Forty years.
A practice refined.
Three illustrative engagements, at depth. Storied names in American retail, industrial manufacturing, and logistics — a window into the work behind a 90%+ client retention rate.
The long view.
Twenty-plus years and counting.
Our longest-standing retail client engaged the firm during Ed Mehlman's tenure in the early 2000s and has renewed continuously for more than two decades. Recovery audit is not outsourced elsewhere. We are their team.
When Tim Mehlman acquired the firm in 2016, semi-annual recoveries for this client were running approximately three hundred thousand dollars per cycle. Competent work. But the tools had reached their ceiling.
Tim undertook a complete redesign of the firm's proprietary software stack. New data ingestion. New analytical models. New claim-type detection across the deepest categories — market-price tracking through lead and transit time, terms monitoring across surrounding POs, cost behavior before, during, and after promotional windows, drop-ship IMU analysis, and beyond. Claim types most firms don't have the capability to find.
Recoveries multiplied by ten. Three million dollars per six-month cycle became the new baseline, and the figure has continued climbing year over year for more than a decade since.
The client has extended the relationship with every renewal. We have become, in their own words, an extension of their team.
While peer retailers have declared bankruptcy and restructured through the 2010s and 2020s, this client has steadily protected its margins — and its financial health — with our help. We do not claim credit for their durability. But we are proud to have contributed to it.
What made it work
- A custom bulk uploader. Built specifically for this client, our bulk claims upload tool transformed weeks of manual claim entry into a single near-instant operation. The client processes our recoveries as fast as we submit them.
- Deep merchandise knowledge. After two decades, we know every category, every vendor type, every seasonal rhythm. Promotional events, drop-ship partners, clearance cycles. Nuances that generic firms cannot learn in a six-month engagement.
- Tactful vendor correspondence. This client is particularly focused on vendor relationships. Our US-based correspondence team, led by a former recovery auditor, handles every interaction with the care a long-term merchant partnership demands.
- Continuous innovation. Every cycle, we identify new claim types, refine existing methodologies, extend our tooling. The ceiling keeps rising because the work keeps evolving.
When the review window
reaches back years.
A Fortune 1000 industrial manufacturer approached the firm for a recovery audit covering an unusually long review period — stretching back multiple years. Complex because two things become harder with time: data availability and vendor willingness to engage.
Most firms would have declined or quoted defensively. We viewed this as ideal territory.
Our Infinity Data Engine — built specifically for audits with long or complex data horizons — was purpose-made for this scope. Deduction capabilities allow us to audit around missing data gaps. Our US-based vendor correspondence team has unmatched skill at recovering older claims tactfully from vendors no longer accustomed to receiving adjustments.
"This primary challenge represents the great opportunity. A long review window helps amortize the specialized software development our engagement requires. It is also the perfect application of our most advanced vendor correspondence platform."
Freight is where
the margin leaks.
A global logistics firm engaged us for a comprehensive recovery audit with a focus on freight and carrier-contract compliance. Freight is a category where recoverable dollars hide in dozens of small errors — each individually small, cumulatively material.
Prepaid charges paid when vendor should have borne them. Backorder freight billed twice. CWT allowances not taken. Unauthorized routing. Breakpoint failures. Carrier contracts not reflected on bills. Pickup and unloading allowances missed.
Our forty years of freight-review experience — across retailers, manufacturers, and logistics firms — means we know where these errors hide and how to substantiate recovery without disturbing carrier relationships.
A slice of the work.
Not the whole of it.
The three engagements above represent the kinds of depth our clients come to us for. The firm's broader client list — retail, grocery, specialty, hospitality, logistics, and industrial manufacturing — is shown in full on the homepage. Discretion is the default here. Named references are available under NDA with advance notice.
We view our clients as partners. To that end, we are open to any discussion on rate. But while often not the lowest rate, we prove our value by delivering the maximum post-commission bottom-line profit recovery in the industry.
Your engagement
could be next.
If your firm operates with care and discipline, we should speak.
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