Benchmarking Your Property Costs: How to Identify Overpayments and Improve Efficiency

Understanding how your property costs compare to market standards is essential. Without benchmarking, overpayments, inefficiencies, and hidden charges can go unnoticed. EG-Audit provides independent audits and benchmarking insights to give you clarity, confidence, and control over your property expenses.

What Is Benchmarking?

Benchmarking compares your property costs to similar properties, industry standards, or historical data. The goal is to identify unusual charges, inefficiencies, or areas for improvement. Key areas for benchmarking include:

• Service charges for maintenance, cleaning, security, and management
• Energy and utility costs
• Business rates and local taxes
• Telecommunications and data services
• Other recoverable or discretionary charges

EG-Audit uses benchmarking as a tool to highlight discrepancies and potential savings opportunities.

Why Benchmarking Matters

Benchmarking provides multiple benefits for property professionals:

• Identify overpayments or inefficient spending
• Ensure charges are fair, transparent, and market-aligned
• Support negotiations or dispute resolution
• Improve budgeting, forecasting, and financial planning
• Provide evidence for management or stakeholder reporting

Without benchmarking, it’s difficult to know whether charges are reasonable or inflated.

Step 1: Collect Comprehensive Data

The first step in benchmarking is gathering all relevant data:

• Invoices for service charges, energy, utilities, and business rates
• Contracts and agreements with suppliers and service providers
• Historical billing data for comparison
• Property specifications and usage patterns
• External market or industry benchmarks

EG-Audit provides structured guidance to collect and organise this information efficiently.

Step 2: Compare Costs to Benchmarks

Once data is gathered, compare each cost category against relevant benchmarks:

• Service charges: Compare rates per square meter or per unit to similar properties
• Energy: Compare consumption costs per unit of output or property type
• Utilities: Check standing charges, usage rates, and additional fees
• Business rates: Compare rateable values and reliefs applied
• Other charges: Verify against historical spend and market norms

EG-Audit identifies deviations from benchmarks, highlighting areas for review or action.

Step 3: Identify Outliers and Potential Overpayments

Benchmarks allow you to spot unusual costs that may indicate overpayment or inefficiency:

• Charges consistently higher than comparable properties
• Unexpected increases or spikes in costs
• Duplicate, misallocated, or unexplained fees
• Services billed without evidence or contractual support

EG-Audit produces detailed reports highlighting these outliers with evidence for review or challenge.

Step 4: Take Corrective Action

Once potential overpayments or inefficiencies are identified, actions may include:

• Engaging suppliers or landlords to correct billing errors
• Recovering overpaid amounts or negotiating refunds
• Adjusting contracts or service levels to prevent recurrence
• Updating budgets and forecasts based on accurate data
• Implementing monitoring to detect future anomalies

EG-Audit supports property professionals throughout the corrective process, ensuring outcomes are practical and financially beneficial.

Ongoing Benchmarking

Benchmarking is not a one-time exercise. Continuous monitoring helps maintain cost control and identify new risks:

• Review costs quarterly or annually
• Update benchmarks with market data and property changes
• Track corrective actions and outcomes over time
• Maintain transparent reporting for stakeholders
• Engage independent audits periodically for objective verification

EG-Audit provides ongoing benchmarking support to maintain financial clarity and control.

Benefits of Benchmarking Property Costs

• Reduced risk of overpayment and financial loss
• Improved budgeting, forecasting, and planning
• Evidence-based negotiations and dispute resolution
• Enhanced transparency and accountability
• Confidence in financial management and stakeholder reporting

Benchmarking transforms uncertainty into actionable insights, giving property professionals control over their costs.

Take Action Today

Property costs can hide inefficiencies and overpayments. EG-Audit provides independent audits and benchmarking analysis to uncover errors, highlight savings opportunities, and guide corrective action. Take control, secure savings, and ensure transparency in your property management today.

What’s next?

Read Best Practices for Energy Procurement Audits

See how benchmarking helps with Auditing Service Charges for Multi-Tenant Properties