Free tool · Calculators
Supplier verification cost calculator
Every request to change a supplier's bank details should be checked with a call-back before you pay. Enter your own figures to see how many checks that means a year, how many hours they take, and what that time costs.
Your verification workload
Suppliers you've paid in the last year or so.
0.1 means one supplier in ten changes bank details in a year. Count fake requests too — each one still needs checking.
Set to 0 to leave out checking details when a supplier is first set up.
Finding a trusted number, calling, chasing when nobody answers, and recording the result.
Salary plus employer's NI, pension and overheads. £25 is roughly an accounts assistant on £28,000.
Checks a year
30
10 changes + 20 new suppliers
Hours a year
10
of staff time on call-backs
Cost a year
£250
in staff time, before any fraud losses
The time back if suppliers were on Paylist
For a supplier that keeps its details on Paylist, you look the details up instead of chasing a call-back: listed accounts are validated (including Confirmation of Payee, where available) before they're shown, changed accounts are re-validated, and you're told when something changes. Suppliers that aren't on Paylist still need your own call-back, so the time back depends on how many of yours are listed.
An illustration, not a forecast — few of your suppliers may be listed today.
Hours back a year
2.3
7.5 checks, each still taking ~2 min to look up
Staff time back
£56
a year, at your hourly cost
25 suppliers on Paylist fits the Professional plan, which saves up to 30 suppliers, from £39 to £699 a month ex VAT depending on your turnover.
We don't net the subscription off against the time back. Paylist is priced by your turnover, not by how many checks you do, and the bigger reason to check bank details properly is the payment you don't lose to fraud, which no calculator can honestly price. See all plans.
What a call-back verification actually involves
The standard defence against invoice and mandate fraud is simple: when a supplier asks you to pay a different account, you phone them on a number you already hold and confirm the change before any money moves. UK Finance, Action Fraud and most auditors recommend it. It works, but it isn't free. The call itself is the quick part.
- Finding a trusted number: from your own records, a previous contract or the supplier's website, never from the email asking for the change.
- Reaching the right person: someone at the supplier who can confirm the change, which often takes more than one attempt.
- Chasing: leaving messages, following up, and holding the payment until you hear back.
- Recording: noting who you spoke to, when, and what they confirmed, so the check stands up later to an auditor or an insurer.
- Updating: changing the details in your accounting software and, ideally, having a second person approve the change.
Twenty minutes per change is a fair middle estimate when you add all of that up. It can be five minutes when the supplier answers first time, and an hour or more when they don't.
How the calculator works
Checks a year are your bank detail change requests plus, if you include them, new suppliers whose details you verify at set-up. Hours a year are checks multiplied by minutes per check. Cost a year is hours multiplied by your loaded hourly staff cost. The sums run in your browser and the figures you enter aren't sent to us. We only record a rough band of the result, such as 'under 10 hours', to see how the tool is used.
The defaults are for a small UK business paying around 100 suppliers. Genuine bank changes are fairly rare, so the default assumes one supplier in ten changes their details in a year, and 20 new suppliers. Remember to count fraudulent requests too: a fake 'we've changed banks' email needs exactly the same check as a real one, and is often the one that matters. The default hourly cost of £25 is roughly an accounts assistant on £28,000 once employer's National Insurance, pension and a share of overheads are added. Use your own figures where you have them.
Reading the result honestly
For a small business the annual figure is often modest: a few hours and a few hundred pounds. That isn't an argument for skipping the check. The cost of call-backs is small next to a single misdirected payment. The UK's mandatory reimbursement rules for this kind of fraud cover consumers, micro-enterprises and small charities, up to a limit. Larger businesses generally aren't covered, and even where the rules apply, a payer who ignored obvious warning signs can be refused. The real risk in a busy finance team is that the call-back gets skipped on the day it matters, because it is slow and the payment run is due.
For larger teams, or for accountancy firms running accounts payable for several clients, the hours add up quickly, and so does the temptation to cut corners. Put in your real numbers and see where you land.
What Paylist changes, and what it doesn't
Paylist is a directory of verified UK business bank details. Businesses list their own details once. Each business is checked against Companies House and its bank account is validated, including Confirmation of Payee where available, before it appears. When a listed supplier changes its account, the change is made from its own authenticated account, re-validated, and the businesses connected to it are told that something changed. For those suppliers you look up the details rather than chasing a call-back, which is the time the second half of the calculator shows.
It doesn't remove checking altogether. Suppliers who aren't on Paylist still need your normal call-back, and you still need to look a listed supplier up and compare the details before paying. Some teams also keep a call-back for very large payments as an extra layer, which Paylist doesn't stop you doing. Paylist doesn't make or route payments: it's somewhere to check before you pay.
Frequently asked questions
How do you verify a supplier's bank details in the UK?
Call the supplier on a phone number you already hold, not one from the email or invoice asking for the change, and confirm the new sort code and account number with someone you know there. Then use Confirmation of Payee when you set up the payment, record who confirmed it and when, and have a second person approve the change before the next payment run.
How long does a supplier call-back take?
The call itself is a few minutes. Finding a trusted number, reaching the right person, chasing when they don't answer, and recording the result usually brings it to 15 to 30 minutes per change. It can run to an hour or more when the supplier is slow to respond.
How often do suppliers change their bank details?
Genuine changes are fairly rare, typically when a business switches bank, is acquired, or restructures. There's no reliable published figure, so the best source is your own records. If you don't have them, one change a year for every 10 to 20 suppliers is a reasonable starting assumption for a small business. Fraudulent change requests come on top of that, and each needs the same check.
What is a loaded hourly staff cost?
It's what an hour of someone's time really costs the business: salary plus employer's National Insurance, pension contributions and a share of overheads such as software, equipment and office space, divided by the hours they actually work. As a rough guide, it's 20 to 40% more than salary divided by hours.
Do I need to verify bank details for new suppliers too?
Yes. A new supplier's first invoice is just as easy to tamper with as a change request, and a fraudster who intercepts the onboarding email can supply their own account from the start. Confirm the details with the supplier independently before the first payment.
Can Confirmation of Payee replace a call-back?
Not entirely. Confirmation of Payee checks that the name on the account matches the name you entered, which catches many mistakes and some fraud. It doesn't tell you the supplier actually asked you to pay that account, and fraudsters can open accounts in names that match. Use both.
Check before you pay — every time
Paylist is a verified directory of UK business bank details. Your suppliers list theirs once, and you look them up instead of trusting an email.