Revenue leakage is often hidden between contractor systems

The patterns below are consistent across mechanical, electrical, fire and security, facilities and general maintenance contractors. They differ in scale, not in kind.

1. Variations agreed verbally

An engineer on site is asked to do a little more. The client is happy. Nobody prices it. The original order value is what eventually gets invoiced, and the extra work becomes goodwill that nobody chose to give.

2. Completed jobs that never enter the billing run

The job is closed operationally but never appears on anyone's invoicing list. This is the purest form of leakage because there is no partial record to prompt anybody. It is examined in detail on job completed but not invoiced.

3. Reactive work absorbed into contracts

Out-of-scope attendances get treated as covered because checking is slower than doing. Over a year, a maintenance contract silently subsidises chargeable work.

4. Recommendations that never become quotes

An engineer identifies genuine remedial work. The note stays in the job record. No quote is issued, no follow-up happens. This is pipeline rather than leaked revenue, and RegentOps reports it separately for that reason.

5. Cost creep with no billing response

Materials and subcontract costs rise on a job while the billed value stays fixed. The margin is lost long before anyone reviews job profitability.

Contracting margins are thin enough that leakage lands almost entirely on profit rather than turnover. A £1m business working on 8% net margin earns £80,000. Leakage of £30,000 is not 3% of that business; it is well over a third of its profit.

We deliberately avoid quoting an industry-average leakage figure. Published benchmarks vary widely by sector and methodology, and a number borrowed from another industry tells you nothing about your own operation. Your figure is measurable with your own data.

Commercial problems are cheapest to resolve while the job is fresh, the client remembers the conversation and the engineer is still contactable. Six months later the same finding is a negotiation.

• Compare, don't report

  Reporting describes what exists. Reconciliation exposes what is absent.

• Work from evidence

  Chase an item only when the underlying records support it. Guesses damage client relationships.

• Separate the categories

  Unbilled work, margin risk and sales opportunity are different conversations with different owners.

• Record the resolution

  A dismissed finding with a reason is as valuable as a recovered one — it stops the same question returning.

The software category built around this is described on revenue leakage software.