4 Ways To Drive More Value From Your Recovery Audit
[xf_one_full first min_height=” vertical_alignment=” align=” space=” margin=’0px’ padding=’30px’ border=” border_color=” radius=’0px’ background_color=” src=” background_position=’top left’ background_repeat=’no-repeat’ animation_type=” animation_duration=’0.5′ animation_delay=’0.5′] [xf_textblock size=” font_color=” color=” animation_type=” animation_duration=’0.5′ animation_delay=’0.5′]4 Ways To Drive More Value From Your Recovery Audit
- Accelerate Reviews – Leverage your current recovery audit and get more out of what you’ve been doing for years by moving to near real time detection and correction. When you move to monthly audit reviews everyone can focus on today’s business instead of last year’s mistakes and improves the experience for all stakeholders, finance, merchants and vendors alike.
- Bring your audit in house to reduce the cost of recovery – Get the audit tools, training and data support services for your team to outperform the pros and save a boatload of money as well. Learn how Tops Markets used these tools to become so effective that the external primary audit firm recently resigned after several years of virtually no findings.
- Get access to prepared datasets – With your move to near real-time reviews you get the ability to gain access to near real-time assimilated P-2-P transaction data which can be repurposed to a variety of new value channels like ad hoc queries and research.
- Get visibility to supplier trade funds – Give your merchants a real negotiating advantage through visibility to supplier trade funds and on-demand vendor scorecards by leveraging the repurposed data.
You call the shots on recovery audit and we would like to help you understand how you can drive more value from your recovery audit. To learn more, drop us a replay and we will set up a short chat and if desired a complete system demonstration from recovery audit through our TradeView™ Analytics applications.
About Audit Technology Group LLC – Audit Technology group is a cloud based purchase transaction science company that’s thinking bigger about recovery auditing. We specialize in near real-time payment error detection and correction, business intelligence and analytics solutions serving retail and retail grocery within the fortune 1000.
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Tops Friendly Markets is First Retail Grocer to Adopt Monthly Recovery Audits
[xf_one_full first min_height=” vertical_alignment=” align=” space=” margin=’0px’ padding=’30px’ border=” border_color=” radius=’0px’ background_color=” src=” background_position=’top left’ background_repeat=’no-repeat’ animation_type=” animation_duration=’0.5′ animation_delay=’0.5′] [xf_textblock size=” font_color=” color=” animation_type=” animation_duration=’0.5′ animation_delay=’0.5′]Tops CFO reports many levels of success in near real-time audits
Chicago IL, January 5, 2012 – Tops Friendly Markets, its merchandise managers, vendors and accounting firm are seeing impressive benefits since Tops began implementing monthly recovery audits.
Tops’ CFO Rick Mills reports, “Since moving our recovery process in-house to existing staff with near real-time technology, we are on track to reduce our recovery expense by almost half. These changes will accelerate our recovery by at least one year. The faster turn-around time for our cash is extraordinary.”
Tops credits Audit Technology Group (ATG) technology and teamwork as the secret to its recovery audit success. Tops has incorporated RecoverNow™, the near real-time audit process powered by ATG’s web application audit tools, and ATG-Advantage™, the in-house solution enabling internal staff to conduct recovery audits using the ATG web audit tools and data preparation services. Tops Markets is Audit Technology Group’s first fully installed ATG-Advantage™ client implementing monthly recovery audits.
Tops’ vendors have been pleased with the changes. Vendors dislike traditional post-annual audits because past years’ recoveries impact their current year financials. The response from Tops’ vendor community has been positive because recoveries are usually identified, reconciled and closed in less than three months.
Mills said that Tops’ merchandise staff is also happier with the near real-time recoveries. Mills states, “In the spirit of vendor partnership, near real-time recovery is much better. The situation is fresher in our minds and the turn-around time is faster for our cash. Ultimately, this change improves our buyers’ margins and funding.”
Mills said with certainty, “Our external auditors, as well as our partners in the vendor community, are favorably impressed with the improved cost recovery practices RecoverNow™ and ATG-Advantage™ is providing Tops. Dealing with promotional
contracts from one or two years ago is a thing of the past”.
Audit Technology Group’s ATG EVP and Chief Marketing Officer Paul Dinkins said, “Tops’ ATG-Advantage™ implementation has been a case study in success. It has been a win-win for Tops Friendly Markets and its key stakeholders.”
About Tops Friendly Markets
Tops Friendly Markets, LLC (www.topsmarkets.com) is headquartered in Williamsville, NY. It operates 126 full-service supermarkets and five franchise supermarkets. With more than 13,000 associates, Tops is a leading full-service grocery retailer in upstate New York and northern Pennsylvania.
About RecoverNow™ and near neal-time audits
RecoverNow™ reduces the human resources required to perform an audit, so it is a cost-effective solution that both digs deeper and can do so more frequently. RecoverNow™ replaces the annual audit process with monthly reviews.
Near real-time audits can increase recoveries by as much as 30 percent because errors are detected and presented as adjustments to individual invoices close to the transaction. Rather than old, larger aggregated claims, vendors are presented with timely individual invoice adjustments eliminating age-related rejection by vendors. Research supports that for each one billion dollars of retail sales, grocers may expect to recover between $750,000 and $1,000,000.
About ATG-Advantage™
ATG-Advantage™ is Audit Technology Group’s service option for use by clients’ internal staff. It provides ATG data preparation and hosting along with deployment of ATG’s eRecover™ and eResolve™ web audit tools. ATG provides training and support to ensure the optimum performance of the client team. ATG is available, if needed, to augment a
client’s staff when additional resources are required.
Bringing the recovery audit process in-house achieves the lowest possible cost of recovery. ATG-Advantage™ offers virtually no risk for implementers because existing recovery audit service providers can remain in place as a safety net until their recovery results become negligible.
About Audit Technology Group LLC
Since 2004, the Audit Technology Group has provided recovery audit services to retailers and grocers across the United States. ATG’s objective is to transform recovery auditing from a legacy post-annual process to a near real-time solution that improves the overall experience for all stakeholders. ATG is headquartered in Chicago IL. For more information, visit www.atgaudits.com or call (970) 672-4147.
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Paul Dinkins, pdinkins@atgaudits.com, (970) 372-4269
Near Real-Time Recovery Improves Relationships at Hy-Vee
[xf_one_full first min_height=” vertical_alignment=” align=” space=” margin=’0px’ padding=’30px’ border=” border_color=” radius=’0px’ background_color=” src=” background_position=’top left’ background_repeat=’no-repeat’ animation_type=” animation_duration=’0.5′ animation_delay=’0.5′] [xf_textblock size=” font_color=” color=” animation_type=” animation_duration=’0.5′ animation_delay=’0.5′]Near Real-Time Recovery Improves Relationships at Hy-Vee
Chicago IL, December 19, 2011 – For decades, legacy recovery audits have cost retailers money and goodwill with their vendors. Hy-Vee is implementing a way to improve their bottom line and their vendor relationships – near real-time auditing.
Hy-Vee’s Vice President of Purchasing and Marketing Mark McQuistan states, “Implementing a near real-time audit process is helping us eliminate the negative aspects of recovery audits by bringing the audit closer to the transaction. Traditional post-annual audits were a disaster for vendor relations.”
“I see no negatives to near real-time auditing. We are getting all the money we deserve and getting it faster. The buyers and the vendors are happier,” said McQuistan.
Hy-Vee is implementing Audit Technology Group’s (ATG) RecoverNow™, the near real-time audit process powered by ATG’s web application audit tools, and ATG-Advantage™, the in-house solution that enables internal staff to conduct recovery audits using the ATG web audit tools and data preparation services.
Buyers are enjoying less recovery work overall. Identifying errors more frequently and closer to the transaction means that buyers receive a smaller number of issues at one time. Researching possible errors is easier because the transactions occurred recently. And, because the audit is happening in-house, buyers are discussing details and supporting data with their Hy-Vee peers, not an outside consultant.
McQuistan said, “In the past when we found a problem from one or two years back, the ‘recovered funds’ were often taken from this year’s promotional funding. Because we are addressing issues within the same fiscal year, we are able to maximize the best possible deals for our customers. That makes everyone happier.”
McQuistan had kudos for Audit Technology Group, too. “One benefit of the implementation I had not expected was ATG’s sensitivity to Hy-Vee’s culture and expectations. Each grocer has nuances in the way they do business. ATG adapted custom audit routines for Hy-Vee’s unique rules.”
McQuistan closed by saying, “I see Hy-Vee making more money because of this important change.”
About Hy-Vee
Hy-Vee, Inc. is an employee-owned corporation operating 233 retail stores in eight Midwestern states. For 2011 the company will record total sales of $7.2 billion, ranking it among the top 25 supermarket chains and the top 50 private companies in the United States. Visit the company’s website at www.hy-vee.com.
About RecoverNow™ and near real-time audits
RecoverNow™ reduces the human resources required to perform an audit, so it is a cost-effective solution that both digs deeper and can do so more frequently. RecoverNow™ replaces the annual audit process with daily, weekly or monthly reviews.
Near real-time audits can increase recoveries by as much as 30 percent because errors are detected and presented as adjustments to individual invoices close to the transaction. Rather than old, larger aggregated claims, vendors are presented with timely individual invoice adjustments eliminating age-related rejection by vendors. Research supports that for each one billion dollars of retail sales, grocers may expect to recover between $750,000 and $1,000,000.
About ATG-Advantage™
ATG-Advantage™ is Audit Technology Group’s service option for use by clients’ internal staff. It provides ATG data preparation and hosting along with deployment of ATG’s eRecover™ and eResolve™ web audit tools. ATG provides training and support to ensure the optimum performance of the client team. ATG is available, if needed, to augment a client’s staff when additional resources are required.
Bringing the recovery audit process in-house achieves the lowest possible cost of recovery. ATG-Advantage™ offers virtually no risk for implementers, because existing recovery audit service providers can remain in place as a safety net until their recovery results become negligible.
About Audit Technology Group LLC
Since 2004, the Audit Technology Group has provided recovery audit services to retailers and grocers across the United States. ATG’s objective is to transform recovery auditing from a legacy post-annual process to a near real-time solution that improves the overall experience for all stakeholders. ATG is headquartered in Chicago IL. For more information, visit www.atgaudits.com or call (970) 672-4147.
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Paul Dinkins, pdinkins@atgaudits.com, (970) 372-4269