Builders and timber merchants
High invoice volume hides small losses very well.
Merchanting runs on trade credit and thousands of low-value transactions across branches. Individually nothing is worth chasing. Collectively, the accounts that drifted past terms, the pricing that never got reviewed and the charge that went on twice add up to real money nobody has counted.
Trade accounts that drifted past their terms
What LeakIQ detects
- Invoices past their due date and still unpaid
- How many days past terms each balance is
- Total exposure per account
- Balances that settle later, resolved automatically
The problem
Every merchant carries a tail of unpaid trade invoices, and most of it is normal. What is hard to see is which accounts have quietly moved from slow to stuck, because the ledger shows a balance but not a trajectory, and nobody in particular owns the chase.
How LeakIQ surfaces it
LeakIQ turns your aged debtors into a worklist: every overdue balance with its age and value, ranked by exposure so the largest, oldest accounts surface first. Each one gets an owner and a deadline, and anything paid outside the system clears itself on the next sync.
Account pricing nobody has reviewed
What LeakIQ detects
- Accounts invoiced at an unchanged value across years
- The annualised value of each one
- How many anniversaries passed with no change
- The full invoice history behind the flag
The problem
Account pricing gets set when the relationship starts and then it persists. Cost prices move, list prices move, and the negotiated rate on a long-standing account often does not, because changing it requires someone to notice and then have the conversation.
How LeakIQ surfaces it
LeakIQ flags the accounts whose invoice value has not moved through one or more anniversaries and shows what each is worth annually. It has no sight of your agreements, so it presents the shortlist rather than a conclusion, and your team decides which are due a review.
The same charge, twice
What LeakIQ detects
- The same customer charged the same amount twice in a short window
- How far apart the two charges landed
- The excess taken beyond a single charge
- Both source records, side by side
The problem
Counter sales, account sales and card payments across branches make double charging easy and hard to spot. The customer usually finds it before you do, and by then it arrives as a chargeback with a fee attached, or as a phone call that costs you goodwill.
How LeakIQ surfaces it
When the same customer is charged the same amount twice within a short window and both settle, LeakIQ raises it for confirmation. It says possible rather than certain, because a customer genuinely buying twice looks identical in the data, and asks your team to verify before refunding.
Part-paid invoices nobody went back to
What LeakIQ detects
- Trade invoices where part of the balance was paid and the rest is past due
- How much was paid and how much is still outstanding on each one
- How many days past terms the remainder has sat
- The source record behind the flag, so the shortfall can be confirmed
The problem
Part-payment is routine in merchanting. A customer settles most of a statement but short-pays a disputed delivery line, or clears the counter portion of an order and leaves the account balance behind. Because money came in against the invoice, it stops looking unpaid, so it drops off the chase list while a real balance is still owed.
How LeakIQ surfaces it
LeakIQ surfaces every invoice that is part-paid and past its due date, showing the amount paid against the amount still outstanding and ranking by the value left to collect. The customer has already paid something, so the shortfall is usually the most collectable money in the ledger, and each one goes to your team as a short review list to confirm and chase.
The same delivery invoiced twice
What LeakIQ detects
- The same account invoiced the same amount twice within a short window
- How far apart the two invoices were raised
- The value billed over and above a single invoice
- Both source invoices, so the duplicate can be confirmed
The problem
A delivery note becomes an invoice, a counter ticket becomes an invoice, and a month-end run can sweep the same order up again. On a trade account the customer does not pay at the till, so a double invoice does not take their money, it overstates the account balance and rides along on the statement until someone queries it. A customer who finds one delivery billed twice stops trusting the whole statement and starts auditing every line on it.
How LeakIQ surfaces it
LeakIQ flags where the same account was invoiced the same amount twice inside a short window and puts both source invoices side by side. It says possible rather than certain, because a customer genuinely ordering the same thing twice looks identical in the data, so your team confirms before crediting the account.
Credit notes nobody went back and applied
What LeakIQ detects
- Accounts holding a credit balance while invoices sit unpaid
- The value of the credit parked on each account
- The open invoices that credit could be clearing
- The source records behind both sides
The problem
Merchanting generates credit notes constantly: a returned load, a short delivery, a pricing correction, an overpayment allocated the wrong way. The credit gets raised and then forgotten, while the same account carries invoices past their terms that the credit could have settled. Cash sits idle on both sides, the credit unused and the invoice unpaid, until the customer remembers and asks for the money back.
How LeakIQ surfaces it
LeakIQ surfaces the accounts holding a credit while open invoices sit against them, with the value on each side. Your team decides whether to apply the credit to the outstanding balance or refund it, instead of leaving it stranded on the account.
Want to see an example of the free report you'd receive?
The headline figures, then every finding with its amount, the customers affected and the source records behind it.
More sectors
Where revenue leaks in other industries.
Revenue recovery for waste and environmental services
Indexed contracts still billing last year's rate.
Read more→Revenue recovery for facilities, cleaning, security and pest control
Contract rates that never moved while wage costs rose.
Read more→Revenue recovery for equipment leasing and managed services
Recurring charges that never tracked the agreement.
Read more→“My team recently started using LeakIQ and found over £49k of leakage across our systems within the first month.”
Free revenue leakage report
See what it finds in your own numbers.
Connect your billing and accounting systems and LeakIQ will show you the ageing accounts, the pricing that never moved and any duplicate charges sitting in your own ledger, with the underlying records attached.
Read-only. LeakIQ never writes back to your systems and never moves money.
Prefer to find these yourself first? read the guide to finding it in a builders merchant.