BerlinPacific.com Blog

Many companies get a flood of invoices for recurring vendor services, invoices that have to be sent to a busy decision maker for approval. There is no internal documentation explaining to accounting what the bill should look like and when to flag it for review. Documentation for bills or purchase orders can save time and catch billing errors.

For most companies as long as the bill looks similar other last months they don’t question it. This can be dangerous if the bill is for:

A service they no longer need
Multiple services, some of which were recently canceled
An amount that varies every month

Let’s use telecom as an example.

We’ve seen clients who pay bills that they think are for expensive voice or data lines they currently use, but they don’t have any documentation so they don’t realize the bills are for unused lines.

We’ve also seen clients who get bills from Verizon for thousands of dollars, but there is no breakdown on the bill listing the services. The clients have no document listing the current services needed and how much they cost individually or in total. Later when they do get a breakdown they realize that they’re paying for stuff they don’t need or canceled already.

Another client’s long distance phone bill had been seeing a steady climb in traffic. When we reviewed the bill we realized that recently included in the bills was thousands of dollar in charges that weren’t for calls, but were new charges for every line the client had. Since the client had no document indicating which section could vary and which could not, they didn’t notice the unnecessary increase in costs.

While nothing is as good as a complete “inventory” of all your services, documentation of what a bill should look like, what it is for, and when to flag it, can catch many expensive errors.

One way to document bills is to create Purchase Orders for those recurring monthly contract charges, instead of just receiving monthly invoices that require authorizing signatures. The purchase order can document what you’re buying and how many and what the total should be. If the bill is different, the bill can be flagged. If the bill matches the PO it can be paid instead of being sent outside accounting for review. For this to work Purchase Orders have to be updated every time there’s a new contract or services are moved added or changed. Periodic review of Purchase Orders that haven’t been updated is advisable as well.

Good article about how and why Telcos do a good job of driving away customers. While in English it is focused on the consumer market in Germany. Apparently they deal with the same stuff there that we deal with in the US business market.

http://www.thewavingcat.com/2009/03/24/why-the-telcos-are-doomed/

“Since this post is somewhat lengthy, here’s the summary upfront:

* Telcos don’t act in their customers’ interest
* Customers don’t trust their service providers (from bad experiences)
* Lock-in will backfire on a massive scale and drive customers away
* As soon as a new provider comes along and offers decent plans, fair & transparent conditions, and no lock-in, they’ll easily win the market ”

For many firms, especially with blue collar employees, 20% of new hires are eligible for tax credits. This can be as much as $9,000 for each qualifying new hire. Some firms are also in economic development zones. We can help give you the peace of mind of knowing you’re getting all the tax credits you’re eligible for.

To read a full overview go here
Employee Tax Credits

Our experts will work for you to get you the tax credits available to you. This can reduce or even eliminate tax liability. You’ll get a flexible process that works with every company to eliminate the headaches and 86% of the paperwork.

You will get a free study to let you know how you qualify. While every company can benefit, the best candidates economic development zones and have lots of blue collar workers. Manufacturing, fast food, and retail do particularly well.

If you have 100 employees you could be saving $10,000 to $100,000 a year. Average saving can be anywhere from 100+ per employee to 1,000+ per employee.

When you work with us, you’ll automatically get credits for
• New Hires
• Being in a special economic zone
Your Berlin Pacific experts will process ongoing credits for new hires and discover if you’re eligible for past and future credits based on the location of each of your buildings, stores or offices.

employee_tax_credits.doc

We’ve added a new subject matter expert who can help organizations reduce the management and maintencance costs owning or leasing a jet long term. This can save organizations hundreds of thousands of dollars every year.

There are two big ways you can save.

1. Confirm that you do not overspend on maintenance.
We’ve all wondered about our car repair bills. Jets are no different.
We will review your last maintenance invoice at no charge. We’ll review it for errors and over charging. We are only paid when you save.

2. Select the right management company for your company’s aircraft and profile.
With so many management companies with different strengths it can be hard to know which management company is the best for your jet. We can help make sure you get the best deal, and ensure revenue from chartering your aircraft is maximized.

Right now you typically pay $1,200 per month for a non-expert to review your monthly management statements. This is based upon estimated CEO and Executive Assistant hourly pay and time spent per month to review an average management statement.

Why spend all that time and money when you can have an expert do it?

Want to learn more - call us at 212-247-2502.

Lots of people need wireless internet on their computer for business and personal use - but not all the time. Rovair is an established company that can rent you wireless internet with or without a card.
(People wanting to rent their unused wireless internet to Rovair should contact us. 212-247-2502)

RovAir OnDemand allows a user with their own equipment to activate it for only the time that they need it. The largest benefit is cost, you can prepay 30 days in advance, and then use the card for any 30 days throughout the year. It’s simple, just reserve a time 24 hours in advance, and we will activate for the time that you need it.

This can save companies a lot of money who don’t want to needlessly enter into long term contracts. Companies who were forced to enter long term contracts for cards they rarely use now have an option to save money. They can join a pilot program to rent back wireless internet access to Rovair on the days they aren’t using it.

They’re also working with Alamo and hotels to have their services available to travelers at their destination. They also help people putting together trade shows.

We’ve met several of the founders and would be happy to put you in touch with Rovair.

http://www.rovair.com/?referringid=176

We’re starting a blog to talk about our various activities. Berlin Pacific is focused on vendor cost management. But we’re also interested in whatever improves business performance. So we’re always learn about Sales and Marketing, and are interested in ways people can improve their processes to be more efficient, or get more out of them in the case of Finance and Accounting.

This is our first post.