In today’s high-cost environment, businesses must look for ways to reduce operational costs. One often overlooked business expense is utilities, which can quickly pile up and take up a significant chunk of your revenue. Different businesses have different energy needs, but all companies can benefit from utility bill audits to identify and remedy inefficiencies in energy supply chains, procurement, and utility usage. This blog post will cover the basics of a utility bill audit and how audits can help your business reduce costs.
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What Is Utility Bill Auditing?
A utility bill audit is a process in which an auditor analyzes your business’s energy profile to reduce costs and uncover savings. Energy bills can get complex, and an auditor can cut through the noise to identify practical and tractable solutions to minimize energy overheads.
Utility bill audits cover more than just your business’s actual energy consumption; they also look for cost savings through changing billing practices, identifying overcharges, finding meter errors, and sourcing energy providers. Energy billing involves meticulous record-keeping, and auditors can identify inefficiencies costing your business more than they should.
These audits are crucial for businesses to streamline operations and optimize their expenses. An audit can identify redundancies and ensure you only pay for necessities with energy costs. A comprehensive commercial energy audit can save your business up to 30% on annual energy costs.
What Kinds of Utilities Are Audited?
Businesses use several kinds of utilities that need to be audited separately because they have different billing requirements and regulations. Below are some principal utilities audits focus on and why inefficiencies can be expected.
Natural Gas
Natural gas billing can become complex due to seasonal changes, supply changes, and different contract rates. An audit focuses on natural gas billing practices to look for calculation errors that can cost you more than necessary.
Electricity
Electrical rates change frequently due to peak demand and changing use patterns which can create inconsistencies in recorded meter rates. Auditors can also identify erroneous tariff rates that can affect your monthly electrical costs.
Sewage & Water
One of the major inefficiencies in water billing is erroneous classification reporting and meter readings. Water and sewage audits benefit businesses that utilize significant amounts of water in their daily operations (e.g., restaurants, breweries, hotels, etc.).
Benefits of Utility Auditing
The benefits of a utility bill audit are identifying billing errors, recovering overpayments, optimizing savings, and finding opportunities for tax refunds and advantages.
Find Billing Errors
Energy billing is complex, and billing discrepancies are not uncommon. An auditor will examine your energy billing down to the individual line items to ensure that charges are accurate and the taxes are evaluated correctly.
For example, the electrical company might have incorrectly recorded your opening and closing meter readings when generating billing statements. Thoroughly assessing records can help your company identify cost-saving opportunities and generate more accurate records for long-term savings.
Recover Overpayments
Business owners need help keeping track of all their utility payments between the other job demands. An energy audit can find overpayments and recover those funds through refund requests. Overpayments can save revenue and reduce fixed monthly costs through a more accurate payment structure.
Savings Through Optimization
Utilities costs can balloon due to cost increases during times of peak usage. An energy audit can identify inefficiencies in your scheduled rate plan and adjust accordingly to take advantage of energy when it costs the least. By assessing business behavior and energy usage, an auditor can help you find a rate plan that minimizes costs without causing interruptions to daily business operations.
Eco-Friendly Energy Efficiency Solutions
Another significant aspect of energy audits is they can help set your business up for an eco-friendly and sustainable future. More and more enterprises prioritize sustainable practices, and a utility audit can help reduce your company’s ecological footprint.
Identify Potential Tax Refunds
Various states offer tax advantages and refund opportunities for businesses to incentivize activities and certain types of behaviors. However, it can often be difficult for business owners to find these opportunities and provide the appropriate eligibility documentation. During an energy audit, a professional can examine your energy expense to locate tax refund opportunities and investigate various rebate programs your business can apply for.
Low-Cost Energy Solutions and Relationships with Navigate Power
In today’s high-cost energy environment, streamlining costs through smart energy decisions and solutions is more crucial than ever. Navigate Power specializes in helping businesses overcome hurdles in energy efficiency and supply chains. Contact us online or call (800) 541-1137 to schedule a utility bill audit!
