Drawing the Line Between Maintenance and CapEx Before Sampling

When an infrastructure spend audit plan treats every facilities invoice as one population, the sample rarely tells you what you need. Maintenance contracts renew quietly; leasehold improvements spike in short windows; both share vendor names and project codes that look interchangeable in an AP extract.

Start with policy language, not invoice descriptions

Pull the fixed-asset capitalization threshold and the wording your controller uses for “betterment” versus “repair.” Walk three real invoices through that language with facilities managers present. The disagreements that surface belong in the planning memo as judgment notes, not as surprises during fieldwork.

Split populations when timing differs

If roof replacements cluster in one fiscal quarter while HVAC service agreements post monthly, keep them separate for sampling. Monetary unit sampling across both will overweight the large capital hits and under-cover recurring maintenance leakage.

Document exclusions early

Landlord reimbursements, insurance recoveries, and shared-service allocations often reverse into the same cost centers. List them as out-of-scope with the reason. Your later sample size rationale stays honest when the population is clean.