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5 Options to Avoid Hand-Keying Utility Bills

Presented by John Heinz


Key Questions to Ask


Who are your utility vendors?

How many accounts do you have with each one?

Do they offer electronic bills?


Is your accounting staff engaged?

Does accounting require actual bill images?

Can your A/P system deliver EDI 820 payment files?


Are you trying to reduce headcount?

Do you want bill payment services?

Do you want additional account and/or energy management services?


Option #1

Direct Bills from Vendor–Flat File


Typical formats are xls or csv

Generally post-payment

Files provided directly from utility vendor




Considerations:Format of data

Changes to format

Timing of delivery

Accuracy compared to A/P system

Automation and Workflow

Major Players:



Option #2

Direct Bills from Vendor–EDI 810


Format is ANSI standard EDI 810

Is the actual utility bill

Files provided directly from utility vendor


810–Invoice

The 810 transaction is used to provide established billing data in an electronic format from utility to its customers.

820–Payment & Remittance Order

The 820 transaction set is used to make a payment and send a remittance advice.


997–Functional AcknowledgementThe 997 is an acknowledgement which acts as a certified mail receipt to confirm that the intended recipient actually received the EDI documents that have been sent. This acknowledgement does not validate and/or accept the actual data.

VAN–Value Added NetworkPasses secure EDI files




Considerations:Paper invoice

Changes to format

Timing of delivery

Payment file format

Number of accounts

Cost

Major Players:



Option #3

Optical Character Recognition


Common name is OCR

Software used to create digital files

Converts image (pdf, jpeg, etc.) into digital file (xls, csv)



Considerations:Paper invoice

Vector based file is best

Document management system


Timing of delivery

Cost

Major Players:



Option #4

Screen Scraping


Extract data from vendor websites

Uses website login credentials

Proprietary process to scrape data from website and deliver in a digital file



Considerations:Data quality

Vendor availability

Login credentials


Timing of delivery

Cost

Major Players:



Option #5

Outsource Bill Processing


Service company that processes utility bills, among providing other services

Reroute bills to service company

Service company manually enters bills directly into ECAP or provides import file



Considerations:Data quality

Bill payment

Account open/close services

Headcount

Additional services

Cost

Major Players:



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