The industry stat is stark: 1 in 5 energy bills contain errors. Wrong unit rates, incorrect VAT, standing charge mismatches, estimated reads that never get corrected. Inspired PLC processed 2.5 million bills last year and recovered £37 million in overcharges.
That money was sitting in plain sight on invoices that nobody checked properly.
The problem with manual checking
Most brokers validate bills by hand. Open the bill, open a spreadsheet, compare the numbers line by line. It takes 15-30 minutes per bill on a good day. On a bad day, it doesn't happen at all.
When you're managing 200 customers, each with quarterly bills across gas and electricity, that's 1,600 bills a year. At 20 minutes each, that's over 500 hours — the equivalent of a quarter of a full-time employee doing nothing but checking bills.
Most brokers don't have that capacity. So they check the ones that look obviously wrong and hope for the best on the rest. Errors slip through.
What gets missed
The most common errors we see:
- Unit rates that don't match the contract. The supplier applies the wrong tariff, or a rate change kicks in at the wrong date.
- VAT at the wrong percentage. Many businesses qualify for the reduced 5% rate but get charged 20%.
- CCL charged incorrectly. Exempt organisations being charged the Climate Change Levy, or the wrong rate applied.
- Estimated reads that never get trued up. The supplier estimates consumption for months, the meter is never read, and the bills drift.
- Standing charge mismatches. The daily fixed charge doesn't match what was agreed in the contract.
- Duplicate bills. The same period billed twice.
Each of these is recoverable money. But only if someone catches it.
Why it matters for brokers specifically
Bill validation isn't just about saving your clients money. It's about keeping them.
A broker who finds an overcharge is a hero. A broker who validates every bill and proves they're correct builds trust that no competitor can undercut. Bill validation is a retention tool disguised as a cost-saving exercise.
The broker who checks the bills keeps the account. The broker who doesn't loses it to whoever does.
What automated validation changes
Automated validation means every bill gets checked. Not just the ones that look suspicious. Not just the big ones. Every single invoice, every charge, against the contract on file.
Clean bills pass through with a green tick. Errors get flagged with the overcharge in pounds and the evidence behind it. Your team only sees the problems — and they arrive with a drafted supplier query ready to send.
That's the difference between hoping you caught everything and knowing you did.
Getting started
If you're a broker checking bills manually — or not checking them at all — automated validation is the single highest-impact change you can make to your operation.
Try Edge free and see what your first 10 bills look like when every charge is validated automatically.