A $5 million cost savings from contract management – and a reward

We really liked this post “Employee receives award for saving $5 million” from the Defense Video & Imagery Distribution website.

image of Christal Jones

Christal Jones (center) receiving her award at Pentagon ceremony.

The post is about the award given to Christal Jones for her work in defense contract management. The name of the award (given at a Pentagon ceremony in June, 2013) is the Innovations in Financial Management in a Combat Zone, Headquarters and Major Command level.

Ms. Jones was deployed to Africa in 2012 and was able to find cost over-runs and helped recover $5 million in cost savings from a contractor’s incorrect billing of the US government.

While we admit that Contract Assistant isn’t necessarily going to help you find similar incorrect billings (much less in a war zone!), it is noteworthy that finding cost-savings has indeed happened among those implementing a contract management solution.

For instance, in a prior post last year, we cited an example where a municipality using our software discovered significant overpayments made to a vendor. The small city discovered $70,000 in overpayments in the first six months after implementing our Contract Assistant solution and in the following fiscal year uncovered another $200,000 in overpayments.

Of course, it’s not all due to sleuthing on contract management administrator’s part. With Contract Assistant’s reporting function, financial summaries can be distributed and shared within a company – providing an opportunity for more eyes to review contract information.

Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee a Pentagon ceremony every time you discover an overbilling (or mistaken billing). No doubt some of you may feel you deserve a medal of some sort for organizing your company’s contracts!

Kudos to Christal Jones in any event.

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