Based on records of $3.25 trillion in spend and more than 400 million invoices from a cross-section of the world’s largest companies, apexanalytix’s 2026 Global Overpayment Report reveals where overpayments originate, why they persist in mature AP operations, and where leaders should look first to recover value.
“AP leaders are responsible for making payments accurately and efficiently, but many overpayments begin in operational handoffs they do not fully own,” says Phil Beane, president, global transaction compliance solutions at apexanalytix. “This report gives leaders a practical way to see where that exposure originates, which common issues deserve attention, and how recovery findings can inform stronger prevention. For AP and financial shared services teams, the value is benchmarking their potential process gaps against peers, knowing where to look and how to recover cash for the business.”
Key takeaways:
● The top causes of overpayment include duplicate payments for the same goods or services, accounting for 18% of lost profit; payments for cancelled invoices, contracts or services, accounting for 14% of lost profit; and pricing discrepancies, accounting for 13% of lost profit.
● While AP teams are left to process the transactions, most of the leading causes of overpayments originate elsewhere in the business.
● Cancelled services, pricing changes, returned goods, unclaimed rebates, supplier-record issues, fragmented approvals, and low visibility can all create exposure before an invoice reaches AP or after payment has already left the business.
● Mature controls do not eliminate overpayment risk. Large AP environments typically include multiple ERPs, supplier records, invoice channels, approval paths, and geographies. Existing controls can catch many errors, but they are not always designed to identify losses that emerge across systems, supplier accounts, contracts, and business units that rarely self-correct.
