Where it leaks
Certified less than applied, then never chased
Where the finance data shows an invoice raised below the applied or certified value, the shortfall sits as a short payment that no one goes back to collect.
Retentions that fall due but are never released
A retention held against a project is a scheduled amount that should return at practical completion or end of defects, and where no matching invoice or credit ever appears it stays unbilled.
Variations done but not valued in the next application
Variations get carried out on site and never picked up in a valuation, so later applications go out for less than the work actually done.
Subcontractor recharges that go one way
Costs recharged to subcontractors show as issued charges, and where the expected recharge invoice is missing or a credit note is applied without the offsetting charge, the recovery leaks.
Staged and recurring billing that quietly stops
A regular staged charge or retention drawdown that ceases mid-project is a stopped recurring charge, easy to miss when a job runs across many months and many applications.
Duplicate applications and duplicate credit notes
Re-issued applications and re-keyed valuations create duplicate invoices, and credit notes raised twice or never applied leave the ledger overstating recovery or writing off money that was owed.
The scale
It is commonly estimated that around 1% to 3% of revenue leaks before it reaches the bank, and GoCardless has observed that roughly 2.9% of Direct Debit payments fail across about 55,000 businesses. As an illustration only, on a contractor turning over £20m, 1% to 3% is roughly £200k to £600k a year.
How it is found
It is found read-only from your own accounting and payment data, with no change to your systems or your applications process, and with no implementation to sit through first.
Take the full guide with you
If it would help to see your own number, you can get a free read of where your finance data suggests revenue is leaking.
Common questions
Does this work when we bill through applications for payment and certifications, not simple invoices?
Yes. It reads the values actually raised and paid in your accounting and payment systems, so it can see where a certified or applied amount was billed short, paid short or never collected, regardless of how the application process is run.
Can it tell us about retentions and variations we have not been paid for?
It works from the finance data, so it finds the application that aged unpaid, the short payment, the credit raised and never applied, and the rate that never moved between applications. It cannot flag a missing retention release, because nothing in the ledger records what retention was due or when it fell due: that sits in the contract. It reads the money, not the contract clauses.
Will connecting it disrupt live projects or our finance team?
No. The read is read-only from your own finance data, it changes nothing in your systems or your billing, and it needs no implementation project first.
How is this different from an aged debtors report or a Power BI or Tableau dashboard?
An aged debtors report, or a dashboard in Power BI or Tableau, shows what is already on your ledger: invoices you raised that have not been paid. Revenue leakage is the money that never reached the ledger correctly in the first place, under-billed, never invoiced, or failed on collection and never chased, so it usually never appears on a debtors report at all. That is what this audit looks for.
Keep reading
- What revenue leakage is
The plain definition, and why earned revenue slips before the bank.
- Revenue leakage in every other sector
The same field guide for facilities, waste, logistics, security and more.
