The terms on your bills, explained
These documents are hard to check partly because the vocabulary is unfamiliar, and unfamiliar vocabulary discourages questions. Here is the vocabulary, in plain English, whether or not you ever work with us.
Start a reviewWorkers’ compensation
The vocabulary of a premium calculation. Each of these is a place a premium can be wrong.
Classification codeA four-digit code describing the work performed, which carries its own rate. Payroll is assigned to codes, and the assignment decides the price. Miscoding an office role into an operational code is the single most common premium error.
Experience modifierA factor above or below 1.00 that adjusts your premium according to your own claims history against the average for your classifications. Often called the e-mod or ex-mod. It is promulgated by a rating bureau, not by your insurer.
ReserveThe amount an insurer sets aside for a claim's expected total cost. Reserves feed the experience modifier, so a reserve set high and later reduced can leave a modifier too high unless the reduction is deliberately carried through.
Declarations pageThe front section of the policy listing classifications, rates, estimated payroll, and the modifier. The starting point of every review.
Premium auditThe insurer's after-the-fact reconciliation of estimated payroll against actual payroll. The statement it produces is where the payroll actually charged to each code appears.
Auditable payrollThe payroll figure the rate is applied to. Most states exclude the premium portion of overtime pay from it, which is frequently overlooked.
Rating bureauThe organization that files rating rules and computes modifiers for a state. NCCI serves most states; several, including California, New York, and Pennsylvania, run their own.
Utility and telecom
Where the governing document is a public filing rather than a private contract.
TariffThe rate schedule a utility files with its state regulator. It is a public document, which is what makes an account reviewable at all.
Rate classWhich schedule within the tariff your account sits on. Chosen at setup from an expected load profile and rarely revisited when the profile changes.
Demand chargeA charge based on your highest rate of consumption in a period rather than your total. Where it is set from an estimate that was never reconciled against meter data, it can persist for years.
Meter multiplierA factor converting the meter's reading into billed units. An error here scales every invoice, which is what makes a small mistake large.
RiderA surcharge added to a base rate for a specific purpose. Riders written for one class of account routinely appear on another.
CircuitA single telecom line or connection. The classic telecom finding is a circuit still billing for a location that closed.
Card processing
Statements built from terms that are technically accurate and practically unreadable.
InterchangeThe fee the card networks set, paid to the card-issuing bank. Published by the networks, so it can be checked.
DowngradeA transaction settled into a costlier interchange category than it qualified for, usually for a fixable procedural reason such as missing data at authorization.
AssessmentA network fee separate from interchange. Being charged the same assessment twice under two names is a recurring finding.
Effective rateTotal processing cost divided by total card volume. One number that cuts through the statement, and the number worth holding a processor to.
Commercial lease
Where the governing document is your own contract, and reading it is the work.
CAMCommon area maintenance: the shared costs a landlord passes to tenants. What may be included is defined by the lease, not by the statement.
ReconciliationThe annual statement comparing estimated CAM payments against actual costs. The document most tenants pay without checking.
Pro-rata shareYour percentage of shared costs, normally your square footage over the building's. The denominator changes as a building fills or empties; the calculation does not always follow.
Gross-upAdjusting variable costs to what they would have been at full occupancy. Legitimate when the lease allows it, and a source of error when it is applied to costs that do not vary with occupancy.
Capital expenseA long-lived improvement, usually the landlord's cost rather than a maintenance item passed to tenants. The distinction is in the lease and is worth real money.
Sales and use tax
The one area of this work where the deadline is written into statute.
Use taxTax owed on a taxable item bought without sales tax charged. Accruing it on an item that was already taxed produces double payment.
Exemption certificateThe document that tells a vendor not to charge tax. The exemption exists in law; the certificate is what makes it happen in practice.
Reverse auditReviewing your own purchase data to find tax you overpaid, rather than waiting for a state to review it and find tax you underpaid.
Lookback periodHow far back a refund claim may reach. Set by statute: four years in Texas, three in California, New York, and Florida. Anything older is permanently gone.
The engagement
Terms that describe how the work is arranged rather than what it examines.
Letter of authorizationThe document permitting us to request records and file corrections on your behalf, for the accounts and periods you name. It does not let us bind you to anything.
Contingency feeA fee taken as a share of money recovered, with nothing charged if nothing is recovered.
Findings reportThe written deliverable: each item found, the rule it fails, the arithmetic, and the amount. Written so somebody else can check it.
All-clearThe written statement that we checked and found nothing recoverable. It costs you nothing and it means the billing was done correctly.
Nothing here is proprietary
Every term above comes from a public filing, a published manual, or your own contract. That is the whole premise of this business: the rules are available, and almost nobody has the time to read them against their own invoices.