Services
Although some clients find unique ways of using our services that may be relevant to their own circumstances, our standard list of services includes:
Assessment of the existing marcomms relationships by examining and critiquing the contracts, remuneration, and work flows with the agencies and providing a general report on the extent of financial control over the relationship.
Marcomms Contract Compliance & Procedural Audits. These audits review a sample of historical agency billings and paperflow to ensure that all parties have been honouring their contractual commitments in terms of billings, reporting and agreed procedures.
These audits may be for specific events, or simply to allow for good basic corporate governance by ensuring large contracts with third parties are being scrutinised.
Some styles of audit may include:
 Contract compliance & procedural audits.
Remuneration audits where we examine time sheets and resource
allocations against the agreed fee structure.
Termination audits where the contract has been or is terminated
and the client requires an audit to ensure that all financial areas
are properly tied off before completion date.
There are some outcomes that can eventuate from an audit, including:
Simple changes to the way paperwork is processed or approved by
the client to ensure there are satisfactory checks and balances
when paying agency invoices.
The need to modify the contract to tighten up any ambiguous or
misleading clauses.
The negotiation and recovery of any amounts that may have been incorrectly charged by the agency
A need to review the terms of the agency's remuneration to allow
for variations in methods of operating or workloads.
The need for training of the agency and client personnel to
ensure that the operational aspects of the contract are clearly
understood by all those who are expected to operate under its
terms.
Change management.
Following the tabling of the Audit Report, we add further value by becoming involved in the implementation and on-going monitoring of the agreed changes in process or the introduction of better practices that have been identified by the audit as being required to improve the basis of the relationship.
Training:
We can facilitate training sessions:
of internal auditors - either on-the-job or in a classroom setting
of client / agency staff in how best to work within the framework
of the terms of the contract.
Many contracts are so couched in legal jargon, it is no wonder that there is non-compliance or misunderstanding of the various responsibilities assigned to the agency and client. After an audit detects or highlights these problem areas, it is a good time to get the agency and client together to help them understand the errors that we have detected and to show them how these issues should be dealt with according to the contract.
Sourcing and providing advice with regard to:
Remuneration arrangements with the agencies.
Specialist services that can assist in assessing and improving
efficiencies & effectiveness or return on investment when
examining the results of the agency output.
Appraisal of existing relationships and follow up remedial action. |