Rethinking AP Fraud Prevention: Key Takeaways from the MSDW Webinar

NOTE: This article is sponsored by Yooz.

Fraud activity has grown steadily to become a top threat facing AP teams, and data from recent research tells the story. Eight in ten organizations say they’ve been targeted in recent years, a figure that continues to climb even as check usage declines. The schemes are changing faster than most finance teams can track and attackers are getting bolder.

That was the theme for a recent MSDW webinar featuring Mark Brousseau of Brousseau & Associates, Pam Cichoke, Head of YoozPay Sales, and John Gronen, CFO at Yooz. They demonstrated how the fraud landscape has shifted and warned that many AP departments are still operating as if it hasn’t.

The New Fraud Reality: Faster, Smarter, More Organized

One of the most striking moments in the session came when Cichoke referenced reports of a 500‑person fraud ring operating overseas, complete with its own HR department. It sounds exaggerated until you look at the volume and sophistication of today’s attacks. According to recent research, eight in ten organizations say they’ve been victimized by actual or attempted fraud, and the schemes are only becoming more brazen.

Fraudsters now:

• Study approval patterns
• Target AP teams during peak workloads
• Impersonate suppliers with increased accuracy
• Use AI tools to mimic voices or even appear convincingly on video

Brousseau noted that many of these schemes unfold “inside approved workflows,” which is precisely why they’re so difficult to spot. They don’t rely on AP teams being stretched thin rather than any type of covert entry.

Gronen added that part of the problem is structural. “We tend to see a mix of systems,” he said. While AP transactions may run through an ERP, the decisions behind them — the approvals, clarifications, and back‑and‑forth often happen over email.

That fragmentation creates risk. “You’re segregating workspaces, which means you’re asking for inefficiencies and possible problems ultimately,” Cichoke said. “When you’ve got multiple systems of record and multiple systems in general, you tend to be asking for risk and for issues moving forward.”

Email Remains the Weakest Point in the Process

Despite years of digital transformation, email still plays an outsized role in AP decision‑making. In many organizations, the ERP handles the transaction, but the real approvals, the conversations that determine whether an invoice gets paid, happen in inboxes.

Email offers no audit trail, no encryption, and no reliable way to prevent sensitive information from being forwarded or altered. Gronen pointed out that AP teams often juggle multiple systems: ERP, email, spreadsheets, shared drives. Each handoff introduces delays and risks.

Only nine percent of AP departments operate in a fully automated, end‑to‑end environment. The rest rely on a patchwork of tools that fraudsters know how to exploit.

Automation as Defense

Gronen emphasized that automation gives AP teams something manual workflows rarely allow: the space to pause and evaluate what’s in front of them. As he put it, “By automating, you’re giving your employees the time to stop and think about whether this is a legitimate invoice. Is it potentially fraud?” 

Automation also brings a level of consistency that’s difficult to achieve when approvals happen across scattered systems. AI can surface issues long before a human reviewer would notice by flagging patterns such as:

• Unusual invoice volume (e.g., one invoice becomes 22 overnight)
• Changes to bank account details
• Amounts that don’t align with historical behavior
• Vendors submitting invoices outside their normal cadence

Gronen noted that AI can move through data with a speed and accuracy “humans could never match,” making it possible to catch subtle discrepancies that would otherwise slip through.

When paired with built‑in controls, bank account validation, policy‑driven workflows, enforced segregation of duties, and real‑time anomaly detection, automation strengthens the guardrails against AP-focused fraud.

In short, automation doesn’t just make AP faster. It makes it safer by giving teams the visibility, structure, and breathing room they need to stay ahead of increasingly sophisticated fraud attempts.

The Bottom Line

Fraud is accelerating. Attackers are more organized, more technologically capable, and more willing to exploit the smallest gaps in AP workflows. Email‑driven processes and fragmented systems leave too much room for error, and fraudsters know exactly where those weaknesses are.

Automation and AI give AP teams the structure, visibility, and speed they need to stay ahead of increasingly complex threats.