How to prepare your team for a review

2026-10-28 4 min read

A cost review rarely stalls because of the analysis. It stalls because nobody on your side knows who owns which document. A little preparation with your team saves days of back and forth once a partner firm starts asking questions.

Pick one coordinator

Choose one person to be the firm's main contact. In most businesses this is the controller, an accounts payable lead or an office manager. The coordinator does three things:

Receives requests from the firm and routes them to the right colleague.
Keeps a log of what was sent, to whom and when.
Flags anything that needs a decision from a senior person.

Name a backup too. People go on leave, and a review should not wait for them.

Tell the people who touch the vendors

Staff who approve invoices or manage vendors may worry that a review is a verdict on their work. Tell them early and tell them what it is. A review compares billing with contract terms. It looks at documents and processes, not at individuals.

A short briefing covers:

Why you are doing the review and which vendors or categories are in scope.
Who the coordinator is.
What you will ask of each person, and by when.
That questions are welcome, including "I do not know why we do it this way."

Candid answers help the firm more than tidy ones. A colleague who explains an odd workaround is giving you the most useful kind of information.

Assign document owners

Different documents live with different people. Map them before the firm asks:

Contracts and amendments: often legal, operations or whoever signed.
Payment history by vendor: accounts payable or your accounting system administrator.
Invoices and supporting data: accounts payable, plus the department that received the service.
Vendor correspondence about extra charges: the person who handles the vendor day to day.
Issues you have already noticed: anyone, so ask around.

The lists in what to gather before a supplier contract compliance review and what to gather before a lease audit give a fuller version for those categories.

Set up the shared space

Create one folder with a clear naming pattern, such as vendor name, document type and date. Decide who can read it and who can add to it. Confirm with the firm how it wants to receive files, and ask how it stores them. Do not email sensitive files until that is settled. [CONFIRM: a partner firm supplies its document handling terms]

Check your accounting system too. Some systems apply open vendor credits automatically and others need manual action, so ask your administrator what yours does. One accounts payable guide recommends running a regular report of open credits by vendor and age, which is a useful report to have on hand.

Protect the vendor relationships

Tell staff not to raise a review with vendors on their own. The firm and you will agree how and when to approach a vendor or landlord. If a vendor asks why you want old statements, the coordinator should answer in plain terms and keep the reply short. The article on keeping vendor relationships intact goes into this.

A one-page readiness list

Coordinator and backup named.
Staff briefed.
Document owners listed.
Shared folder created and access set.
Known issues collected in a single list.
Time blocked in calendars for the scoping call and for reviewing findings.

Plan for the findings meeting

When the firm presents findings, the right people should be in the room: someone who knows the contract, someone who knows the payments and someone who can approve next steps. Ask the firm to share any draft findings ahead of time so you can read them. Decisions about disputes with the vendor stay with you.

When your team is ready, choose a request path on the request a professional page. If your biggest concern is invoices, start with accounts payable audit.

Find out what you are overpaying.

Tell us what you need reviewed. We match you by hand with an independent partner firm. You keep your existing vendors.

Request a professional