Costly accounting errors at the airlines

For accounts payable teams, the airline industry is one of the most complex—a consequence of the large transaction volumes and highly international operations of most airline companies.

Domestic and international flights, airport charges, ground handling from a multitude of suppliers, and an ever-changing taxation landscape create unfortunate room for deviations and errors. Even with world-class processes in place.

Value-added taxes are without a doubt the most common pitfall. With thousands of transactions, often from all over the world, the risk of capital loss is extensive if VAT isn’t managed properly. 

From the experience of financial data-ming and recovery audit projects for some of Europe’s largest airlines, Qvalia has developed a framework to identify and recover capital in the most complex A/P environments.

Here are the most common risk areas: 

  • VAT
  • Double payments 
  • Overpayments
  • Statement of accounts

Financial data-mining to recover assets

Legacy systems and processes have a hard time detecting complex accounting errors and mismanaged VAT.

In a recently published report, we analyzed 17 million account postings from over 100 companies across industries in both the public and private sectors. The result showed that half of the account posting costs get lost due to mismanaged VAT alone, which is only the tip of the iceberg. 

Interested in learning more about how financial data-mining and recovery audit can improve your bottom line? Contact us.