The BEST Natural Gas Billing System
End user billing is the cornerstone of a natural gas company’s interface with its customer base. Inaccuracy is one of the primary sources of end user complaints, lowering customer confidence as well as satisfaction with a natural gas provider. A root cause of inaccuracy is the intricate and complex region-specific rules that differ from one LDC to the next. Even within a given LDC, the components of billing will vary between large industrial to commercial and down to the smallest residential account. This complexity forces natural gas businesses to rely on expensive customizations to generic billing system software or workarounds using manually intensive spreadsheets, attempting to ensure billings are both timely and accurate.
The BEST Natural Gas Billing System is one purpose built for natural gas, whose core capabilities understand the nuances of natural gas billing, enabling unparalleled accuracy and efficiency. Its features must include the ability to:
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Generate and distribute unlimited bill formats that conform to the needs of any company, region, or subset of a customer’s business – examples include:
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Numerous choices for aggregating bills across multiple meters, end users or parent end users
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Diverse bundled and unbundled pricing detail options for both LDC and commodity charges
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Manage any billing scenario with the ability to generate paper bills internally, distribute via email, or push the required data through automated communications
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Pre-configure unlimited number of pricing mechanisms for validation of either pricing input or integration of pricing details from 3rd party systems
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Support unlimited types of pricing from simple floating index + adder to Complex Fixed + basis and triggering / locking mechanisms
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Support daily pricing for large industrial accounts
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Support multiple cashouts methodologies, either as mandated by LDC rules or from customer contractual obligations
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Automate bill generation with timed execution once reads are received – e.g., for high quantity Rate Ready / Bill Ready residential pools
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“Shadow Billing” (the LDC does the physical billing to customers) of Rate Ready and Bill Ready programs for validation of LDC charges and superior customer service with visibility to LDC-generated bills
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Compliance with LDC or Rate Class mandated invoice messaging requirements
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Improve cash flow by generating billing within 1 day of receipt of final meter read volumes
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Configure complex sales tax scenarios, accommodating a myriad of taxing rates and formulas spanning State, County, and Local jurisdictions
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Offer fully integrated Sales Commissions management with options for postponing payment or processing “claw backs” on unpaid invoices … once invoices are paid, commissions are automatically released on the next commission statement
There is no substitute for software explicitly designed for natural gas billing and the financial consequences of making do with software that fails to meet the needs of a natural gas business are immense, especially with billing being so critical to the business revenue stream and profitability.
End Users, LDCs, Marketers, Producers, Pipelines, and Utilities all face increasing competitive and compliance pressures, requiring increased operational efficiency, data integrity and process improvement. Their operational systems must support this, but most do not. Engage us and we will show you how to make a breakthrough. It’s what we do for natural gas companies, and we are experts in our field.
~ Ken
