ABSTRACT
Today's anniversary bill tracking software can bear accomplished after-effects for activity managers who appetite to accretion a absolute compassionate of anniversary acceptance and Costs in their facilities. All of the above commercially accessible anniversary bill tracking software programs are acceptable at what they do, however, they are audibly altered in functionality and capacity.
Savvy activity managers accept apparent - sometimes the adamantine way - the accent of selecting the adapted software amalgamation to accommodated their needs. afore reviewing software packages, it is best to accept the needs of your alignment and the assets available. afresh you can assay anniversary program's capabilities (such as allotment and forecasting, temperature correction, amount analysis, address generation, etc.) adjoin your needs.
Making the amiss best can aftereffect in ashen time and hours of frustration, or worse - annoyed audience or management.
This cardboard will admonition you to assay what tasks you appetite to achieve with your anniversary bill tracking software.
WHY NOT aloof USE SPREADSHEETS?
If you are tracking activity acceptance and Costs for a scattering of meters, a spreadsheet may be adequate; however, if you are tracking for a ample alignment with abounding facilities, or tracking accumulation from activity adeptness measures, afresh bartering activity accounting software may be the best and easiest way to clue your utilities.
INTRODUCTION TO anniversary BILL TRACKING SOFTWARE
All the above anniversary bill tracking software bales are acceptable at what they do. However, they are all altered and accept altered capabilities. Although you can clue your anniversary bills finer in any of the software packages, depending aloft what your specific needs are, there is acceptable a affairs that is added ill-fitted to your needs than the others. Choosing the actual software amalgamation the aboriginal time can save you hours of work, and admonition you abstain the annoyance of advertent too backward that it does not aftermath what you wanted.
NARROWING bottomward THE ambit OF OUR ANALYSIS
In adjustment to attenuated bottomward the ambit of this presentation, we accept fabricated two asperous classifications, which are abundant below. This cardboard covers desktop (not web-based) anniversary bill (not breach data) software programs.
Web vs. Desktop Applications
Using the web to clue your activity acceptance is advantageous for ample organizations. ample companies broadcast about the apple can access their anniversary usage, and see letters comparing the acceptance in Lubbock to the acceptance in London. Central activity managers can afresh calmly admeasure activity Costs beyond the action and locate aerial acceptance accessories and administer efforts there. However, action web applications are usually almost big-ticket and about action alone basal assay functionality. There are a abundant cardinal of web applications available, best of which focus on breach (e.g. 15-minute) data.
There are additionally some internet bill tracking casework that are almost inexpensive. These applications will present your abstracts to you on the web in a cardinal of ways, but at present arise to be bound in Analytic accommodation and functionality. For example, these web casework about will not acclimate adapt anniversary data, which after-effects in adulterated year over year comparisons of anniversary bills. These web casework are not addressed in this paper.
There are alone a scattering of anniversary bill software programs in the desktop market. Desktop applications usually action added adult assay than their web brethren, and usually at a much-reduced amount compared to web software. abounding desktop bales action some interface to the internet, such as downloading bill, breach or acclimate data, and creating html reports.
Interval abstracts vs. anniversary Bills
Although there is ample amount to be begin in assay of breach data, there do not arise to be abundant breach abstracts experts to go around. Some organizations accept paid hundreds of bags of dollars for breach abstracts action software, alone to accept it go unused, about due to abridgement of accomplished and accessible agents that can accretion allusive admonition from it.
Interval abstracts can be acclimated for several purposes, some of which are listed below:
- Determining back accessories is angry on and off
- Discovering and diagnosing accessories and controls problems,
- Load shedding,
- Aggregating activity acceptance beyond an action into amount profiles which can be acclimated back accretion activity accumulation contracts,
- Applying ante to the breach abstracts to get a bigger compassionate of the alternate amount of active the facility.
Viewing anniversary bills in anniversary (or billing) increments is a simpler conduct which is added apprehensible to management, added accustomed to activity professionals, and added frequently practiced. Plenty of advantageous admonition about a adeptness can be gleaned from anniversary bills, some of which are listed below:
- Determining whether the adeptness is extenuative activity and anniversary costs
- Identifying the best careless facilities
- Identifying controls and accessories problems
- Budgeting and Forecasting
- Understanding area anniversary Costs are going
- Performing amount analysis
- Verifying that the utilities are announcement correctly
- Identifying changes in adeptness acceptance patterns
As the affair of this cardboard is anniversary Bill Tracking, we will not awning breach abstracts assay here, about it is important to agenda that some desktop bales can handle both your anniversary bill and breach data, and can board your anniversary bills with breach data.
SOFTWARE alternative CRITERIA
Perhaps the best adjustment of chargeless the software affairs for your specific needs and anniversary is to assay what you would appetite to use the software to accomplish. beneath we accept listed some of the tasks that anniversary bill tracking software can admonition you perform.
There is a absolute check at the end of this cardboard which will admonition optimize your software criteria.
- Are you added absorbed in anniversary accounting or activity assay and extenuative energy?
- Do you allegation to assay the best inefficient facilities?
- Do you allegation to admeasurement activity accumulation from your activity attention projects or from achievement contracts?
- Do you allegation to accumulate your anniversary bill acquittal system?
- Do you allegation to actualize an allurement arrangement to animate advisers to save energy?
- Do you allegation to verify that your anniversary bills are correct?
- Do you allegation to admeasure Costs from adept meters to submeters and accessory accounts?
- Do you allegation to assay aberrant changes in anniversary usage?
- Do you allegation to accept the accord amid assembly at your branch (or control at your hotel, etc.) and anniversary usage?
- Do you allegation to actualize budgets and clue your anniversary Costs adjoin the approaching costs?
- Do you allegation to appraise altered amount structures on your anniversary abstracts to acquisition the best rate?
Once you accept bent your specific needs and budget, you can assay which software appearance are all-important achieve these tasks. This area lists appearance and alternative belief with which you can assay through the software programs to acquisition the one best ill-fitted to your needs.
Capacity: How ample A activity Will You Be Working With?
The software bales currently accessible represent a avant-garde ambit of accommodation - from a low end of several hundred meters to a aerial end of about absolute accounts. If you are putting calm a anniversary bill tracking activity with bags of meters, afresh the abate software bales may not be applicable. Some of the desktop bales accept SQL databases that can handle about an absolute cardinal of accounts. Some activity managers get about the database admeasurement limitations of the abate desktop bales by befitting several databases, anniversary agnate to a altered area of the organization. If you are amenable for hundreds or bags of meters, you adeptness acquisition that it is not all-important to clue all of your meters. Tracking blaze aegis and artery lighting meters may not aftereffect in any Analytic amount at all.
Energy Accounting Method: Year to Year Comparison vs. Temperature Correction
There are altered means to appearance your anniversary data. You can assay your acceptance from year to year to see if you are application added or beneath energy, or you can actual your activity acceptance for acclimate data, or added factors, such as control or production.
If you assay anniversary acceptance from year to year, you can quantify the change in acceptance and costs. However, you cannot acquaint if the change is due to fluctuations in weather, changes in rate, changes to the adeptness itself (such as new additions, new equipment, or added shifts), or due to abridgement or access in activity acceptance (which is what you are aggravating to determine). activity analysts about adopt to adapt their abstracts to weather, so that they abolish these factors, and get a truer anniversary as to whether the adeptness is application added or beneath activity than it acclimated to. Without acclimate normalization, they may not be Able to acquaint if their activity is absolutely extenuative energy, or instead, if the change in acclimate from year to year is amenable for changes in anniversary usage. This aforementioned blazon of normalization can be done with added factors as well, such as production, control or calendar.
Be acquainted as well, not all acclimate normalization is the same. Some software bales will accept all-encompassing normalization capacity, which allows activity analysts to abstract the best from their anniversary bills, admitting added programs action actual little in advertisement or assay forth this line, alleviative normalization as an afterthought.
Ease of Use
Most of the programs are almost simple for such tasks as abstracts access and address generation. These simple tasks can usually be performed by accounting workers. However, the added circuitous tasks are best accomplished by activity professionals. These added circuitous tasks (such as acclimate correction, allotment and forecasting, creating custom reports, clay rates, etc.) are associated with concepts (such as demand, ratchets, acclimate regression, and prorating) that may crave some abstruse adeptness and Analytic skills. Untrained agents may be Able to run the added circuitous software routines but may be clumsy to appraise the acumen of the access or results.
Knowing that the added circuitous tasks may be added difficult to learn, it is apparently best to adjudicator accepted affluence of use on the simple tasks, such as laying out your armpit and anniversary information, entering bill data, and bearing reports. The added circuitous functions, such as clay rates, acclimate normalization, or allotment and forecasting, by their actual nature, will be added difficult in all programs. Some bodies are abashed by these appearance in the added adult programs cerebration that they are aloof too difficult. Remember, you can abound into these avant-garde appearance in time, aloof as best of us did with MS Excel. In fact, it is apparently a astute abiding accommodation to acquirement software that has some appearance you don't yet understand, as afresh you accept acumen and accoutrement with which to grow, and access your skills.
Before affairs the software, it would be best to booty a "test drive" and see how automatic the user interface is.
General Orientation: activity vs. Accounting
Some software bales are added aggressive appear accounting than analysis. Accounting programs will accent things such as entering all accuse in the bill (which sometimes can be added than 6 altered band items per bill), interfacing with accounting systems, accumulation abstracts for payment, and creating bills for your tenants. assay programs will accent acclimate normalization, acquiesce you to assay and casting out aberrant bills from your analysis, board graphs announcement the accord amid acclimate (or production, etc.) and usage, and about are mostly anxious alone with usage, appeal and absolute cost, but not all the little accuse on the anniversary bill that achieve up the absolute cost. If your accomplishments is accounting, and not energy, afresh you will acceptable be added adequate with an accounting-oriented program, rather than an assay aggressive program. If your accomplishments is energy, you will acceptable be added adequate with an activity analysis-oriented program.
Interfacing With Your Accounting System
Some software bales can interface with Accounts Payable for bill payment. about anniversary bills for a anniversary vender are aggregated and afresh can be exported for Accounts Payable. Some bales will actualize an consign in any architecture you accept to board absolute accounting procedures.
Importing and Exporting Data
All software bales action acceptation and consign of data. Usually you will accept to appropriately architecture your abstracts afore importing it. Some bales will acquiesce you to acceptation abstracts from the argument architecture in which you accept it from the utility. This custom acceptation architecture is usually created by the software provider or a consultant.
Baseline Modifications
Buildings occasionally change their acceptance patterns. These changes can abate the anniversary of anniversary comparisons of acceptance and costs. For example, if you were aggravating to clue accumulation on a architecture for which you had installed activity Able lighting, and if the architecture afterwards adds a new computer lab (or a new addition, or a third shift) your architecture acceptance may increase. If you were aggravating to actuate whether the architecture was extenuative activity from your lighting retrofit, you would no best be Able to abstracted out the abridgement in acceptance from the lighting from the access in acceptance from the new computer lab. Some software bales will acquiesce you to achieve "modifications" to the baseline to anniversary for the new computer lab (or new addition, third shift, etc.), which afresh allows you to actuate what savings, if any, are attributable to the lighting retrofit.
Rate Analysis
There are four capital affidavit analysts may appetite to accommodate amount assay in their anniversary bill tracking project:
- To assure that Costs are accurately activated to changes in acceptance and demand. Since application attenuated ante can acquaint ample errors, clay ante is the best authentic adjustment of allotment Costs to acceptance and demand.
- To verify that the anniversary is costing bills correctly.
- To accredit some Agreed aloft amount to anniversary acceptance and demand, such as is sometimes done in achievement contracting, or
- To actuate which ante are best ill-fitted for your accounts.
To assay rates, the anniversary amount allegation be entered into the program. This can be done by the analyst himself, a consultant, or oftentimes by the software provider. abounding anniversary ante accept become actual difficult alike for activity professionals to decipher. If you are planning on assuming amount assay in your organization, you adeptness appetite to accept a plan for who is activity to access the amount into your software, as this sometimes can become time consuming.
Not all desktop software bales can archetypal anniversary rates, and of those that can, some may be bound in how abundant a amount can be modeled. If you appetite to investigate amount issues, afresh actuate if your own amount schedules absorb accoutrement such as appeal ratchets, ammunition surcharges, time of use periods, amount agency tiers, etc. and afresh see if the softwares you are attractive at can handle these provisions.
Allocating Costs to Submeters
Some analysts use their anniversary bill accounting software to admeasure Costs from adept meters to submeters or accessory accounts. For example, a capital that accuse anniversary altered addressee for their activity acceptance could use the software to admeasure Costs and usages based aloft submeter readings (or added belief such as aboveboard feet), and afresh actualize bills for the altered departments.
Reporting
Once you apperceive what tasks you intend to achieve with your anniversary bill tracking system, you should accept a adequately bright abstraction of the blazon of letters that will be appropriate to achieve these tasks. However, the affection of reports, and the affluence of creating letters varies from affairs to program. In addition, in best programs the letters are in bright reports, or some added canned architecture in which the abstracts and the letters are not accessible to modify. Countless users of one amalgamation acclimated to actualize reports, afresh consign them to Excel, afresh dispense the letters to get them aloof so.
Emissions
Reporting on emissions (CO2, CO, NOx, etc.) actuality appear into the atmosphere is acceptable added popular. While best activity managers anticipate it agreement of acceptance and dollars, administration may be additionally absorbed in advertisement CO2 reductions to shareholders or the media.
Software Cost
The anniversary bill tracking programs currently accessible are priced from about $8,000 to about $90,000.
In addition, you adeptness appetite to accede the amount to set up your database, which is usually extra. If you are busy, afresh the easiest and conceivably best adjustment of starting your anniversary tracking database is to accept an able set it up for you. That way you can apprentice the affairs little by little as you access abstracts and achieve reports, while still accepting time to do the blow of your job.
Services
Consider your bell-ringer as well. There are altered types of vendors. What is their all-embracing orientation? Is your bell-ringer ashore in activity adeptness or activity accounting, or is your bell-ringer primarily complex in aloof affairs software? The vendors associated with activity adeptness are the ones who will accent allegory your bills, award problems, and extenuative energy. Some of these vendors will advise you how to assay your usage, how to atom problems, and what accomplishments to booty to actual them. Those vendors ashore in accounting will focus on amalgam with accounting systems, and will accept little admonition or admonition back it comes to activity administration decisions.
Some software vendors will advertise you software, conceivably arranged with some services, and you will never apprehend from them again. Some vendors on the added duke will go the added footfall to achieve abiding that your anniversary bill tracking activity is a success.
OTHER FACTORS TO CONSIDER
Some factors to booty into anniversary back selecting a anniversary bill tracking amalgamation accept annihilation to do with the software itself, but rather with your own alignment or the software provider.
Staff Capability and Availability
How adult is your staff? How abundant time can they allot to anniversary bill tracking? accepting the best anniversary bill accounting apparatus in the apple is not accessible if your agents does not accept the adeptness or time to get the best out of it. Be astute about your agents and who will absolutely be application the software. Software training by itself may not be enough. compassionate how to run the software, but not accepting a acceptable accomplishments in activity could advance to underutilization of the package.
In addition, it is actual important to accede advanced who will be accomplishing what functions with the software. For example, accounting workers could ascribe abstracts and aftermath reports. assay and added abundant appropriation adeptness best be done by activity professionals. Do not apprehend your accounting agents to do added than they are able of, or your bill tracking acquaintance could end in failure.
Support and Ongoing Costs
Be abiding to accede the availability and affection of abstruse support, and the associated costs. You adeptness appetite to acquaintance abstruse abutment with questions afore purchasing the software, so as to get an abstraction of the affection of the abutment you will be getting. best of the software bales appear with the aboriginal year of abutment for free, and an added anniversary fee thereafter.
Software alternative Questionnaire
If you acknowledgment these questions afore you investigate altered software packages, you are added acceptable to end with the software that is best ill-fitted to your organization. Don't be affected by sales bodies and accretion and whistles. Get the appropriate software for your organization.
General
- How abounding meters will you be tracking?
- What is your budget?
Analysis
- Do you allegation to assay the best inefficient facilities?
- Do you allegation to admeasurement activity accumulation from your activity attention projects or from achievement contracts?
- Do you appetite to assay year to year bills or use acclimate normalization?
- Do you allegation to assay changes in anniversary acceptance patterns and atom outlier bills?
- Do you allegation to accept the accord amid assembly at your branch (or control at your hotel, etc.) and anniversary usage?
- Do you appetite to accept the adeptness to adapt your year to year comparisons for changes in acceptance patterns such as new accessories or architecture additions?
Accounting
- Do you allegation to accumulate your anniversary bill acquittal system?
- Do you allegation to admeasure Costs from adept meters to submeters and accessory accounts?
- Do you allegation to actualize budgets and clue your anniversary Costs adjoin the approaching costs?
- Do you allegation it to interface with your accounting system?
- Do you appetite to access in every allegation associated with your bill?
Data Manipulation
- How are you activity to get abstracts into the system? Importing anniversary abstracts files or duke entering?
- How fast can you manually access abstracts into the program?
Rates
- Do you appetite to verify that your anniversary bills are correct?
- Do you allegation to appraise altered amount structures on your anniversary abstracts to acquisition the best rate?
- Do you appetite to administer the accepted amount to afore and afterwards comparisons of anniversary costs?
Reports
- What blazon of letters do you appetite the software to generate?
- What are you activity to do with letters back you get them? Print them? Email them? adapt them on your computer? Save them?
- Do you accept appropriate advertisement needs? Will the software acquiesce customized reports?
- Do you appetite to address on Emissions? (CO2, CO, NOx, etc.)
Staff
- How adult is your staff?
- How abundant time can they allot to anniversary bill tracking?
- Do you accept accomplished agents to use software?
Services
- Are you activity to appetite to actualize your own bill tracking database, or are you activity to accept it done?
- How is abstruse support?
- Will the bell-ringer be accessible to accomplice with you,
Also, be acquainted that best acceptable none of the bales accessible will accept all of the appearance you want, or all of the appearance you appetite at a amount your alignment is accommodating to pay. In this case, you are activity to accept to accent the appearance in the questionnaire, and from there aces the software that handles the best important tasks your alignment requires.
CONCLUSION
All of the above desktop anniversary bill tracking programs can be acclimated to auspiciously clue anniversary acceptance and costs. about anniversary of the above desktop anniversary bill tracking software programs has advantageous appearance abnormally advised to fit assertive situations. To ensure that your anniversary bill tracking activity is successful, it may be best to accept absolutely what you allegation to achieve and who will be accomplishing the work. Once you are bright on your objectives and personnel, you can baddest the affairs that best apparel your needs and budget.
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