A payment run moves more money in one approval than most teams move in a week, so the controls around it matter more than any single payment. Auditors ask about them first, and fraud attempts aim at the gaps between them.
We looked at how the finance teams on Ampersand set up their runs. The teams with the fewest recalled payments share the same five controls, and all five run quietly in the background of a normal payment day.
1. Split Building From Approving
The person who imports the bills should never be the person who releases them. Dual approval makes that split visible, and a rule that blocks self-approval keeps it in place on a busy Friday afternoon.
2. Check Every Payee First
Most payment fraud starts with a changed bank detail in an email that looks routine. Compare each payee with your vendor master on import, and send anything added or changed in the last 30 days for a second look.
3. Set Limits by Entity and Amount
One approval chain for every payment either holds up small runs or waves large ones through. Tie the chain to the entity, the amount and whether the payee is new, so a $500 refund and a $500,000 supplier payment each reach the right people.
“A rule nobody can skip does more than any policy document.”
Priya Raman, Head of Treasury Solutions
4. Keep the Trail With the Payment
An approval that lives in an email thread is hard to find and easy to dispute. Record who approved, when and under which rule on the payment itself, so the audit trail travels with it to the bank and back.
5. Reconcile the Same Day
A payment is finished once it matches a line on the bank statement. Matching the same day brings a failed or returned payment to your team within hours, while the supplier still remembers the invoice.
Checklist
- Dual approval, with self-approval blocked
- Payee checks on every import
- Approval limits by entity, amount and payee
- Approvals recorded on the payment
- Bank lines matched the same day
Ampersand runs all five controls by default, and each one follows your own delegation of authority. Our treasury team can walk you through them on your own payment files.
