Procurement & finance
Duplicate Vendor Record
The same supplier existing more than once in the vendor master — under a slightly different name, a typo, a changed trading style. It is the single most common cause of duplicate payment, and it is entirely mundane.
Nobody creates a duplicate vendor maliciously. A supplier is set up as "Al Noor Trading LLC" and again as "Al-Noor Trading L.L.C.", and now the same invoice can be paid twice without any control noticing, because to the system these are two different companies.
It also breaks spend analysis: your largest supplier looks like two medium ones, and the volume discount you were entitled to was never negotiated because nobody knew you had earned it.