The London Borough of Bexley has successfully foiled a number of fraud attempts, thanks in part to innovative technology from Tungsten. The local authority processes its invoices using an electronic invoicing platform provided by Tungsten Network, which means fraudulent invoices that might otherwise be paid out on are rejected.

Bel Temel, payments manager at the local authority:
“Bexley has experienced a number of cases of attempted fraud where people use existing clients’ templates to submit bogus invoices. It can look very professional, and it’s only when you go into the detail do you realise it’s a fraudulent invoice. Tungsten has taken care of a lot of that side for us, and has helped prevent significant amounts of money from erroneously going out the door.

“Tungsten helps as by using their service we don’t receive paper invoices any more, and all invoices submitted through their technology is secure.”

Richard Hurwitz, Tungsten’s CEO, said that fraud prevention was a hot topic for many businesses and local authorities:
“Sadly fraudsters put a huge amount of time and effort into producing invoices that look completely genuine. Picking up on fraudulent invoices can be difficult with the human eye, but Tungsten’s technology makes it easy.”

Bexley was an early adopter of e-invoicing, becoming one of the first organisations to sign up to Tungsten, then called OB10, in 2006. Forward-thinking London Borough of Bexley was one of the first Local Authorities in the UK to commit to electronic invoicing back in 2006.

Since then, many other councils have followed its lead, recognising the benefits of paperless invoices and straight-through processing. Bexley, meanwhile, has continued to develop and expand its offering to suppliers. It now saves an estimated £96,000 a year by using Tungsten to process 20,000 invoices electronically.