Supplier benefits of Digital Energy Services like EaaSi
The use of digital energy services has risen throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, with every industry embracing or upgrading their digital energy services offering. The energy industry especially has benefited from a bigger reliance on digital that has supported both suppliers and customers.
Our Energy Spend Management platform has risen to the COVID challenge and helped digitally transform the way businesses manage energy and utilities spend. EaaSi automates procurement, bill validation and compliance delivering immediate ‘productivity’ and cash-flow gains.
It is in effect an energy data hub and digital filing cabinet, enabling business to have a digital copy of a bill on the system and the platform. EaaSi’s RPA formula has helped some clients claw back millions in over-payments on energy contracts.
Energy suppliers have seen the biggest benefit of more services going digital, for many reasons:
> The reduction of paper bills sent by post. The EaaSi platform automatically consumes data from the supplier database to the eassi database transitioning the data through RPA (robotic process automation techniques) to normalise the data so many suppliers’ bills can be consumed and presented to the user in a single standard format. Easy for the business and better for the supplier.
> Due to the reduction in paper bills there are no customers calling the supplier call centre to flag up missing bills or chase down missing information or incorrect information. Anything missing or incorrect is identified by EaaSi and a request from database to database takes place thereby avoiding call centres and manual assistance.
> In the most part, bill validation is manual, billing data takes a great deal of manpower to process and therefore time lapse between receiving the bills, checking and validating before paying the bills. Due to length of time between receiving and validating the business may have already paid the bills to the supplier. Once the validation process has taken place, the business may have had an over or under payment to the supplier who in turn needs to account for overspend or missing payments. By digitising this process, the platform validates the bill data instantaneously so a bill being paid to the supplier by the business is accurate and correct.
One educational facility, over six years had an overpayment to the supplier of £80m meaning the supplier had to account for the over payment and refund the EaaSi client. Imagine how many businesses of this size or larger have overpaid and suppliers are sitting on extra payments they could soon be requested to pay back.
We predict that digitisation of energy spend management will be part of the fabric of the new normal. While no one yet knows what the new normal will be like, energy procurement, bill validation and energy management all rely on a number of departments, colleagues and third-party suppliers, providing intelligent energy solutions. All of which can be streamlined for the better.
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.
