Your AP team is not built to audit tariffs
AP teams approve bills on date and amount. Trace Global rebuilds each bill from the tariff and files recovery claims across every utility.
Your accounts payable team is the first line of control over utility bills. It matches invoices to accounts, checks for obvious spikes, codes to the GL and pays on time. Some teams add a manual review of the largest bills each month. This catches duplicate payments and large swings, and it should continue. What it cannot do is verify a bill against a tariff written in a hundred pages of regulatory language, or follow a refund claim through a utility's dispute process for months. A typical review reads totals. Many errors are inside the lines: a wrong multiplier, a stale tax exemption, a ratchet floor. Trace Global adds the specialist step, so your AP team keeps its workflow and gains evidence for the exceptions.
| Dimension | Trace Global | In-house AP review |
|---|---|---|
| Review scope | Every line on every bill, 38 checks | Totals, variances and the largest bills |
| Tariff knowledge | Dedicated research team maintains schedules by utility | General AP knowledge; tariffs are rarely reviewed |
| Capacity | Thousands of bills in one audit cycle | Limited by headcount and month-end deadlines |
| Historical review | Back through every period still inside the utility's window | Usually current month only |
| Claim filing | Packets filed and followed until credit posts | Ad hoc phone or email disputes |
| Evidence | Tariff page, recalculated bill and meter data | Bill copy and a request |
| Cost | 35% of money recovered, nothing if none | Staff time and opportunity cost |
| Workflow impact | No added AP steps | Adds manual review work per bill |
| Continuity | Runs every cycle, independent of staffing | Depends on who is in the role |
When in-house ap review are the right call
In-house review is the right choice for a small footprint with a handful of accounts, where a knowledgeable analyst can check each bill. It also remains essential for duplicate payment checks, approvals and fraud controls. If you have fewer than a few dozen meters, the cost of a specialist audit may not pay for itself.
Using both
Your AP team keeps owning approvals, coding and payment. Trace Global audits the same bills and sends findings to recovery, not to AP for review. When a utility corrects a bill, the credit is traced to the right account and cost center so your team can post it. AP time goes to exceptions, not to tariff research.
Questions we get asked
No. Findings go through our recovery process. AP sees corrected accounts and posted credits, not a new queue of review items.
Partly. Training helps with common issues, but coverage across dozens of utilities and years of history is a full-time specialist task.
That review is worth keeping. Trace Global covers the smaller accounts and the line-level errors that a total-based review does not show.
Find out what your utilities owe you.
Connect bills for up to 50 meters. Get the findings report in about three weeks. Pay nothing unless money comes back.
- from bill access to first findings report
- 21 daysfrom bill access to first findings report
- of filed claims accepted by the utility in full or in part
- 94%of filed claims accepted by the utility in full or in part