Supplier Fraud & Verification
Case studies, risk patterns, and practical guides for Australian accountants and procurement teams.
Make Your Next Audit Boring
The best compliment an audit can pay your supplier process is silence. That silence is bought in advance — at onboarding — not reconstructed under pressure at year-end.
Active ABN Is the Floor, Not the Ceiling
An active ABN feels like a green light. It isn't. It's a turnstile — easy to pass, and not proof of much. Here's what actually separates a real supplier from a convincing front.
The Three-Second Check That Prevents a Five-Figure Mistake
Most invoice fraud isn't a heist. It's a typo you were meant to trust. Three habits defuse most of it — and the third one is the whole game.
Case Study: How a National Retailer Caught a Ghost Supplier Scheme
A major Australian specialty retailer discovered a network of fictitious suppliers after running Gumshoe verification on their accounts payable backlog. Here is what the checks found — and what human review alone had missed for three years.
The Hidden Cost of Supplier Fraud in Australia
Australian businesses lose an estimated $3.1 billion annually to payment fraud. Most of it starts with a supplier that was never properly verified. Here is what the numbers actually look like — and where the exposure sits.
Beyond the ABN: Why a Valid ABN Is Not Enough
A valid, active ABN is the minimum threshold for supplier legitimacy — not the maximum. Here is why accountants who stop at the ABN check are leaving serious risk on the table.
8 Red Flags Your Accounts Payable Team Is Missing Every Day
Most AP fraud succeeds not because it is clever, but because it exploits gaps in manual verification processes that nobody has had time to fix. These eight signals are the ones most commonly overlooked.
How Business Email Compromise Works — And How to Stop It
Business email compromise is the most financially damaging form of cybercrime targeting Australian businesses. Understanding exactly how it works is the first step to building effective defences.
The ASIC Deregistration Trap: When Your Supplier Does Not Exist Anymore
ASIC deregisters hundreds of companies every month. An ABN can remain active after a company is deregistered. Paying an invoice from a deregistered company creates legal exposure most businesses do not know about.
Domain Age in Supplier Verification: The 180-Day Rule
Domain age is one of the most powerful and least-used signals in supplier fraud detection. A domain registered in the last six months warrants immediate heightened scrutiny. Here is why — and how to check it.
DMARC, SPF, and Why Your Supplier's Email Domain Matters More Than You Think
Email authentication records are free to check, publicly available, and almost never examined in supplier verification. They are also among the clearest indicators of whether a supplier's domain can be impersonated.
A Risk-Based Supplier Onboarding Framework for Australian Accountants
Not every new supplier presents the same risk. A risk-tiered onboarding framework lets your team apply the right level of scrutiny to each relationship without creating unnecessary friction for legitimate vendors.
From 40 Minutes to 60 Seconds: The ROI of Automated Supplier Verification
The business case for automated supplier verification is not about technology — it is about time. Here is what the numbers look like when you calculate the true cost of manual verification at volume.
Building an Audit Trail: Why Timestamped Supplier Verification Reports Matter
When fraud happens despite your best efforts, what saves your business is evidence that reasonable due diligence was performed. A timestamped verification report is that evidence.
Case Study: How an Accounting Firm Scaled Supplier Risk Reviews Across 80 Clients
A mid-sized Australian accounting practice was spending 40+ hours per month manually checking suppliers for their advisory clients. Gumshoe reduced that to under 4 hours — while improving the depth of every review.
Case Study: The $340k Subcontractor Fraud a Small Builder Almost Missed
A family-owned construction business with 12 staff discovered a subcontractor had been invoicing for work that was never performed. A single Gumshoe report during onboarding would have flagged three critical warning signs on day one.
Case Study: Inside a Property Manager's Maintenance Billing Fraud
A property management group discovered one of their own managers had been routing fake maintenance invoices through family-registered businesses for over two years. The scheme was sophisticated, hidden inside legitimate rent statements, and nearly impossible to detect without automated supplier verification.