We're a small firm in Richmond handling mostly Dominion Energy accounts and we've outgrown our current spreadsheet-based system. Looking for recommendations on billing analysis software that won't break the bank. Need something that can handle complex rate schedules like Schedule GS-3 and Schedule LGS with demand charges and power factor corrections. What are you folks using for client management and bill analysis?
New billing software recommendations for small audit firm?
Bill, we switched to UtilityGenius about two years ago and it's been solid for Georgia Power analysis. Handles most of the complex tariff calculations automatically and the client portal is nice for sharing results. It's not cheap at around $200/month but it's paid for itself in time savings. The learning curve is a bit steep though, especially for the more complex rate schedules.
I've been using BillAnalyzer Pro here in Charlotte for Duke Energy accounts and it's been pretty good. Less expensive than some options at $150/month and it handles most of what we need. The demand analysis tools are decent and it integrates well with Excel for custom reporting. Only downside is customer support can be slow to respond.
Wayne's right about BillAnalyzer Pro. I use it for TVA accounts here in Knoxville and it works well for most standard rate schedules. For Dominion Energy, Bill, you might want to look at their rate schedule library - I think they have pretty good coverage for Virginia utilities. The automated error checking has caught several utility billing mistakes for me.
Thanks for the recommendations folks. I'll request demos from both UtilityGenius and BillAnalyzer Pro. The automated error checking sounds particularly useful - I've caught a few manual calculation errors on Dominion's Schedule GS-3 that were costing clients significant money. Dale, good point about the rate schedule library, that could save a lot of setup time.
Bill, one more thing to consider - make sure whatever you choose can handle Dominion's fuel factor adjustments properly. Those can get tricky with the monthly updates and some software doesn't track them accurately. I learned that the hard way on a large industrial account where we missed $4,000 in overcharges because the software wasn't updating the fuel factors correctly.