Rising fuel costs, intense regulatory pressure to minimize operating expenses, and the push for higher all-around efficiencies are driving today’s utility business. Coupled with the utility’s obligation to rate payers to provide services at the lowest reasonable cost, these issues put extra pressure on utilities to ensure their major contractual agreements are protecting the interests of customers and investors. AMS-PAR has the specialized expertise to help your management team evaluate and improve major contract expenditures.

We can make a difference in your financial performance through the recovery of profits lost to vendor overpayments and contract misinterpretations. With AMS-PAR’s assistance, you can have a new degree of confidence that your major maintenance, turnaround and new facility construction contracts are protecting your interests and preserving your profits.

In an AMS-PAR review, the client receives:
  • Contract compliance assessment
  • A self-funding review of contracting procedures and accuracy
  • Minimal client staff involvement
  • Detailed reporting of findings
  • Recommendation for improvements in processes and procedure

Utilities

Vendor/Supplier Review

Vendors rarely invoice with 100% accuracy. Errors can arise simply from mispostings or from misinterpretation of complex contractual agreements. In today’s business environment where internal staff are challenged to review and process invoices on time, it is critical to have outside expertise available to identify and recover lost profits. A comprehensive AMS-PAR vendor review program will determine the current level of contract compliance of key suppliers without adding additional burden to your staff. We will examine the agreements that are the basis for the commercial relationship, verify that the resulting invoice activity complies with the terms of those agreements and confirm that payments made under the agreements are accurate. AMS-PAR will also assess the vendor’s compliance with your business ethics policy.

Our reports not only provide sufficient detail to facilitate collection, but they also include specific recommendations for improving contracting procedures and contract management processes to ensure that errors do not recur. With your concurrence, we also recover overpayments.

AMS-PAR conducts a wide variety of reviews, including:

Material suppliers
Service suppliers
Sales and Use tax
Construction contractors
Business ethics

Project Construction Review

With new construction costs reaching more significant levels in the utility marketplace, capital expenditures of over $100 million are no longer unusual. In this high-dollar environment, it is vital to have processes in place that provide your company and its rate payers with the assurance that your primary contractor and subcontractors comply with their contractual obligations. In projects where even small misinterpretations can mean very large overbillings, these contractor compliance reviews are a necessary component of any risk management and post-procurement process.

Our post-construction review creates a valuable opportunity to detect control weaknesses, close gaps on future contracts, and recover lost profits. In our typical reviews, recoveries are made in areas like improper billing for contractor time, inappropriate mark-up of costs, and rebilling for items that are contractually covered by overhead. AMS-PAR’s professional staff will carefully analyze payment processes, identify payment errors, and provide recommendations for contracting and payment process improvements.

Accounts Payable Review

Accounts Payable departments operate in a complex environment with both intra-corporate and external factors impacting their performance. AMS-PAR recognizes that each client has distinct needs and varying capabilities to support a post-payment transaction analysis. In spite of these differences, one overriding factor is constant: today’s business demands that all assets perform at their maximum efficiency, and the A/P Department is no exception.

AMS-PAR can provide the client with a comprehensive examination of the A/P function. This detailed look will recover revenues lost to vendor overpayments, mispayments, and contractual misinterpretations. AMS-PAR’s experienced team will also analyze the root causes of these inaccurate payments and give substantive recommendations regarding process and procedural improvements, which can prevent the recurrence of these errors. AMS-PAR will help ensure your payable processes are functioning at peak efficiency.

We will provide written and electronic reporting data to support our analysis. Your report will detail each discrepancy, its root cause, the vendor’s recognition of overpayment, and recommended actions for preventing future discrepancies.

Your AMS-PAR team will review all areas where inaccuracies can occur in their search for discrepancies. These areas include:

Vendor master file
Purchasing
Receiving
Returns
Capital expenditures
Tax and regulatory issues
Contracts
Internal controls

Joint Venture Review

AMS-PAR represents companies involved with domestic and international joint ventures to ensure that agreements are interpreted and applied correctly. We can also provide assistance when preparing agreements to make certain your interests are protected. Whether your venture arises from a jointly-owned generating facility, a joint-interest long-line transmission investment, a co-owned distribution system, or any other co-venture project, the AMS-PAR team has the experience to evaluate whether revenues, billings, and production allocations made to the joint venture partners were made in compliance with the contractual terms and conditions underlying the venture.

Our report will detail each discrepancy and provide guidance for resolving the identified concerns. We will provide written and electronic data to support each of the discrepancies.

Types of co-venture compliance reviews include:

Expense
Capital investment
Production allocation
Claim resolution
Project assistance