It pays to check your invoices

One of Consultants, Denis Sprague, was back with us for some continuing professional development training this week and while catching up on general news he happened to mention a £1,073 rebate on a gas overcharge he’s just identified for a small client. This might not seem too significant, but for an organisation that usually spends about £1,903 per year on their gas supply it could have made a big difference to their budgeting for the year. The error occurred when a new meter was fitted at the client’s premises and the gas supplier took an incorrect reading – or rather made an incorrect assumption from their reading – which made it look as though they had used twice as much gas as they actually had. As is the case in many companies, the client themselves hadn’t picked this up – after all, it’s not a huge amount and they didn’t have the time, internal resource or expertise to check every detail on every invoice every month. Of course, now they have an Auditel consultant working, essentially, as another member of their management team, they have got all of these things and a rebate from the gas supplier. What’s more, because Denis will be checking all their invoices going forward, they also have peace of mind that if it happens again, there’s no chance of it slipping through the net unnoticed.