Interview provided by Patrick Gahagan | Director, Contract Compliance Audit Services
Published by Spend Matters on April 12, 2022
Summary
As technology increasingly plays a critical role in the automation of business processes, various constraints—even with human involvement—can give way to errors and mistakes when it comes to contracts, payments, and third-party relationships. Misalignment at its core typically occurs between procurement, functional business units, and suppliers. This can weaken business performance or contribute to third-party risk. Without the proper personnel alignment, governance, and controls in place to detect these issues, even a fraction of a percent of profit lost to overspend, inefficient or manual processes, lack of value for money, or fraud can amount to millions of dollars.
To better understand the expectation gap that technology and automation cannot always fill, Spend Matters— the leading source for data-driven technology and solutions intelligence in the procurement and supply chain landscape—sat down with Patrick Gahagan, CPA, CIA, CFE and Director of SC&H’s Contract Compliance Audit Services team. Read the full interview now to learn:
- Why increased technology does not ensure contract compliance
- The shortfalls and risks that even the most advanced technologies encounter
- An example of the importance of validating agreed upon costs
- How third-party auditors can ensure supplier contract accuracy and transparency
- The importance of effective alignment between procurement, business units, and suppliers to foster successful strategy implementation
- How third-party auditors should be using technology to meet client requirements
Technology does not replace an auditor’s intuition and judgment, but it allows audit procedures to be performed at scale and thus reach more precise conclusions than was previously possible in the age of paper and calculators. The best auditors are adept at leveraging technology to perform validation quickly and comprehensively. This is why many organizations are turning to an external audit partner to help with compliance, risk mitigation, and risk corrections before mistakes can happen at scale.
About Spend Matters
Spend Matters started as the first blog and social media site in the procurement and supply chain sector and has since grown into the leading source for data-backed technology and solutions intelligence. Serving private and public sector organizations, consultants, private equity, and services and solution providers, Spend Matters drives strategic technology, purchasing decisions, superior marketing, product, sales, and investment outcomes for clients. Spend Matters is the only tech-enabled, proprietary data platform with exclusive IP that serves the global procurement, finance, and supply chain technology ecosystem. To learn more, visit spendmatters.com.
