What we audit
Packaging, pallets, freight and waste hauling, together
OpEx Agent audits four operating costs of a physical business. Each is paid on recurring invoices with many small lines, runs on contracts that are rarely reread, and sits between departments. They are reviewed together because they affect each other.
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Commercial waste bills grow in small lines that nobody reads: fee percentages added on top of the service rate, rent on containers, increases each year, pickups of containers that are half empty, and a contract that renews itself if no one sends notice in time.
Leaks: fees added as a percentage, container rental on top of service, rate escalators, paying for air, extra pickups, overages and contamination, evergreen auto-renewal, recyclables hauled as trash.
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Freight invoices leak through the lines after the linehaul: fuel surcharges that don’t match the carrier’s own table, accessorials for services nobody asked for, reweigh and re-class corrections, dimensional-weight charges caused by the box, and lines billed twice.
Leaks: fuel surcharge above the table, accessorials, reweighs and re-class, dimensional weight, discounts not applied, duplicates and redeliveries.
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Packaging costs leak in three places: the price per unit (specs heavier than the job needs, or prices that follow increases but not decreases), the number of units (too many sizes, film over-applied), and the costs packaging causes elsewhere (dimensional-weight freight, damage, void fill).
Leaks: spec heavier than the job, too many sizes, or the wrong ones, price escalation that only goes up, stretch film over-applied, minimums and inventory.
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Pallets cost money coming in and going out.
Leaks: new where recycled would do, heat treatment you may not need, pallets thrown in the trash, non-standard sizes, no returns program.
Where the categories meet
Savings that cross two budgets are the ones nobody finds alone.
| This line | Shows up on | How |
|---|---|---|
| Pallets | Waste hauling | Pallets thrown out add volume and pickups to the hauling bill, and lose their buy-back value. |
| Packaging | Freight | An oversized box raises the dimensional weight of every parcel shipped in it; air in a pallet load lowers density and can raise the LTL class. |
| Packaging | Waste hauling | Cardboard that could be baled and sold leaves as trash instead. |
| Freight | Pallets | Inbound pallets from suppliers either become inventory or a disposal cost. |
What isn’t covered?
Utilities, telecoms, software, insurance, payment processing and labor are outside scope. Consultants such as Expense Reduction Analysts and Schooley Mitchell cover many of those.