We check the invoices of 27 municipalities against their agreements. Here we looked at a subset: 10,600 invoices from the past year. These are the errors we saw again and again, with real examples.
The school orders laptops, the care home kitchen orders minced meat, and the maintenance department has an oil separator emptied. Procurement negotiated the agreement, and finance approves the invoice. None of them has the agreement and the invoice in front of them at the same time, and nobody compares them line by line.
More municipalities are now taking action. In August, ten municipalities in the same procurement partnership started checking their invoices against their agreements, on the same day.
Almost every other invoice
Out of 100 invoices, we flagged 33 for charging too much. We flagged 14 more for another discrepancy, such as a payment deadline that was too short. Usually it was a single line on the invoice. That is why it is so easy to miss.
The errors we see again and again
We sorted the discrepancies by what went wrong. Three types make up more than half of the amount: wrong price adjustments, goods and services outside the agreement, and prices above the agreed.
- Wrong price adjustment19%
- Goods and services outside the agreement17%
- Price above the agreed16%
- Unspecified lump sums10%
- Fees and surcharges8%
- Wrong pricing model8%
- Included in the price, billed extra7%
- Freight, travel and mileage4%
- Wrong role or rate4%
- Missing discount3%
- Not billable1%
- Double billing1%
- Non-billable time1%
Seven real examples
1. The litre price that became a bottle price
Wrong pricing model · 8% of the amount
The agreement prices hand sanitiser per litre. The supplier billed every 0.6-litre bottle as if it were a whole litre. A carton that should have cost NOK 507 was billed at NOK 846.
It was not one invoice. The error came back almost every month for two years.
101 lines on 87 invoices, NOK 32,612 too much over two years.
2. The driving that should have been free
Freight, travel and mileage · 4% of the amount
The agreement says all driving within 10 kilometres of the centre is included in the price. Even so, the supplier billed a 17-kilometre mileage allowance between two addresses that are both inside the zone.
A thousand kroner is not much. But it happened every month.
202 lines on 181 invoices, about NOK 200,000 over nine months.
3. The service at double the price
Price above the agreed · 16% of the amount
The framework agreement for a service sets fixed hourly rates for each level. On one agreement, we found 354 lines above the agreed rate, across 30 invoices. None of them was slightly too high. Most were close to double.
354 lines on 30 invoices, NOK 102,963 too much.
4. The discount that disappeared
Missing discount · 3% of the amount · Read more
The agreement gives the doctor's surgery a discount on a rapid test, so a pack should cost NOK 17. The invoice says NOK 473.
30 packs, about NOK 13,700 too much.
5. The junior consultant at a senior's price
Wrong role or rate · 4% of the amount · Read more
The tender lists a junior consultant at NOK 300 an hour. The invoice lists the same person at NOK 1,112 an hour.
19 hours, about NOK 15,400 too much.
6. The gloves that were swapped
Price above the agreed · 16% of the amount
The nitrile glove in the agreement costs less than 20 øre a glove. In June and July 2026, the supplier delivered a different brand instead, and billed it at NOK 2,346 a pack, with a 60% discount in June. The municipality raised it with the supplier.
20 packs of gloves for NOK 32,846.
7. Over four times the agreed price
Price above the agreed · 16% of the amount
Under the agreement, emptying an oil separator costs NOK 2,268. The supplier billed NOK 9,835, added fees for delivering the sludge, and charged for inspections that the price already includes. On some invoices it was the other way round: they were too low.
The municipality gathered everything into one claim, including what had been billed too little. The supplier sent a credit note for exactly the difference, NOK 67,806.20, to the øre.
NOK 73,596.50 too much and NOK 5,790.30 too little, on 24 invoices.
Do the findings hold up?
The municipalities have reviewed 3,241 of the discrepancies. 80% were confirmed as billing errors and followed up. Another 7% were confirmed as billing errors but were too small to pursue. Only 6 turned out not to be errors.
Four key questions
- Can you see what you are paying for? Ask for hours and quantities on every line. A lump sum without them cannot be checked against the agreement.
- Are you paying for anything not in the agreement? Look for fees, surcharges, freight, travel, rent and administration. They are often included in the price, as the driving was in example 2. Read more about extra charges
- Has the price been adjusted correctly? Check when the agreement allows a price adjustment, which index applies, and that the adjustment has been applied only once. Read more about price adjustments
- Is the payment deadline right? Compare the deadline on the invoice with the one in the agreement. We flagged a shorter deadline than agreed on one in five invoices. Read more about payment terms
Small things like these boost your profits and your working capital. Contact us if you want to fix them automatically with Watchdog.