Research in progress
Find the money hiding in your transactions.
Probatus analyzes your historical order and invoice data to find where price, cost and contract terms drifted apart — line by line, across every customer, item and branch.
- For
- CFO, finance and pricing teams at B2B distributors
- Focus
- Currently researching pricing and margin leakage in US B2B distribution
15-minute conversation · No ERP integration required
| Customer | SKU | Expected | Actual | Variance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ABC Supply | 48392 | $117.40 | $109.85 | -$7.55 |
| XYZ Electric | 39201 | $84.20 | $78.90 | -$5.30 |
| Norwood Bearing | 77104 | $231.50 | $231.50 | — |
| Coastal Fasteners | 12038 | $56.75 | $51.30 | -$5.45 |
| Delta Industrial | 60217 | $148.00 | $141.30 | -$6.70 |
Not every variance is an error — see what we don’t claim.
Nobody decided to give away the margin.
Price gets set in a contract, adjusted by a rep, overridden at a branch, then quietly outdated by a supplier cost increase. Every step is defensible on its own.
The gap only appears when you line up what should have been charged against what was actually invoiced — one line at a time, across a year of orders.
A $5 gap on one transaction is noise. The same gap repeated across thousands of transactions, customers and SKUs is a pattern worth investigating.
From anomaly to action.
Detect
Compare every line against the price that should have applied — contract, price file, quantity break or override — and isolate the ones that don't reconcile.
Quantify
Size each pattern in dollars and rank it, so you start with the finding worth six figures rather than the one with the most rows.
Investigate
Hand your team the exact invoices, customers and items behind each finding, so they can confirm or dismiss it in their own system.
Distributor margin leakage.
We are researching how US distributors identify pricing and margin leakage that may not be obvious through normal ERP reporting.
Not every anomaly represents actual leakage — see what we don’t claim.
Signals we look for
- Supplier cost increases never passed through to price
- Contract and SPA pricing not applied at order entry
- Discounts granted below the customer's agreed floor
- Quantity breaks applied at the wrong tier
- The same item priced differently across branches
- Freight and handling charges not recovered
- Rebate-eligible purchases never claimed
- Margin drift on long-running repeat accounts
From raw export to validated finding.
- 01ExportYou pull 12–24 months of order and invoice history from your ERP. A flat file is fine.
- 02ReconstructWe rebuild what each line should have been priced at, from contract terms, price files, cost records and quantity breaks.
- 03CompareEvery invoiced line is measured against that expected price. Most will match — those are set aside.
- 04QuantifyRemaining gaps are grouped by cause, counted, and sized in dollars so the largest surface first.
- 05InvestigateYou get the underlying invoices for each finding, so your team can confirm or dismiss it against their own records.
- 06ImproveConfirmed findings point to the control that failed — a stale price file, an override with no approval, a contract never loaded.
Example of how an audit might quantify findings.
The figures below are constructed to show the shape of an audit deliverable — how findings are grouped, counted and sized. They are not drawn from a real customer engagement.
Illustrative potential impact
$427,300
Illustrative example only. This is not a client result. Potential impact requires customer investigation and validation.
| Finding | Transactions | Potential impact |
|---|---|---|
| Cost increase never passed through to price | 421 | $126.2K |
| Contract price not applied at order entry | 842 | $173.4K |
| Discounts below the customer's agreed floor | 317 | $74.6K |
| Same item priced differently across branches | 198 | $44.5K |
Supporting transactions
| Customer | SKU | Expected | Actual | Variance | Why flagged |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Harlow Pipe & Supply | 50214 | $342.10 | $318.40 | -$23.70 | Cost +7% in March, price file unchanged |
| Kestrel Industrial | 88732 | $96.75 | $96.75 | — | Within contract terms — not flagged |
| Bridgeton Electric | 22109 | $154.60 | $138.90 | -$15.70 | Contract price not applied at order entry |
| Anchor Fastening Co. | 67450 | $41.20 | $34.85 | -$6.35 | Discount 15% below agreed floor |
An anomaly is not automatically an error. Findings are a starting point for investigation, not a conclusion about recoverable money.
Built for investigation, not magic.
An unusual transaction is not automatically an error. Legitimate commercial agreements and business decisions can create unusual patterns.
Probatus surfaces where the numbers deserve attention. Your team determines whether a finding represents actual leakage.
Designed around economic impact.
No ERP replacement
You send a file. Nothing gets installed, integrated or migrated, and no one needs system access.
Lightweight starting point
One historical export answers whether there's anything worth chasing, before you commit to a project.
Evidence-first
Every number traces back to invoice lines you can look up in your own system and argue with.
Outcome-oriented
You get a ranked list of specific problems with dollar figures attached — not another dashboard to check.
See whether this is a fit.
We're currently speaking with US distributors about how they monitor pricing and margin execution.
15-minute conversation · No ERP integration required