Boosting internal audits at Microsoft with audit digitization, machine learning

Imagine sifting through hundreds of photos of cupcakes to find two images of the same cupcake taken in the same place at the same time, within minutes. That’s one of the ways that Microsoft’s Audit, Risk, and Compliance (ARC) team made sure that the invoices the company is paying are accurate and legitimate—and it’s now able to do that better and at larger scale thanks to a new audit digitization project powered by machine learning (ML).

When an external company submits a payment invoice to Microsoft, they must provide what’s called proof of execution (POE) to Microsoft invoice approvers proving that the service was indeed performed. Hence the virtual mountain of visual evidence of not just cupcakes, but entire lunch buffets, swag orders, promotion campaigns, and more, contained in files of Microsoft PowerPoint decks, PDFs, and Microsoft Word documents.

Microsoft’s Audit team in Microsoft Finance periodically reviews subsidiaries to, among other things, make sure that invoice approvers, vendors, and suppliers are following company procurement policies and processes to protect company assets and interests.

Matching cupcake photos are a flag of possible recycled POE—signaling…