criminals posing as vendors can direct payment to their fraudulent accounts. Advanced vendor onboarding allows the AP team to request information directly from a vendor with the click of a button. Vendors receive a secure link, and responses are automatically visible and kept secure in NetSuite. This eliminates the need for manual processes and spreadsheets, eliminating the likelihood for successful business email compromise attacks – a tactic that resulted in over $12.5 billion in losses in 2023, according to the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center.
- Payment automation
Automated payments within NetSuite allows AP teams to bulk invite vendors and employees to be paid through ACH or printed checks. The process includes added controls to review and approve payments before they are released and secures all data with industry-leading security practices.
- Advanced check printing
Two-thirds of finance professionals responding to the AFP Payments Fraud and Control Survey reported that check payments were subject to fraud attempts/attacks in 2023. As organizations continue to rely on checks, susceptibility only grows.
Automating the check printing process will increase controls and reduce risk. It will allow you to eliminate pre-printed stock that contains live bank information, configure your check templates to easily adjust to your bank’s requirements, securely store and encrypt digital signatures, and implement advanced security features such as secure fonts and One-Click Print.
AP teams are painfully aware of payment fraud risk, and staffers work hard to ensure safe, secure payments. Ongoing cybersecurity awareness training is important. But the valiant effort of one in a sea of savvy, persistent criminals can feel futile. The best way to scale fraud protection is with technology – making it a primary reason more teams will expand their automation in 2025.
Learn more about how SquareWorks Consulting can help automate your AP and protect your organization from fraudsters with the financial automation platform, Automate. The NetSuite-native platform allows AP teams to manage vendor relationships, streamline invoice processing, approve dynamic workflows, securely send payments, and automate expense accruals for lower risk.
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