receiving bills electronically

Receiving Bills Electronically

©2013 EnergyCAP, Inc. ▪ @energycap ▪ #energyleader ▪ www.EnergyCAP.com

Steve Heinz, PE, CEMFounder & CEO

EnergyCAP, Inc.


Presented by EnergyCAP, Inc.EnergyCAP is used by organizations that receive many utility bills for bill processing, energy reporting and analytics

Over 30 years as industry leader; first release in 1982. (The predecessor software was FASER Energy Accounting).

Web-based and on-premise versions.

Financially secure. No debt. No VC funds.

EnergyCAP software is all we do—we don’t sell hardware, retrofits, consulting, bill payment outsourcing, procurement.

1,500 organizations use EnergyCAP.City Government (San Francisco, Baltimore, Sacramento, Virginia

Beach, Tampa, Denver, Jacksonville, Oklahoma City, Cleveland)

County Government (Orange, Riverside, Santa Barbara CA; Loudoun, Fairfax, Chesterfield VA; Miami Dade, Charlotte FL)

Federal (USMC, Smithsonian, U.S. Dept of Energy Labs)

Commercial (Ryder, Equity Residential, Forest City, BJs Wholesale Clubs, CBRE, Northrop Grumman)

Education (800+ school districts, SUNY system, Univ of CA system, UCF, Univ of Kansas)



Receiving Bills Electronically


Are Electronic Bills Right for Me?Pros:

Free from keying errors

Complete details/line items

Sounds cheaper than keying


Are Electronic Bills Right for Me?Cons:

Setup and management

Specialized software/VAN

No longer receive a hard copy bill

High skill level

May not be cheaper, all costs considered


Electronic Is Best When:You have relatively few vendors and all facilities in one region

Many invoices from a vendor (at least hundreds a month)

Vendor has support resources available and actively promotes electronic bills


EDI or Non-EDIEDI: Electronic Data Interchange

Non-EDI: Everything else


Non-EDI OptionsWeb scraping

PDF downloads from website, or direct delivery of PDFs

OCR from paper bills

Non-EDI data file (CSV, XML)

Outsource and import results

Non-EDI


Process: Obtain the data electronically, convert to EnergyCAP import format, map data fields and import

Non-EDI


Web scrapingVendor posts complete (enough) bill data on website

Web scraping tools allow automatic login and download

Non-EDI


Web scrapingPros:

No per-bill fee

Web scraping tools are quite powerful and easy to use

Think of Intuit’s Mint.com

Non-EDI


Web scrapingCons:

Vendor website changes break the web scraping mapping

Complete bill details may not be available

Non-EDI


PDF downloadsNative PDF has “raw data” within it, allowing accurate import

Scanned PDF requires OCR

Non-EDI


PDF downloadsPros:

No per-bill fee

You get a bill image

Non-EDI


PDF downloadsCons:

Requires a process to interpret the data, whether “native” or “scanned”

Non-EDI


OCR from paper billsCan be quite accurate and time-saving

Requires mapping of each bill format

Non-EDI


OCR from paper billsPros:

No per-bill fee


Non-EDI


OCR from paper billsCons:

Requires OCR software and mapping

Mapping is affected by bill format changes

Non-EDI


Non-EDI filesCSV, XML, spreadsheet, etc

Usually used for post-pay (historical) data, not live bills

Non-EDI


Non-EDI filesPros:

No per-bill fee (generally)

Non-EDI


Non-EDI filesCons:

No paper bill or image

Requires software to interpret the data files

Non-EDI


Outsource, then import resultsOutsource live bill processing to a trusted bill processor (we recommend Cass)

Cass file is converted to EnergyCAP import format for accurate bill import.

Non-EDI


Outsource, then import resultsPros:

Accurate

Hassle-free

Optional bill payment service


Non-EDI


Outsource, then import resultsCons:

Incurs a per-bill fee forever

Non-EDI


EDI


You start with a raw EDI 810 electronic utility bill:

EDI


You end up with a data-rich, 100% accurate bill in EnergyCAP:

EDI


Developed by NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology (a Dept of Commerce agency)

ANSI X12 is the parent standard

EDI 810 is the specific standard for utility bill invoices

Utility Industry Group (UIG) maintains the standard

It is loose! All Utilities are not the same!

Not offered by all Utilities

EDI


Typical EDI process requirements:“997” is the acknowledgement of receipt of bills

“VAN” is the value-added network, the intermediary between trading partners

“820” is the remittance advice file

Electronic payments are usually required

No more paper bills

No, or very short, period of parallel paper and EDI billing

EDI


EDI


Typical work flow

EDI


EDI


EDI decision logicEDI


Option–Outsource the EDI processing to a middleman

The service provider receives the EDI bills

Sends 997 acknowledgement to the vendor

Prepares the data in EnergyCAP import format

Transmits the import files and pseudo-images of bills

Our preferred middleman is Xebec (www.XebecData.com)

EDI


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