The Department for Business and Trade (DBT) has recorded more than £13 million in duplicate invoices over the past three years, new data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act reveals. While none of the duplicate invoices were paid, the findings highlight the complexity of financial processing across large public organisations.
Analysis by the Parliament Street think tank showed that between November 2023 and October 2024, DBT experienced its highest level of duplication, processing 133 invoices worth £6.7 million. In the following 12 months, the figure stood at 130 duplicate invoices with a total value of £4.9 million.
Duplicate invoicing — often caused by human error, fragmented systems, or incomplete reconciliation processes — remains a persistent challenge for public departments managing thousands of transactions each month. Although such errors are routinely caught before payment, they absorb time and resources in validation and audit, and can distort financial reporting.
Sachin Agrawal, Managing Director of Zoho UK, said that while digital initiatives are beginning to address these weaknesses, the task is far from complete. “Duplicated invoices and financial inconsistencies can creep up unnoticed with large volumes of financial transactions each month, especially in siloed systems. Digital transformation initiatives such as Making Tax Digital are an important step towards reducing errors through automation and better data visibility. But to truly prevent these kinds of inefficiencies, there needs to be consistent investment in digital infrastructure and tighter integration between systems across departments,” he said.
According to Agrawal, the issue extends beyond the technology itself. “These issues can come down to volume, visibility and limitations as a result of legacy systems,” he added. “Preventing mistakes means building smarter, connected tools that can pick up anomalies and support transparent financial management. In the public sector, where spending scrutiny is high and trust is vital, transparency is essential.”
The findings arrive as public sector bodies continue to modernise their financial and procurement systems under the UK government’s wider Transforming Public Procurement strategy. The initiative aims to consolidate reporting and supplier management, but many departments still rely on overlapping data frameworks inherited from legacy ERP platforms.
For departments such as DBT — whose remit covers trade, business, and international investment — the administrative burden is significant. Handling global contracts, supplier relationships, and cross-departmental cost centres increases the risk of duplication and misreporting. While improved audit trails and digitised workflows are helping, the transition remains uneven.
The £13 million in duplicate invoices reported by DBT underscores the scale of manual oversight still required in government finance. As public scrutiny intensifies and budgets tighten, eliminating inefficiency through joined-up systems may prove as important to public trust as it is to fiscal accuracy.
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