Trustmi Finds $5 Billion in Payment Errors
Research analyzing $240 billion in enterprise payments found that one dollar in every $48 involved an error caught before funds were released.
Updated on Nov. 6, 2026 in Financial Crime
Payment-integrity firm Trustmi published research showing that $1 in every $48 of enterprise payment value involved a prevented error, equating to $5 billion detected before funds left company accounts. The analysis covered $240 billion in payments over one year.
Why it matters
Many finance systems validate transactions only within their own records and lack access to broader payment history across multiple systems, leaving duplicate and mismatched payments harder to catch. The findings point to a recurring blind spot in corporate accounts-payable controls.
The findings rest on Trustmi's analysis of $240 billion in payments over one year and a single ERP review at a global enterprise with 20 business entities in 15 countries. The sample's representativeness across the wider market has not been established.
The players
Trustmi
Trustmi is a New York City-headquartered payment-integrity firm that analyzes enterprise payment data to detect duplicate and erroneous transactions before funds are released.
The details
Duplicate invoices and duplicate payments accounted for about half of the affected payment value, while data-entry mistakes and currency mismatches each accounted for 20%. In 61% of cases where an invoice was paid twice, the invoice numbers were not identical, and 58% of duplicates were entered into the ERP system within a week of the original.
Timeline
• Analysis period: one year of enterprise payments reviewed by Trustmi.
• December and January: duplicate payments peaked in these months.
• July: another rise in duplicate payments occurred.
• 2021: Trustmi was founded.
• November 6, 2026: Trustmi's research on payment errors was published.
Market Dynamics
Trustmi's $240 billion analysis provides a quantified baseline for enterprise payment-error value, showing that duplicate and mismatched payments represent a measurable share of outgoing funds. The findings suggest accounts-payable controls that rely only on in-system validation leave a documented gap.
Businesses that rely on purchase-order-matched invoicing should note that eight in 10 duplicates paid twice had passed through that standard process. Finance teams may need to review cross-system payment history to catch duplicates that single-system checks miss.
The takeaway
Reviewing payment history across all systems, not just within one ledger, is a practical step finance teams can take to catch duplicate invoices before funds are released.
Further reading
Explore more on Financial Crime to see how duplicate payments and invoice fraud are tracked across the industry.
Source note: This article includes information reported by CFOtech US.
