How to boost cash flow by thousands of pounds, for no outlay
Cash is king, and never more so than now. Which is why businesses across the UK should check to see if they are owed thousands of pounds by their energy providers to help boost cash flow.
When running the numbers on customer energy bills, Catalyst Commercial Services has found that around one in five are inaccurate.
Extrapolated across the UK’s 6 million businesses, that suggests some 1.2 million firms are due rebates from suppliers.
Because rebates can be backdated up to six years, monies owed can often be substantial: Catalyst recently recovered £80,000 pounds for a small college and regularly recovers five figure sums, even for relatively small and mid-sized businesses.
How bill validation works
Bill validation involves going through previous energy bills, checking them against contracts and ensuring any levies and discounts have been properly applied. It can be labour-intensive and business can often be unsure of what they are looking for. Suppliers, often inadvertently, can therefore over-bill businesses, which are none the wiser.
A smarter approach
Catalyst has developed a smart utilities management platform called EaaSi that uses robotic process automation to do the legwork. It pulls bills and data together. If they are missing it requests them from current and previous suppliers, and puts everything into a standard format. Catalyst can then run the numbers to see if businesses are owed money.
No risk, no catch
While some specialist validation firms charge up-front for their services, Catalyst’s technology-driven approach means businesses only pay for the service where monies are returned.
There is no catch – we only take a cut of the money recovered. Which means businesses receive a substantial boost to cash flow for no risk whatsoever.
Water bills too
Water suppliers can make similar billing errors, which can also lead to substantial refunds. If you’re checking gas and electricity, it makes sense to check water at the same time. EaaSi can handle validation for all utilities, literally making it easy for businesses to ensure they are being accurately billed – and enabling any money owed to be put to better use.
Automate utilities contract management – for free
The EaaSi platform is capable of much more than bill validation and is designed to enable fully automated utilities contract management. But by applying its algorithms to bill validation first, businesses can use the money EaaSi recovers to pay for the licence fee going forward, effectively getting it for free.
The first customer to trial the EaaSi platform on that basis quickly gained £9,500 back from their energy provider.
Needless to say, they are now deploying the platform across their business – freeing up time, money and resource to focus on growth in a post-Covid world.
About Catalyst Commercial Services
Catalyst is a market leading independent energy consultancy that provides energy procurement, sustainability and environmental services. Catalyst is one of the leading providers of utility purchasing and contract negotiation services to the commercial sector. With over 15 years’ experience in this dynamic market, the team of energy market professionals provide a full options appraisal for business utility contract needs.
