Three weeks into a major retail audit and only have bills from about half the locations. Corporate accounting is overwhelmed, individual stores don't keep good records, and some utilities require separate requests per location. How do you manage bill collection at this scale without losing your sanity?
Collecting bills from 300+ locations - logistics nightmare
Marcus, I feel your pain. Best approach is multi-pronged: work with corporate AP to get what they have, then hit the utilities directly with bulk requests. Also train the corporate contact to lean on store managers - they usually have bills filed somewhere.
Omar's approach works. Also create a status tracking sheet showing exactly what's missing from each location. Share it with your corporate contact weekly - the visual really helps them understand scope and urgency.
Good tips, thanks. The tracking sheet idea is brilliant - sending that over today. Some of these locations have 3-4 different utility accounts so keeping track is critical.