A Utility Bill Audit Finds Past Errors On Your Bills And Identifies Usage Spikes To Investigate

Your business could probably benefit from a utility bill audit, but it may not be a good choice to hire your own auditor unless you have a huge company with multiple buildings to audit. Instead, you can hire a company that provides the service of auditing utility bills so you can get back any money you've overpaid. Here's an overview of utility bill auditing.

The Auditor Works With Utility Companies

One reason to hire an auditing company instead of your own auditing staff is that a company has had experience with utility companies since that's all they do. They know how to communicate issues in ways that make them more likely to get resolved.

Plus, they have all the software needed to run the audits, so you don't have to buy any equipment or software, and you can avoid hiring more staff just to audit energy use and cost.

Your Past Bills Are Audited

Your old utility bills are audited for a number of years depending on how far back the utility company allows and what you want to pay for. The company may look at water, electricity, gas, phone, and cable bills. The software that's used factors in the rate for each service so they can find errors made in basic calculations. They can also find bills that fall outside the usual range and then track down reasons for the high bills to see if they're a mistake.

A Utility Bill Audit Could Get You A Refund

The purpose of having an audit done is to see if you've overpaid some bills. Utility companies make mistakes in billing, and you may not even notice and just go ahead and pay the higher bills. If you've overpaid some bills, the utility audit company can work on your behalf to get a refund from the utility company.

Once you're caught up to date with the audit, you may want to audit more frequently so you don't develop a backlog again and so you can have your bills adjusted quicker.

An Audit Finds Problems That Cost You Money

When a utility bill is suddenly high or when a bill gradually gets higher and higher even though nothing has changed, that could indicate a leak in a plumbing line or a problem with equipment that is driving up your bill.

Rather than rely on the cost alone, the company can analyze the number of gallons of water used and the amount of electricity consumed to pinpoint excessively high or gradually increasing usage. This is a problem you might fix by having an energy audit or plumbing inspection depending on the utility that is out of line.


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