Three cost categories. Vendors kept.
A multi-branch distributor had telecom, wireless and card processing reviewed together. A partner firm kept the existing vendors.
A heavy equipment distributor with dozens of branches asked a partner firm to review its card processing fees, telecom and wireless costs.
The situation
The distributor ran branches in many cities, each with its own phone lines, mobile devices and card payments. Staff had little time to read monthly invoices, so improper charges could pass unnoticed.
What made it hard
- The company could not project future costs across different rate structures as its usage changed.
- Nothing was in place to manage the inventory of wireless devices across locations.
- It was unclear how to hold vendors to the cost efficiencies they had promised.
- Few people had the time to monitor invoices and fix improper charges.
What the firm did
It started with a detailed inventory of every service, device and vendor contact point. From that it set up structures and processes for tighter cost control. It then negotiated better terms with the vendors the company already used, cut costs by correcting improper billing and renegotiating rates, and removed services the company did not need.
The firm also used risk mitigation steps to move legal responsibility for certain matters from the company to its vendors. Afterward it kept monitoring monthly invoices, corrected improper charges and secured refunds.
The result
As the firm reports it, the review lowered costs in all three categories over a period of less than three years, and the company kept its vendors. The firm supplied this account, and Fairview has not verified it.
Note: This is an anonymized example supplied by a partner firm. Details are general, no figures are given, and your own result will depend on your contracts and records.
Related pages
See telecom, wireless and merchant account fees. The case studies page lists the other examples.
Tell us what to check. We match you by hand with an independent partner firm. You keep your existing vendors. Fairview Audit connects people with licensed professionals, and those professionals do the work. Fairview Audit does not do the work itself.Find out what you are overpaying.