How to reduce your company’s bank fees in 2020
It’s a new year and it seems everyone is on a diet, trying to cut carbs and trim fat any way they can. How about trimming the fat from your company, specifically its bank fees?
A comprehensive bank statement analysis can identify billing errors, allow you to recognize unnecessary accounts, and help you flag services that are no longer relevant to your company’s structure.
Keep reading to learn four things you can do now to start trimming the fat and reducing your company’s bank fees in 2020.
Request billing statements
It is common for bank fees to be automatically deducted from corporate bank accounts. Many of these auto-debits do not go through an approval process. It is assumed these charges are accurate and without error. However, approximately 7-10% of bank fees are billed in error every month! Even if you are auto-debited, it’s important to retrieve billing statements for analysis. Review our 2018 BSB Survey Results to better understand which banks can provide which types of billing statements and in which regions.
Identify discrepancies
Are you sure that overdraft fee on your last statement was due to the company’s error or was that a bank error you are now paying for? Errors happen – it’s a way of life, but when it comes to the fees your company will pay every month, you’ll want to ensure the pricing structure is set up accurately and review that monthly to ensure accuracy.
With a comprehensive review of bank billing statements, you can identify discrepancies in the pricing structure or how often you are billed for a variety of line items. Upon locating a mistake, it will be up to the company to bring it up to the bank and request a resolution. If a refund can be issued, it may take a considerable amount of time before your company recognizes the refund.
Track fees
Your historical data gives you a bird’s eye view to what’s going on with your business. Has the volume of fees or fee pricing changed recently without explanation? It is imperative that you make sure that your bank charges you the correct fees from the very beginning. Not knowing service line items or their applicable codes allows for erroneous charges or duplicate charges to manifest. It’s important to understand the coding system your bank uses on the statements.
Automate the process
The advancement of technology affords you the option of increased productivity. By automating and digitizing the bank fee analysis and tracking, you can nearly eliminate errors. Our team of analytic experts developed HawkeyeBSB, a revolutionary bank fee monitoring software, for the sole purpose of monitoring, managing, and reducing corporate bank fees globally.
How Redbridge can help
We know these steps can seem daunting, but with over 20 years of experience requesting billing statements, identifying discrepancies, tracking fees, and automating the process, we can guide through the entire process. We manage a robust database to provide a detailed estimate of potential cash management improvements – from resetting your money flow conditions to optimizing the use of banking services.
Contact us today to begin trimming the fat off your company’s banking fees.