Spotting conflicts of interest and bribery in purchasing

How a forensic accountant or auditor spots procurement corruption, such as conflicts of interest and bribery, in a client's purchasing records.

By Achekam · 11 October 2026 · 4 min read · For Accountants & audit firms in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya

Corruption in purchasing rarely looks like theft in the books. The goods arrive, the invoices are real, the payments match. What is wrong is the decision behind them: why this supplier, at this price, without competition, approved by this person.

That is why procurement corruption is hard to see from the ledger and easier to see from the buying records around it. For a forensic accountant brought in on a suspicion, or an auditor alert to the risk, the evidence sits in requisitions, quotations, supplier set-up forms and the patterns between them.

The schemes ACCA describes

ACCA's article on forensic accounting groups the frauds a forensic accountant may investigate into three categories: corruption, asset misappropriation and financial statement fraud. Within corruption, it identifies three types: conflicts of interest, bribery and extortion. ACCA describes bribery as offering money or something else of value to influence a situation, and extortion as demanding money to secure a particular outcome.

In purchasing, these show up as:

• Conflicts of interest: an employee with influence over buying has an undisclosed link to a supplier, through ownership, family or a side arrangement.
• Bribery: a supplier pays or rewards the person who chooses it, and recovers the cost through higher prices, short deliveries or inflated quantities.
• Extortion: someone controlling orders or payments demands money from suppliers to win or keep the business, or to be paid on time.

Corruption, misappropriation and false reporting sets corruption beside the other two categories.

Where corruption leaves traces

Because the money changing hands is usually outside the client's books, look at the purchasing process for patterns that only make sense if someone benefits:

• one supplier winning repeatedly where competitors are available;
• prices consistently above what other buyers pay;
• requirements written so narrowly that only one supplier qualifies;
• quotations from different suppliers arriving together, in similar formats or with similar errors;
• contracts extended or varied without new quotations;
• one buyer or approver involved in a large share of a supplier's business;
• purchases split to stay under approval levels.

None of these proves corruption. Each needs an explanation, and the absence of one is what turns a red flag into an investigation.

Supplier red flags

ICAEW's article on identifying and dealing with fake invoices lists supplier red flags: a newly created business with little or no trading history, unexplained changes to bank account details, and suppliers that cannot be independently verified through trusted channels. The same warning signs apply when the risk is a supplier set up to benefit an insider.

ICAEW recommends preventive controls: tightening supplier onboarding and verification; separating who sets up suppliers, who approves invoices and who makes payments; independently checking any bank detail changes; and using three-way matching, duplicate invoice checks and limits on manual overrides. In an investigation, testing whether these controls existed and worked tells you how the scheme could operate.

Integrity flags in the client's procurement records

Where the client runs purchasing on Achekam, two features are relevant to the investigator. Both belong to the client's own workspace, not the firm's.

A procurement integrity review, available as its own add-on, raises questions about warning patterns such as competing quotes sharing contact or bank details, or a supplier paid into an employee's bank account. Those are exactly the links that point to a conflict of interest or a staged competition. There is a limit to note: its check for purchases split under a threshold does nothing until a threshold is set, which the app cannot do, so split purchases must be tested by the team directly.

Quotation records. Supplier quotations are captured against a requisition and one is selected. Choosing one that is not the cheapest needs a written reason, and that reason is kept. A quotation can also be disqualified with a reason. For the investigator, these reasons are primary evidence: a pattern of thin or repeated justifications for the same supplier is worth examining closely.

From red flag to investigation

When the flags line up, move from analysis to a structured investigation:

1. Agree scope with the client in writing: which suppliers, which period, which people.
2. Secure the records before anyone is alerted: supplier master file history, quotations, approvals, correspondence and bank files.
3. Check ownership and relationships for the suspect suppliers through the official company registry in the client's country and other trusted sources.
4. Compare prices and quantities with other suppliers and with what was actually received.
5. Interview only after the documents are secure.
6. Quantify the loss, usually as the excess paid over a fair price.

For the working papers, Achekam ships template packs written in its own words, including one for forensic work and one for internal audit, for a firm to adopt and approve. The catalogue is marked unapproved platform content until the firm adopts it, so check that the packs are available and approved in your workspace.

How forensic engagements fit with a firm's other work is covered in internal audit and forensic assignments. For clients without a suspicion yet, a review of supplier set-up and quotation records once a year is one of the cheapest ways to keep corruption from taking hold.

General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.