Trade show charges can be confusing, which makes auditing trade show invoices a job in itself. Of course you need to understand the meaning of the line items, but you also need to understand what each charge is for, how it is charged, and how all of the pieces fit into your budget.On top of that, you have to make sure you pay the invoices correctly.

Invoice auditing starts as soon as you put your first order into the general service contractor (GSC) portal or purchase the first items for your booth from your exhibit house. If you stay organized from the get-go, you will have everything you need at the end to make sure your orders match your invoices. Keep in mind that auditing invoices does more than help you catch errors or discrepancies in the fees that you've been charged. It is also a decision-making tool for upcoming shows because budgeting awareness gives you a clear picture of what everything in your program costs.

But where do you even start? First, think about the different types of bills that you receive after the show. As examples, consider GSC invoices, I&D invoices, exhibit house charges, and shipping charges. Although there are several other types of invoices that will come across your desk, I'll focus on these to help you make sure that everything is correct and on budget.

General Service Contractor
Throughout your ordering process with the GSC, you'll receive a number of order confirmations and invoices. Some carriers will also send freight confirmations, which will typically include the carrier, total weight of your freight, the total piece count, and the date. The order confirmations will come each time you place an order through the GSC's portal, and they will itemize everything you ordered along with its price. Hold onto these so you can compare them to your final invoice. My team saves each e-mail confirmation as a PDF and puts it in a shared folder. I recommend including the invoice number in the file name so you can quickly and easily sort them to find what you're looking for. This process enables my team to not only make sure we know what we've ordered and be able to communicate that to our I&D team, but it also lets us easily conduct a cross-check against the final invoice.

You'll also receive payment receipts, which will indicate the date when the credit card on file was run and the total amount that was charged. This will not necessarily be an exact match to the order confirmations and will often be a sum of more than one. We also save these in a shared folder so that we can easily find them when we are ready to match our payments to our final invoice.

Depending on the GSC, you'll see a list of show services on the first page of the invoice or on the order summary page. This list will be broken down into a series of categories including electrical, storage, janitorial, labor, plumbing, material handling, and shipping, and it will help you with budgeting for future shows because you'll be able to see what goes into each bucket on your budget sheet.

One of the most complex areas of your invoice details is the material handling section. The invoice will break down freight that is received in the warehouse and freight that is received on show site. Each delivery will have its own associated fee. The invoice will show the material handling target and off-target fees as well as warehouse and show-site fees. You'll be charged off-target fees if the carrier comes after hours during setup or pickup. Since the pandemic, a lot of shows have been charging different flat rates for different types of materials coming into the building, such as equipment versus booth components. Some shows have been offering flat-rate material handling based on booth size. But for traditional shows, you will still see off-target receiving and special handling details, which are additional charges on top of the standard material handling rate.

Check with your carriers to make sure that their information matches that of the GSC. Although your invoice will not include this, the service desk on the show site will have the backup paperwork from the driver who checked in with your freight. Staff members will gladly share this with you so that you can cross-reference and ensure that the actual weight of your material matches the charges.

Another invoice area to pay close attention to is related to your utility services, including electrical and plumbing. Make sure you were billed for the actual time that the labor was working. For example, let's say that you scheduled your electrical work for 8:00 a.m. on Friday and this detail appeared in your order confirmation. But when you got to the show floor, the electrician didn't get to your booth until 2:00 p.m. on Saturday. Be sure that you were billed for the time you requested because you should not be responsible for higher fees associated with a Saturday install when you requested it for Friday morning.

A lot of shows bill rigging on a flat rate regardless of when the install happens because the GSC sometimes gets behind on their schedule and they understand this isn't the exhibitor's fault. If you are not sure if you are being billed a flat rate, reach out to the GSC to get details about what you were charged for and at what rate.

When you look at your final invoice, make sure that the pricing matches your order confirmations. As you are likely aware, when you place orders before the discount deadline, you will receive approximately 30 percent off the show rates. Double-check your order to make sure that the amounts charged match the order confirmation. Note that services will not be taxed, and that other taxes will vary depending on the state and city in which the convention is held.

Often, the GSC's final invoice will come several weeks after the show. While there are several GSCs out there and you might work with many of them, it is important to have some awareness of the big guys' processes because it is likely you'll work with them at some point in your career. Freeman refers to the final invoice as the event statement, and GES refers to it as the final invoice. If you reach out to the GSC through their contact phone number or their online chat, they will often be able to get the final invoice to you before it posts in the online account, which will allow you to start your invoicing audit without waiting for snail-mail delivery.

The final invoice is going to have a series of charges under a payments-and-refunds section. These charges may or may not match the order-confirmation totals. For example, you may have had a charge of $700.02 on August 5 and a charge of $12.95 on August 7. Sometimes these might be combined on your payment and run together on the credit card for a total of $712.97. Because of this, reconciling these charges might take some time, but it's important to compare the order confirmations to the totals to ensure they match.

Installation & Dismantle Labor
Another invoice to audit after your trade show occurs is your I&D labor invoice. You might receive this directly from your labor partner, or you could receive it through your exhibit-house partner. Compare this invoice to your I&D estimates to see where your program went over or came under in labor hours and whether those additional hours were incurred on straight time or overtime. If you're way over the original budget, ask your I&D partner why. For example, did the crew have to wait around for the freight to get delivered to the booth? Were the electricians getting delayed in the booth work? This information is important because it helps you make better predictions for future shows.
Your I&D labor invoice is also going to break down additional line items where you might be able to save money in the future. For example, does it make sense for you to pack your own shrink wrap and have it inside your crates, or does it make sense for you to get this through the labor partner? This is a cost-benefit analysis, but it's important to know what the charges are so you can consider alternatives.

Exhibit House
Ideally you will have a budget with your exhibit house from the beginning, and you will likely have already paid for your exhibit before you get to the show. But you might not be aware of charges incurred because of requests made during the install or dismantle. My company asks its customers to sign off on a change order for updates that are made on site to avoid surprises and/or forgetfulness. It's easy to forget about changes when you are at the event because everything happens quickly. If your exhibit house doesn't do this, ask them to provide you with estimates for the changes and keep track of these in a spreadsheet. This will help you to gauge any overages in budget at the break of show. Changes can include things such as graphics, new logos, Sintra or vinyl decals, alterations in actual layout, additional furniture or audiovisual, or anything requested when you are on the show floor.

Shipping Orders
Ideally, you'll collect estimates from various shipping companies before a show to make sure that you are getting the best deal for your shipping program. I have always said that cheaper is not necessarily better, but it is important to take a look at what you were spending money on. Once you obtain your quote and make a final decision, you'll likely plug that number into your budget. But when you get the final invoice, make sure that everything matches. At a recent show, we identified $400 in detention charges on our invoice. We checked the timestamp on our material handling agreement and could not understand why the driver had to wait as long as they did. When we contacted the shipping company, there was a discrepancy in what the driver recorded and what we were invoiced. We were able to get some of this charge removed from our invoice, which helped us come closer to our originally stated budget. This step often is just about collecting information, but it also can occasionally help you catch errors.

When the show closes, it is super easy to move on to the next one and put the one that just closed in the books until it's time to start planning for the following year. But when you are trying to secure a budget for next year or figure out where your money went, it's important to take a pause and study invoices because they have a lot of useful information. Plus, with rising costs, it's helpful to do a little bit of digging and see if there are any discrepancies. If you can recoup some money from billing errors, you can put it into your account for trade shows moving forward.E