Our company has a place on our forms for the abstractor's charges (and copy charges).  Since not everyone uses our forms sometimes people don't provide the information.  Since we have everyone's base fee in our system we will usually pre-approve the search at the base fee plus $X per page in copies.  If we get a bill for an amount that is over the pre-approved amount, we will pay the approved amount and include a note regarding the discrepancy amount.  This way we are not chasing down abstractors during the day when they are trying to get their searches done.  The abstractor can always explain and bill the difference on their next invoice.  Since we pay our abstractors so quickly and allow them to bill us as often as twice a month, any short-pay situations are usually not an issue.