XBert Type: Standard
Accounting Software: Xero, MYOB, QuickBooks Online
Country Restriction: All supported countries
Risk Type: Data Quality Risk
Business Function: Purchases
Overview
The "Duplicate bill raised" XBert finds bills that look like the same bill entered more than once for a supplier. Catching these early helps you avoid paying the same bill twice, overstating your expenses, and reporting figures that are wrong.
What it does
This XBert reviews your open supplier bills and compares them against each other to spot likely duplicates. It looks for two or more bills for the same supplier that share the same key details:
Supplier
Reference (the supplier's invoice number, or the bill reference if there is no invoice number)
Amount
Currency
Bill date and due date
It only looks at bills dated within the last 12 months, and it ignores any bill that has already been fully cancelled out by a credit note, as well as expense claims.
How it works
XBert groups your bills by supplier, reference, amount and currency, then checks whether the same combination appears more than once. It raises an alert in three situations:
Exact match — the supplier, reference, amount, bill date and due date all match.
Due dates differ — the supplier, reference and amount match, but the bills have different due dates.
Bill dates differ — the supplier, reference and amount match, but the bills have different bill dates.
The alert only fires when at least one of the matching bills is still open — that is, in a Draft, Submitted (awaiting approval) or Authorised (approved, awaiting payment) status. A paid bill can be brought into the comparison so an open bill can be matched against one you have already paid, but XBert will not raise this alert for a set of bills that have all been paid. Bills with a zero amount are ignored.
Example/Use Case
Priya, a bookkeeper, returns from two weeks of leave and starts working through a backlog of supplier bills. While she was away, the office manager had already entered a $1,450 bill from "BrightSpark Training" for a staff workshop, but left it in Draft and forgot to mention it. Priya, not knowing it was already there, enters a second bill for the same $1,450 workshop with the same invoice number. XBert spots that two open bills for BrightSpark Training share the same reference, amount and due date, and raises the "Duplicate bill raised" alert. Priya reviews both bills, confirms they are the same invoice, and deletes the second one — avoiding a $1,450 duplicate payment that the supplier may never have refunded.
Accounting software
This XBert runs on the major supported accounting platforms, including Xero, MYOB and QuickBooks Online.
Which countries it supports
All supported countries.
Processes
This alert falls under the Purchases (Accounts Payable) area and helps prevent duplicate bills and double payments. To resolve it:
Open each of the flagged bills for the supplier and compare them side by side.
Confirm whether the bill really was entered more than once, or whether the matching bills are genuinely separate charges (for example a legitimate recurring or repeat charge that happens to share the same amount and reference).
If it is a duplicate, delete or void the bill you do not need so it cannot be paid.
Check that no payment has been made against either copy. If a payment has already gone out, arrange a correction or a refund with the supplier.
If the bills are not duplicates and are expected to recur, you can dismiss the alert so it does not flag the same pattern again.
Once the bills are corrected, mark the XBert as resolved.