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

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.