The mysterious case of the missing cost
The wonderful world of service charges - part solicitor, part accountant, part private investigator!
Service Charge teams very often have little control over the way business records are kept and the understanding of the business as to why they should care about the narrative and correct coding of service chargeable costs is often low. There are, however, a few things that can make a difference:
Don't sit in your own silo. Get out and talk to the business. Explain why its important. Every penny not correctly recouped is money your organisation cannot spend on its purpose. Walk them through what you need. This isn't a one time thing... you need to develop an ongoing dialogue with your organisation.
Actualise throughout the year. Not only do you remove the peaks from your work, but it allows you to follow up for information when people have a better chance of remembering. If you have a repair cost that doesn't have enough information about the location of the works, someone is more likely to remember a few weeks after the works, rather than 12 months or more later.
Combine both of the above and create a feedback loop; things you spot that aren't right, poor coding practices, errors etc. can be addressed much more quickly if you can communicate them nice and early.
While going full Sherlock on a missing cost can be quite fun sometimes - the steps above will stop it becoming the norm.
