How long does a single-account audit typically take you from start to finish? I'm spending about 8-10 hours per account and wondering if I'm too slow or if that's normal.
How long should a single-account audit take?
Depends on the account size. Small commercial under $5K/month: 2-4 hours. Mid-size commercial $5-20K: 4-8 hours. Large commercial or industrial $20K+: 8-16 hours. Your 8-10 hours sounds about right for a mid-to-large account. Speed comes with experience — I was at 12-15 hours per account in my first year and now I'm at 4-6 for most accounts because I know exactly what to look for.
Karen W.'s ranges are consistent with what I see across the industry. The biggest time variable is data collection — if the utility provides clean billing data quickly, the analysis goes fast. If you're chasing data for 3 weeks, the clock keeps running. One tip for speed: build templates. If you audit 10 accounts on the same utility, the tariff research only needs to be done once. The rate comparison, rider verification, and franchise fee check are the same for every account on that utility. Reuse your work.
The template reuse idea is huge. I've been researching the same tariff from scratch for every account. Going to build utility-specific templates this week. Should cut my time significantly.