Work through each item below to identify where your business may be losing money to billing errors, duplicate charges, and supplier inefficiencies.
Click any item to check it off. Expand for detail and guidance.
Audit Progress0 of 20 completed
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Risk Areas Identified
Items left unchecked may represent active financial exposure for your business.
Section 1 — Invoices & Billing
Are you reviewing what you are actually being charged?
✓
Compare every invoice against the original contract or purchase order
Prices on invoices frequently drift from agreed contract rates over time.
High Risk
What to look for: Line item prices that differ from your signed agreement. Quantity discrepancies. Services billed that were not delivered. Pull 3 months of invoices and compare each line to your contract rate sheet.
✓
Check for duplicate invoices across the same billing period
Duplicate billing is one of the most common and overlooked sources of overpayment.
High Risk
What to look for: Same invoice number billed twice. Same amount on different invoice numbers in the same period. Cross-reference your accounts payable records against bank or card statements.
✓
Verify all applied discounts and negotiated pricing are reflected
Volume discounts and negotiated rates are frequently not applied consistently.
Medium Risk
What to look for: Invoices billed at list price when you have a negotiated rate. Missing early payment discounts. Missing volume tier pricing that should have kicked in based on your order history.
✓
Audit all freight, shipping, and delivery charges
Carrier surcharges and fuel adjustments are commonly applied incorrectly.
Medium Risk
What to look for: Fuel surcharges above the agreed rate. Residential delivery fees applied to commercial addresses. Accessorial charges that were not pre-authorized in your agreement.
✓
Confirm all outstanding credit notes have been applied
Issued credits that never get applied are essentially free money left on the table.
High Risk
What to look for: Credits issued by a vendor that were never deducted from a subsequent invoice. Returns that generated a credit memo but no actual payment or offset. Ask your vendors to provide a full credit note history for the past 12 months.
Section 2 — Vendor Contracts
Do your contracts still reflect how you actually operate?
✓
Review all auto-renewing contracts for rate increases
Most auto-renewal clauses include escalation clauses that increase rates annually.
High Risk
What to look for: Contracts that renewed in the last 12 months with a rate increase you did not explicitly approve. CPI-linked escalation clauses buried in the fine print. Check renewal dates and compare current billing to the original signed rate.
✓
Identify vendors you are still paying for services no longer used
Unused subscriptions and dormant vendor relationships are pure waste.
High Risk
What to look for: Software subscriptions with zero logins in the past 90 days. Maintenance or service contracts for equipment that has been retired. Vendor accounts that have not had an order placed in over 6 months but are still active.
✓
Benchmark current vendor pricing against market rates
Pricing that was competitive two years ago may be significantly above market today.
Medium Risk
What to look for: Your top 10 vendors by spend. Request competitive quotes from at least two alternative providers for each. Even without switching, this data gives you negotiating leverage to renegotiate current contracts.
✓
Check for contract minimum commitments you are not meeting
Penalties for missing minimums are often buried and charged without notice.
Medium Risk
What to look for: Minimum purchase commitments per month or quarter. Shortfall fees that appear as a line item labeled something other than "penalty." Compare your actual purchase volume to the minimum commitment in the contract.
✓
Verify your vendor contact information is current and complete
Outdated contact data means missed credits, miscommunications, and unresolved disputes.
Lower Risk
What to look for: Vendor records with old email addresses or phone numbers. Accounts where correspondence goes to a former employee. Missing escalation contacts for billing disputes.
Section 3 — Payments & Accounts Payable
Is money leaving your business correctly?
✓
Reconcile all payments against bank or card statements monthly
Unreconciled payments hide errors and unauthorized charges for months.
High Risk
What to look for: Payments that appear on your bank statement with no matching invoice in your accounts payable system. Charges that are slightly different amounts than the invoice — rounding errors that accumulate over time. ACH debits from vendors that were never authorized.
✓
Review all recurring automatic payments and ACH authorizations
Automatic payments are the easiest place for unchecked charges to accumulate.
High Risk
What to look for: ACH authorizations for vendors you no longer work with. Recurring charges that have increased without a new authorization. Auto-payments where the underlying contract has expired.
✓
Identify any overpayments made in the last 24 months
Overpayments are common and most vendors will not proactively notify you.
High Risk
What to look for: Payments that exceeded the invoice amount due to manual entry errors. Double payments on the same invoice. Payments made after a credit note was issued that offset the balance. Most vendors will issue a refund or credit when contacted — they simply do not volunteer the information.
✓
Confirm all early payment discounts were captured
2/10 net 30 terms can represent significant annual savings if consistently applied.
Lower Risk
What to look for: Invoices paid within the discount window but without the discount deducted. Vendors who offer early payment terms but where your team is not consistently taking advantage. Even 2% on $500K in annual vendor spend is $10,000 in missed savings per year.
Section 4 — Operations & Compliance
Are operational gaps costing you money?
✓
Audit all service level agreements for vendor performance compliance
Vendors frequently miss SLA commitments that entitle you to credits or penalties.
Medium Risk
What to look for: Delivery time guarantees that were missed. Uptime or availability commitments not met. Quality standards or defect rates that exceeded agreed thresholds. Most SLA credits must be claimed — they are not issued automatically.
✓
Review all tax exemption certificates on file with vendors
Paying sales tax you are exempt from is a direct and recoverable overpayment.
Medium Risk
What to look for: Vendors charging sales tax on purchases where you have an exemption certificate. Expired exemption certificates that were not renewed, resulting in tax being charged. Most states allow you to file for a refund of incorrectly paid sales tax going back 3 years.
✓
Verify all insurance and compliance certificates from vendors are current
Expired vendor insurance certificates expose your business to liability and compliance risk.
Medium Risk
What to look for: Vendor COIs that have expired in the last 12 months. Missing additional insured endorsements your contracts require. Vendors working on your sites or with your fleet without current coverage.
✓
Document and track all open disputes and pending credits
Untracked disputes quietly expire or are forgotten, leaving money unrecovered.
Lower Risk
What to look for: Disputes that were raised verbally but never confirmed in writing. Credits promised by a vendor rep that were never issued. A simple spreadsheet tracking dispute date, vendor, amount, and status is enough to recover thousands that would otherwise be lost.
Your Notes
Document what you find.
Need Help Acting on What You Found?
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If this checklist surfaced issues you are not sure how to pursue, Virgil Holding can take it from here. We handle the research, the vendor disputes, and the recovery process from start to finish.