Methodology
What we actually check
We test roughly thirty defect classes across electric, gas, water and sewer, waste, and telecom invoices. Publishing the list is deliberate: an operator should be able to tell the difference between a firm that reads tariffs and one that reads marketing copy.
A refund is a lump sum for something you were already billed. Forward savings is a lower bill going forward, with no cheque attached. Some vendors blur these to make a number look bigger. We price them differently — contingency on refunds, a multiple of annual savings on forward wins — because a percentage of a refund that does not exist is a fee you would be right to refuse.
The eight that carry the money
Ranked by expected value: frequency of occurrence, size when found, and probability of actually winning the claim.
| # | Defect class | Recovery type | Why it ranks |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rate schedule / tariff misclassification | Forward both if misassigned | Near-universal, large, and it recurs every single month until someone catches it. |
| 2 | Utility sales-tax exemption not applied | Both | A statutory filing rather than a negotiation, so confidence is high. Gated separately — see the note below. |
| 3 | Contract expiry into holdover rate | Forward refund on notice breach | Very common in deregulated markets and a large recurring bleed once it starts. |
| 4 | Sewer charged on non-sewer water | Both | The hospitality flagship. Utilities have a defined deduct-meter process; operators rarely file. |
| 5 | Estimated-reading cascades | Refund | Small but near-certain and fast to win. We pursue it first for exactly that reason. |
| 6 | Demand ratchet misapplication | Both | Large when a false spike sets the floor — but only recoverable where the tariff's own terms were not followed. |
| 7 | Zombie circuits and POTS lines | Forward-heavy | High frequency across multi-site portfolios; forward savings are large even where back-credit is capped. |
| 8 | Contract rate not applied after renewal | Both | A clean, provable contract-versus-invoice delta. Strong win rate because there is little to argue about. |
What is deliberately not on that list
Power factor correction and capacity-tag management are real money, and we will flag them. They are not on the recovery list because they are optimization and capital projects, not billing defects. Selling an efficiency project as a "found dollar" is how audit firms end up billing contingency on savings that never appear. If we recommend one, it will be priced as a project, not as a recovery.
Sales tax is handled separately, and here is why
Utility sales-tax exemptions are among the largest single recoveries available — and they are the one category that cannot ride a blanket authorization. A tax refund claim requires the client's own signature and a state power of attorney per claim, and in some states a contingent fee on a tax recovery is restricted or unenforceable outright.
So our fee schedule is split. Utility and telecom recovery runs at full contingency everywhere. Tax recovery is a separate, gated line item, verified against the specific state before it is offered. Any firm that offers you "sign here and we recover everything at one percentage" either has not read the rules or is relying on you not to.
How a finding becomes a claim
- Triage. Our detectors read the invoice set and flag anomalies against the expected pattern for that meter, rate class, and season. This stage is automated and it is deliberately over-sensitive — it produces candidates, not conclusions.
- Tariff confirmation. A person pulls the utility's filed tariff and confirms the charge against the actual rate schedule text. Most candidates die here, and that is the point.
- Evidence assembly. Invoice images, meter reads, interval data, contract documents, and the specific tariff section that makes the claim.
- Filing. Submitted to the utility under your authorization, tracked to a decision.
- Verification. The claim is not counted as recovered until the credit appears on your bill. Not when it is filed, not when it is verbally approved — when it posts.
The triage layer is software and it is fast, which is why we can look at a portfolio's worth of invoices without charging for the look. It is not the auditor. Every finding is confirmed against the filed tariff by a person before it is put in front of you or a utility, because a confident wrong claim costs you credibility with your own utility — and that is worth more than any single recovery.
The part that compounds
Every finding we confirm and every one we reject is recorded against the defect class, the utility, and the state. Over time that turns a table of industry priors into measured win rates for specific utilities — which claims are worth filing against which utility, and which are a waste of your time and goodwill. That corpus is the reason to be early rather than the reason to pay more.