Energy bill validation is it time to say good bye traditional and look at the digital

Environmental Social Governance in a post-covid World

Energy Bill Validation

Energy bill validation, it’s a necessary evil. No one wants to pay more than they need to for the energy they consume, how else can we check what we have used and what we should pay?

Presently many businesses outsource bill validation (BV) to energy accounting systems that validate and manage the payment of invoices received in either electronic or paper form. But wait the disruptors are here!

To simplify and smooth out the clunky ways of BV forever.

However, let’s look at the status quo for energy bill validation

  • Energy Bill validation is a way of validating the bills from the energy supplier to ensure they are correct – correct according to the agreement in the contract (pricing etc) and correct against the meter data from the smart meter or AMR. This takes a lot of time from bill validation (BV) companies requesting the bills from the client who has received from the utility supplier and then they need to manually enter the details into their BV software and validate against the data they have from the meter/smart meter/AMR and the data from the bill provided by the utility supplier.
  • As this is a manual process it means there is great potential for human error. It’s also time intensive and sometimes the client has to pay the supplier before the BV company has validated. If validation process comes back different to what the client has paid they then need to chase for refund or in energy debt situations, pay more than they expected.  This is bad for cash flow management and causes a financial headache.

Why is traditional BV flawed for today’s marketplace?

  1. It can be dysfunctional. Access to information at the start of the BV process is crucial. Traditionally once a BV is aware of what a customer portfolio/estate is, it is then about trying to get access to that level of info. EDI billing format is the norm but it is messy as it is open to error, alteration and is time intensive to work with. It does provide high level detail but it is in addition to the bill, a customer will get 500 paper bills for 500 sites and each bill could be five pages each.
  2. It is open to error. HH or AMR meters (interval data) data is difficult for BV to access. Seasonal time changes and leap year an also be troublesome for HH customers as some suppliers software platforms wont account for these changes.
  3. There are also many questions that BV cant answer. If it’s a pass-through contract where are the rates validated as most rely on supplier getting this information / pricing information correct? How do you independently check the DUOS rate and that the supplier billing you is correct. There is therefore a need to manually put rates into BV software and as the procurement contract changes then these need to change in the BV software as a new tariff structure.  Every time have bill update the bill – not a live tariff.
  4. It is time-consuming and costly. Reporting on the data (if its all in there and correct) can be time consuming because of the need to go in and physically analyse the data, any errors then require manual validation.
  5. Bill costs are flaky. You never really know the true financial position of your bill and if you are owed or owe payment. The worst case scenario could see an end user be in energy debt by up to 20%.

What’s the big opportunity?

Sadly, many third-party intermediaries (TPIs) and BV firms have not moved with the times. They are stuck in the past with their ways.  Tech and specifically, robotic process automation (RPA) will disrupt this marketplace now more than ever.  Why is this? In a nutshell, it’s because too many good people are bogged down with data processing and reporting and money is being lost to inaccurate billing.

However, RPA is the biggest thing that nobody has ever heard of! Soon they will. RPA enables automation of tasks in minutes, tasks that previously would take humans days or weeks to complete.

RPA, harnessed correctly, enables transparent delivery of fully digitised end-to-end services across procurement and bill validation in minutes, not months, removing the risk of human error. But don’t be fooled, there is no replacement for human market intelligence, years of experience and planned strategy however there is a lot of wasted time and resource that can and should be automated.

There will become an evolutionary divide between the TPIs, those that can deliver faster, more accurately and across a broader range of services at lower cost – and those that cannot.

RPA is what sets Catalyst’s new EaaSi TPI platform apart and it’s the kind of technology that will shape the future make-up of how businesses manage their energy spend. The system draws in energy data across all meter points and existing supply contracts. A direct API enables feeds on a half-hourly basis, keeping data up to date in close to real time – and removing the need for human data entry.

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.