have a confession to make. I used to be an accountant in an earlier life and loved auditing. I still do.

My love of auditing comes in handy at each show I attend, as I sit down to audit my invoices while I’m still on the show floor. If you don’t audit your invoice on-site, you won’t see your bill again until it surfaces as a line item on your credit card, when you may have to locate information to back up the charges and get them paid by your accounting department.

FACT: It’s easier and simpler to audit your show invoices while you’re on-site because the general service contractor’s (GSC’s) service-desk staff have your paperwork backing up all of your charges. You can jointly review your charges and ask them to explain any you don’t understand. At that time, they can still call their staff on-site who delivered that broken table or laid your electrical but didn’t use the extension cords you pre-ordered. And they can fix any inaccurate charges you identify.

Where Are These Bills Coming From?
You’ll be receiving a number of mid-show and post-show invoices from the contractors and vendors who have provided your show services. These contractors can include the GSC, which provides material handling, installation and dismantle (I&D) labor, rigging, exhibit and furniture rental, carpet, pad, and cleaning services; exclusive contractors, which manage electrical and telecommunications services; and specialty subcontractors, which provide audiovisual and computer rentals, floral and plant rentals, custom furniture rentals, etc.

You should also receive a preliminary invoice (aka pseudo invoice) from the GSC during the show. This is usually delivered to your booth or left on a counter in your exhibit the next-to-last or last day of the trade show. This timed delivery allows the GSC to get as many charges as possible on your invoice and still allow you the opportunity to review your charges with personnel at the service desk. Depending on the size of your invoice, you may even receive a visit from a roving “ambassador” to make sure you sign off on the charges. This preliminary invoice amount may turn out to be the final amount you owe, but it’s always subject to the GSC’s audit and any post-show charges such as overtime outbound material handling.

Depending on the GSC and its billing system, the items listed on your invoice may or may not be dated. Some invoices list only the GSC’s paperwork-tracking number, the item description, and cost. The line items on your invoice also may not be listed in chronological order, so the charges for your I&D labor that may have spanned a number of days may be out of order. Other GSCs break down charges by the type of charge and cluster similar items together.

After I receive my on-site invoices, I compare the exact amounts of each line item on my invoices to my service-order forms and order confirmations. This gets tricky if each of your individual forms includes tax, and the GSC invoice only has one line item titled “total tax” at the bottom.

If the costs don’t match, my first guess is that maybe the GSC didn’t credit my invoice with my early bird discounts. Having e-mail- or fax-confirmation forms will help your case if there is a disagreement over whether your form arrived on time.

Over the years I’ve had all types of errors on my show invoices. Here are some of the most common ones:

Material Handling
Incorrect weight. I almost had a heart attack when I was charged material-handling fees not only for the weight of my freight, but also the weight of the entire tractor-trailer when the gross, not tare, weight was used to compute my bill. If you know what your freight generally weighs and have a discrepancy of a couple of hundred pounds, it could mean your driver filled up the rig’s fuel tank shortly before the rig’s weight was logged at the certified scales.
Incorrect rate per hundredweight (CWT). Always check the rate per CWT you’re being charged for your type of freight and compare it to the rates quoted on the material-handling form in your exhibitor manual. I was unpleasantly surprised once when I was erroneously charged a special-handling fee for a crated, floor-loaded truckload and for a mixed load (blanket-wrap and crated) when I had no pad-wrap.
Overtime or off-target material-handling charges. You can generally verify when your truck arrived to deliver your freight by checking your freight paperwork at the GSC’s service desk. I’ve been billed overtime (OT) for my move-out material handling when only 10 minutes of my two-hour load-out was actually moved on OT and also when my crates were misdelivered to another part of the hall after the show, causing a domino effect that resulted in OT. In both cases, I contested the OT charges, and the fees were removed.
Accessible storage. Be sure you understand how you will be billed for storing and accessing any items you have placed in accessible storage during the show. Two kinds of charges should show up on your invoice: a single setup fee and a material-handling charge for each time you access your storage.
Marshaling-yard fees. Since it costs the GSC to rent, staff, and maintain the marshaling yard, some of these fees may be passed on to you. But beware of paying marshaling-yard fees for your deliveries if the company delivering your freight is a small-package carrier such as FedEx, DHL, or UPS, since this freight is usually delivered to a special small-package dock site and generally does not go through the marshaling yard.
On-site weight slips. Some GSCs maintain a portable scale in the marshaling yard for those exhibitors whose trucks do not arrive with a certified weight slip; others weigh all incoming shipments in order to catch fraudulent or inaccurate weight slips.
Small-package rate. Some shows offer a small-package rate for packages under a specified weight, such as 35 pounds. Check your invoice for any small packages that qualify to make sure you are not paying for the 200- to 300-pound minimum that is standard at most shows.

GSC or EAC Labor
Hours worked. Compare the charges on your invoice to your “hard cards,” the slips of paper that document the names, start and stop times, and total hours worked by your I&D team. Verify the total number of straight time and overtime hours billed. I recently did a setup on Veteran’s Day, and even though it wasn’t noted in the exhibitor manual, exhibitors were charged double-time for all labor hours that day. Luckily, I had negotiated my I&D and electrical labor as a flat rate with pre-show fixed quotes, so this holiday surprise didn’t affect my bottom line.
Contract rates. If you are using an exhibitor-appointed contractor (EAC) for I&D labor, check your invoice to make sure that you are being charged per your contract. A few years ago when I was doing a teardown at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, I learned that the contract called for the GSC’s laborers to be paid straight time for the first eight hours they worked, regardless of start time. My EAC was charging me the equivalent of the GSC’s overtime rate as soon as teardown started at 4 p.m. because that was how its EAC contract was structured — and because it could, since its contract was for “service,” not just “labor.”
Double billing. Check the labor rates, number of hours, miscellaneous supplies, and cost of travel expenses, especially if your labor isn’t local. Many years ago, I caught my EAC double billing — charging both myself and another exhibitor for 100 percent of the day rate, air fare, hotel, and per diem of a lead person we were unknowingly sharing when we each signed a contract with the EAC. He kept disappearing from my booth, and I finally followed him and talked with the second on-site client. When I questioned this billing practice all the way up to the EAC’s company president, he told me this is a common practice in the industry and to “get over it.” I did — and permanently got over using this company for my EAC labor.

I&D Materials
If you provided your own I&D materials, such as double-sided carpet tape, Visqueen (a plastic protective covering for carpet during setup), Velcro, cleaning supplies, strapping, or stretch wrap, make sure your I&D contractor didn’t charge you for these items.

Overhead Rigging
In the fine print on the form for having signs hung above your exhibit, you will find that safety regulations involved with hanging items, such as signs, banners, and overhead truss, require riggers to supply their own materials, including shackles and cable. You will be charged for those materials. Your invoice will show your rigging crew’s labor time, large equipment like scissor lifts, plus rental of reusable materials and purchase of non-reusable materials. In some union jurisdictions, riggers work in pairs, and if your hanging signage or truss needs electrical power for movement or lighting, an electrician will join the crew to perform these duties, which means you’ll find additional electrical charges on your bill.

Carpet, Pad, and Cleaning
Included costs. Read your carpet order form carefully to find out exactly what is included. Some GSCs bundle carpet, pad, tape, Visqueen, labor, and multi-day cleaning into a cost-saving package. Others charge individually for these items and may allow you to choose only specific days for vacuuming, which may be billed at a higher rate.
Phantom carpet. Beware of phantom carpet. If you rent carpet from the GSC for your 10-by-10-foot exhibit, it will probably only be 9-by-10 feet when it is laid in your booth space, with the 1-foot shortfall at the back. Carpet suppliers recycle 9-foot-wide aisle carpet to use in your booth. But, you will still be charged the 100-square-foot minimum for vacuuming your phantom carpet. If you dispute this, some GSCs will reduce your cleaning bill by 10 percent. It never hurts to ask.

Exclusive Contractors — Electrical
Electrical Services. Because electrical service is part of the venue’s infrastructure, an exclusive contractor, whose electricians are familiar with the venue, installs all electrical power. You’ll be billed for the amount of power you order, labor to install it, and the cost of renting any materials such as extension cords and adapters necessary to connect your power to your equipment and lighting.
Ordered power. Verify the amount of power you ordered, and be sure you receive any early bird electrical discounts, which are the most substantial of all show contractors’ discounts. Always check for electrical surcharges, such as for 24-hour, high-voltage (208V), or multi-phase power. At last month’s show, I realized the electrical contractor only charged one 50-percent surcharge for any combination of 24-hour, high-voltage, or multi-phase power, when the order form made it look like each would add 50 percent to the base power cost.
Hours Worked. There’s nothing wrong with questioning the number of hours it takes to install and remove your electrical wiring if you believe the charge is excessive. I recently was charged three hours to terminate a 208-volt, three-phase power drop into a power supply box in my exhibit during installation, but removing the connections took only 10 minutes. Based on the standard formula on the electrical order form, I should have been charged half as much for the removal of electrical as the installation, but I negotiated it back to the one-hour minimum, saving a half-hour at overtime rates.
On-site extras. The electrical contractor at a recent EXHIBITOR conference charged one small exhibitor, using two 50-watt stem lights and a lead scanner that took less than 100 watts, for a second 500-watt outlet. The electrician’s rationale for adding the second outlet and charging the on-site rate for it was that lighting and equipment took different kinds of power. As I tried to get to the bottom of this ridiculous statement, the electrical contractor blamed everyone from the local fire marshal to the venue’s power supply. He finally admitted that the format of the electrical order form caused the confusion. The form first asked exhibitors to compute their lighting in watts, and then to compute their electrical requirements in amps on another line.

Subcontractors’ Rental Furnishings, Computers, and AV
Check your invoice to compare the items you ordered vs. the items that were delivered. Was your furniture damaged when you received it? Were your AV rentals properly installed when promised? Were your flowers and plants fresh throughout the show?

If the tasks or products weren’t performed to your satisfaction, don’t be afraid to ask the vendor for replacements or credits to your final invoice.

It’s Not Over ‘til It’s Over
After the show, you’ll be receiving final charges. Watch your credit-card statement for double billings, and keep a running list of overpayment credits for which you expect either a credit on your account, or a physical check. Since contractors are often very slow in closing out a show and posting the final credits for over payments, I have a column on my budget spreadsheet that allows me to track which payments have already been made and the dates of receipt.

A little extra diligence in auditing your show bills can add up to a healthier bottom line for your company. e