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Know Answers To These Eight Questions Before Your Utility Bill Audit Begins
Do you want to make sure that your organization is getting the best utility bill audit? Here are some questions to ask before starting the audit. You want to make sure that you get a comprehensive audit of your utility and telecom bills. Also you want to make sure that the audit company doesn’t make you do work that they should be doing for you!
Included is Our Response to each of the questions.
1. Why should we have a utility bill audit? Doesn’t everyone pay the same rate? Won’t the utility company let us know if we are getting the best rate?
Not everyone pays the same rate. Rate structures are complex and change frequently. Rates differ by state, for each utility type, and for different industry categories. For example, nonprofits as a category may pay a different rate than a ‘for profit’ company in your state.
It’s great that you check your bills regularly. While your bills may seem to be okay from month to month, do you know what an experienced utility bill auditor is looking for? Even if you are trained to know what to look for – then you must request your exemptions, file all the correct paperwork, and follow up to get your refunds or savings. Maybe it’s better for you and your staff to focus on growing your business and letting a trained 3rd party handle your utility bill audit.
Our Response: We will review your utility and telecom bills to let you know if you have errors and overcharges on them. It is up to your organization (with our help), and not the utility company to identify any errors on your bills. You may not receive some or all of the amount due your organization without submitting the correct paperwork and according to the utility company’s procedures.
Here’s what a client included in a letter she sent us after our audit which supports the benefits of having a utility bill audit. “When we were first contacted by your representative, we were skeptical that this was a case of “too good to be true”. Especially since we review our utility bills, like all our bills, with a keen eye for errors. After much discussion we decided to take a chance and have you use your expertise and see if you would be able to find any errors. Well, did you ever, to a tune of just shy of $10,000.” – Judy L. Florida Recreational Park
2. How experienced is the audit team?
A utility bill audit firm should have five or more years of experience. If your organization has all of its facilities in the same state, then the audit company should know the most up-to-date information about your state’s programs.
If your organization is in more than one state, make sure that the audit company knows about the programs for your states. For example a few states allow a review of bills going back 4 years, while most states only allow 3 years of history. Some states include churches as nonprofits, while other states don’t.
Our Response: We have conducted audits in all states which have programs. Our experienced auditors have been doing utility bill audits since 1997, have audited over 17,000 facilities and recovered for or saved our clients more than $120 million. Our audit team keeps current on program revisions as they occur and have good working relationships with the utility and telecom providers.
3. How comprehensive is the audit?
Make sure that you are getting a comprehensive audit. Will the audit company examine all utility services such as electric, natural gas, propane, water, sewer, and waste disposal as well as telecom services such as phone, Internet, and cable?
Some firms specialize in audits of telecom services only. Other firms only review the sales and use taxes imposed by the utility and telecom service providers. While yet other companies will only audit electric and gas usage. You want to select a company that will review all utility and telecom services that are eligible in your state for your type of business.
Our Response: We audit all utility and telecom services that are eligible for inclusion in a state’s program. Our audits are so comprehensive that we can even identify faulty meters.
4. Does the size or location of your organization matter?
Some utility bill audit companies only work with larger customers, for example those with utility bills of $10,000 or more per month. There are other audit companies that work with any size organization from the small church to a large manufacturing company with facilities in many states.
If your organization is told that they are not eligible for an audit, find out why. It may mean that your type of business is not eligible in your state’s program. Or it could mean that the audit company is better suited to work with organizations that are larger or smaller than yours. It could also mean that they are not current on all the available programs in your state. If your organization’s size or location is the reason, find a different utility bill audit company.
Our Response: We work with any size organization that is eligible. Our clients range from those only having a phone bill with a couple hundred $ recovery to a million $ recovery for a client that has operations in multiple states.
5. Are utility bill audits their only business or an add on?
Firms specialize in different facets of the utility business. For industrial organizations, some firms will go onsite and conduct an in-depth review of the energy efficiency of a facility. These audits can be expensive and take up the organization’s staff time. Also the resulting recommendations may include capital expenditures by the organization.
Other firms will connect you to alternative energy suppliers. This option is available in states where electricity and / or gas services have been deregulated. Some firms make their money in the sale of energy efficient equipment and add a utility bill audit as a lead generator.
Our Response: It’s best to find a company that only audits utility and telecom bills, and that is all we do. These audits need not be done at your site, so there will be no interruptions to your workflow and there will be minimal impact on your staff’s time. Once we receive the Authorization and Agreement from you, we take over from there. We complete the required paperwork and submit it according to the utility company’s procedures. We work with them and negotiate on your behalf to obtain all your refunds and credits.
6. How do they charge for a utility bill audit?
Some utility bill audit companies charge an upfront fee just to look at your bills. Most get paid by sharing a percentage of the refund or credit that the client has received as a result of their audit.
Our Response: Our utility bill audit costs you nothing upfront. If you receive a refund, your utility company will send it directly to you, and then you will share it with us according to our Agreement. If there is no refund, then you owe us nothing. So you never have an out-of-pocket expense for our audit. Also, we don’t charge you for the initial review of your bills.
7. Do they need all copies of an organization’s bills going back 3 or 4 years?
Especially with records maintained online, an organization should not have to dig out of their files historical bills. This is work that the audit company should be doing, not you.
Our Response: No, you only need to give us one recent bill for each of the utility and telecom services that we will audit. When you complete the one-page Authorization form, you are giving us permission with your utility provider to review your historical bills.
8. What services will be included in the audit?
The audit company should not give you a list of overcharges and errors that they have identified on your bills and leave you to get them corrected. They should complete all required paperwork, submit it, and then follow up with the utility and telecom companies until you receive your refund.
Our Response: Just identifying the errors on a bill is only the initial part of the audit. We know what paperwork needs to be completed, how to submit it, who to speak with at the utility or telecom company, how to escalate the request when the refund process is taking longer than it should, negotiate with them when there is disagreement over the amount owed to our client, and then how often to follow up until our client receives the refund or credit.
Why Is Now A Good Time To Get A Utility Bill Checkup?
Are you responsible for paying your organization’s utility bills? Ever wonder why there are so many charges, fees, and taxes? Have you tried to get an explanation from your utility company? If you haven’t been successful in understanding your utility bills, then it’s time to get a utility bill checkup.
Your job is to support your organization’s mission – it is not to be an expert in analyzing your utility bills. I recently approached the facilities manager of a nonprofit to ask if his organization was interested in a utility bill audit and his response was “You are correct 3rd party utility audits are an important component of any utility management program. We have had 2 such audits over the past 18 months and a new one is currently underway.”
Some firms have staff members track their utility and telecom usage on a spreadsheet. By doing this they may be able to identify some obvious errors. However, a trained utility bill auditor will be able to dig deeper and identify many more errors.
Having a review of your organization’s utility and telecom bills is likely to result in the recovery of money that you’ve been over paying. Over 70% of those organizations that are audited find that they are due a refund. A utility bill audit can identify money that has been overpaid for years. Each state has a different statute of limitations for recovery, but 3 years is the minimum period for review, while in a few states auditors can review 4 years worth of bills.
A third-party utility bill audit will evaluate more than four dozen factors that can affect your bills. A trained auditor will review the bills and a proprietary software program will be used in the audit. It is unlikely that an organization’s staff would be able to evaluate the following factors among many more.
- Analyze past usage to see if there are meter discrepancies.
- Verify that tariffs have been added correctly to the invoices.
- Identify unnecessary minimum or duplicate billing charges.
Here’s what the manager at an assisted living facility told us after we conducted its utility bill audit. “It was hard to imagine that there could be an error in our utility billings, as we track these metrics religiously. However to our good fortune, our auditor uncovered a $43,000 billing error.”
The U.S. Treasury estimates that there are $ billions in utility and telecom overcharges that have yet to be claimed. There is no better time than now to have a utility bill checkup for your organization. What overdue maintenance project or much anticipated new venture could your organization tackle when you receive money that you weren’t expecting from a utility bill audit?
And it is easy to get your audit started; we just need one recent copy of your bills. Our audit costs nothing upfront and our compensation comes from sharing with our client in any amount that is recovered.
Published on Ezine Articles 10/04/13 Author: Karen Wintress
Call (609) 933-2666 to find out how to get your utility bill checkup started.
Things To Consider When Selecting Your Utility Bill Audit Company
Has your organization decided to have a utility bill checkup? This overview outlines what you should consider when selecting an audit company. There are several types of utility bill audits. Make sure that your organization is getting yours from an experienced audit firm and that the audit will be comprehensive.
What Experience Does The Audit Team Have?
An audit firm should have five or more years of experience. They should be comfortable in dealing with the programs available in many states. This is especially important if your organization operates in multiple states. The audit firm must keep up-to-date with the specifics of each state’s programs, which change frequently. For example a few states include a review of bills going back for 4 years, while most states only include 3 years of history. Some states include churches, 501(c)(3) organizations, and veterans groups, while other states only include churches in the recovery of telecom, water, sewer, and waste disposal overcharges.
How Comprehensive Is The Audit?
Make sure that you are getting a comprehensive audit. Will the audit company examine all utility services such as electric, gas, water, sewer, and waste disposal as well as all telecom services such as phone, internet, and cable? Some firms specialize in audits of telecom services only. Other firms only review the sales and use taxes imposed by the utility and telecom service provider. While yet other companies will only audit electric and gas usage. You want to select a company that will review all utility and telecom services that are eligible in your state.
Does The Size Or Location Of Your Organization Matter?
Some utility bill audit companies only work with larger customers, for example those with utility bills of $10,000 or more per month. There are other audit companies that work with any size organization from the small church on the corner to a large manufacturing company with facilities in many states. If your organization is told that they are not eligible for an audit, find out why. It may mean that the audit company is better suited to work with organizations that are larger or smaller than yours. It could also mean that they are not current on all the available programs in your state. If your size or location is the reason, find a different utility bill audit company.
Are Utility Bill Audits Their Only Business Or An Add On?
Firms specialize in different facets of the utility business. For industrial organizations, some firms will go onsite and do an in-depth review of the energy efficiency of a facility. These audits can be expensive and take up the organization’s staff time. Also the resulting recommendations may include capital expenditures on your part.
Other firms will connect you to alternative energy suppliers. This is available as an option in states where electricity and / or gas services have been deregulated. Some firms make their money in the sale of energy efficient equipment and add a utility bill audit as a lead generator.
It’s best to find a company that only audits utility and telecom bills. These audits need not be done at your site, so there will be no interruptions to your workflow and there will be minimal impact on your staff’s time. Also the audit company should negotiate on your behalf with the utilities to obtain all your refunds and credits and not deliver a list of recommendations for you to handle.
Published on Ezine Articles 09/19/13 Author: Karen Wintress
Want to discuss how a utility bill checkup would work for you? Call (609) 933-2666.
Churches are nonprofits and can benefit – no matter how large or small, famous or not….
Nonprofits Can Raise Funds By Having A Utility Bill Audit
I’m reaching out to educate and encourage nonprofits and their supporters to find out if a utility bill audit could help them raise money. It’s likely they’ve overpaid for their use of utility and telecom services, money which can be recovered. Your favorite nonprofit can raise money by recovering what they’ve overpaid and with very little effort on their part.
Most states provide nonprofits with more favorable rates and certain exemptions for their use of utility and telecom services, but these benefits don’t always appear on their bills. Utility services include electricity, natural gas, propane, water, sewer, and waste disposal. Telecom services include land line phones, cell phones, internet, and cable.
Nonprofits usually don’t know that they are eligible for special rating programs and their utility and telecom service providers don’t always keep up with changes in state programs which can affect the bills they send out. As a result, the U.S. Treasury states that there are over $30 billion of utility and telecom overcharges just waiting to be claimed. So how does a nonprofit find out if it has over paid for any of these bills, and if so, how would it recover this money?
A nonprofit’s mission is to support some cause or group and is not trained in how to interpret the codes which appear on its bills. Fortunately there are people who are trained to conduct an audit of an organization’s utility and telecom bills.
The staggering statistic is that over 70% of the bills that are audited have overcharges on them. With authorization from the nonprofit, an auditor can dig through its bills for the past 3 years, and the organization only has to provide one recent bill. After identifying any overcharges, the auditor submits all the paperwork to obtain the refunds which are sent directly to the organization.
Nonprofits may be reluctant to pursue this because they imagine that these audits are expensive. Most utility bill audit firms that I’ve researched use a contingency-based model. This means that the audit costs the nonprofit nothing upfront. If there are no overcharges on the bills, then the organization has received a free utility bill audit. If there are monies that are to be refunded or credited, then the nonprofit shares in the amount recovered, and only after it has received the payment.
A nonprofit may include the church on the corner, an independent school, a museum or historical society, a community social service or outreach group, a federal credit union, and even most hospitals fall into this category. If you want to help a nonprofit in your community, let them know that this program exists. Here’s a way that your favorite nonprofit can raise funds without all the effort required of holding a fundraiser. As an example, a nonprofit school was surprised when an audit recovered $40,000 of over payments.
Whether you are a staff member of, a contributor to, or a neighbor of a nonprofit in your community let them know about utility bill audits. Your nonprofit may have money that is waiting to be claimed which could be put to good use in supporting its mission.
Published on Ezine Articles 09/09/13 Author: Karen Wintress
Want your nonprofit to raise funds without the work of a fund raiser? Call (609) 933-2666.