My operator tells me every month that ‘everything is great’
February, 2017
The question is why do I need either an outside auditor or the expense of an auditor? My operator is well-known, and I have lunch with its rep every month where I’m told “everything is great.”
Why? Here are just a few of the reasons: pay-by-cell, Apple Pay, Google Pay, NFC, Bluetooth, QR Code validations, Credit Card on File, PCI-DSS, EMV chip cards, CPI Index escalations, tenant lease requirements, validations, LPR, RFID credentials, third-party aggregator, “ghost” employees, and undocumented goods and/or services.
Do you honestly believe that the garage manager sitting downstairs in your garage has a clue about the above? Or that the operator has any interest in both reconciling/accounting and reporting exceptions? “Plausible deniability” – It’s always better to ask forgiveness than to claim prior knowledge.
Something as simple as reconciling the bank statement against the deposits listed on the Daily Report, a task that an 8th grader can do … except no one did, and over a two-year period, more than $400,000 was missing.
A recent conversation with a garage manager — he was instructed to have the staff repaint the walls white. There were 15 5-gallon cans of white paint provided by ownership to do the job. The garage manager wanted to know “what color ‘white’” he should use, and what walls were to be painted! (I have the text asking the question but won’t embarrass the person sending it.)
Sometimes, the manager is a “warm body” filling a position or the manager’s skill set is customer service, but he has no clue about reconciling the revenues and PARCS.
OK, so things aren’t so bad if the operator is leasing the garage instead of managing the property. A recent review was conducted by ownership — because the operator had a percentage rent lease that enabled ownership to audit the income to ensure the correct rent was paid.
Now let the data in the chart nearby sink in a minute. Do the math in your head. A daily ticket is $35; a monthly credential is $385. The results of the audit revealed:
Write off the AR balances of 79 accounts.
Only 18 of the 39 “free” accounts were authorized.
The 32 PARCS active credentials were finally back-billed.
The six aggregator MP are out for “collection.”
The additional 35 aggregator ticket values were adjusted following the audit and the audit revealed that the wrong rate was being used by the aggregrator. It seems no one remembered to inform it of the rate increases over a 30-month period.
The uncollected tickets represented 2.4% of the monthly transient volume in a 24-hour staffed and PARCS-controlled garage.
Just another normal day in the parking world. (Unfortunately, I might add, this really is the norm found when doing an audit.)
Contact Dennis Cunning, CEO of DLC Consulting, at dlcparking@gmail.com.
