As we slowly emerge from lockdown, many organisations are feeling the strain of the past year. Businesses are coping with an unprecedented economic downturn, while public sector organisations are working harder with fewer resources. Yet many organisations are missing out on the chance to recoup sums of money that could make a real difference.
Most UK businesses have been billed wrongly for utilities at some point. If it has never happened to your organisation, you’re definitely in the minority. The larger and more complex your operations are, the more likely it is that you have lost significant revenue through the mistakes of others. Obviously that isn’t fair, so the law in England and Wales allows you up to six years to identify billing errors and recover the wrongly paid money. But most organisations don’t have the time or expertise to comb through years’ worth of bills in the hope of spotting an error. That’s where revenue recovery specialists come in.
At BiU, we carry out this service for dozens of clients every year, and some of the sums involved can be huge. At a time when UK universities were looking into cutting staff pensions because of funding worries, we saved one university £1.7 million that had been wrongly charged over the years. These mistakes don’t get picked up at the time because utility billing is so confusing for the non-specialist. For example, over 30 different sources of data go into one organisation’s electricity bill. Most universities have more important things to do than to pour resources into trying to decode everything on their bill, so it makes sense to bring in the experts.
“Health check” could deliver long-term savings
Not everyone will recoup millions, but the vast majority of UK organisations would benefit from a revenue recovery “health check”. The chances are that the process will uncover some historical overcharging and net your organisation a refund. We challenge suppliers on your behalf, so you don’t need to do the work of contacting them and chasing the money.
But the benefits of the revenue recovery process go beyond this. A forensic audit of your billing over a period of years will give the experts a very good idea of what you’re currently paying for and using. So as well as recouping the money you’ve wrongly paid out in the past, they can help you find better utility contracts for the future. This means ongoing savings.
After the core revenue recovery process is over, some companies choose to keep us on, so we can keep an eye on their utility spending and ensure they don’t pay over the odds. But this isn’t an essential part of the service and many organisations are just glad to recover historical overpayments.
Covid and changing work patterns
The pandemic has made it even more important for businesses to regularly assess their utility spending, as so many have changed the way they work: a shift to home working, more online sales, closing premises either temporarily or permanently. Any big changes mean that the utility contracts you originally had in place are unlikely to be delivering the best value. Change also creates more opportunities for billing mistakes to creep in.
Recouping water charges
As well as electricity and gas, BiU’s revenue recovery team also look at water use, which is an area with serious potential for overcharging. UK companies use complex charging mechanisms for supplying businesses with water and disposing of wastewater, and it is common to be on the wrong tariff or to pay for water lost through a leak that isn’t your responsibility. BiU recently saved one NHS trust £115,000 on their water bills alone. That money could buy essential equipment or pay the wages of five new nurses for a year, yet the hospital trust weren’t even aware they had been overcharged. It was money down the drain – literally.
Stop wasting resources
We recently saved another NHS Trust £1.4 million – again, money they didn’t even know they were missing. Many organisations are trying to cut costs after a difficult year, and this means some tough decisions. It makes no sense to consider drastic options like redundancies or pay cuts when the option of revenue recovery remains unexplored. If your organisation isn’t actively cost-cutting at the moment, the money recouped by revenue recovery can go on business development or even used to further your decarbonisation strategy.
OJEU framework
Whatever your utility challenges, we’re able to help. We’re currently working with many public sector bodies through the NHS Shared Business Services OJEU framework, ensuring compliance with the Public Contract Regulations 2015.
BiU operates on a “finder’s fee” model, so hiring us to audit your bills incurs zero upfront costs. You won’t pay a penny unless we find that you are due a refund on your billing.
If your organisation is ready for a utility spending health check, get in touch at hello@biu.com
