A Natural Gas and Electric utility in the Eastern United States of America was maintaining their energy efficiency tracking records and rebate processing documents through spreadsheets and hardcopies respectively. The programs were outsourced to different service providers for maintenance. The processes for program data collection, cross verification, and payment release were all manual. The overall business process was time consuming and cumbersome. The utility was determined to streamline and automate their business processes, and eventually make the annual assessment report generation process in a single click.
Streamlining the Rebate Processing Workflow
eTRACK has streamlined the rebate processing and reporting procedures for an electric and natural gas utility in the eastern United States of America.
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Faster Processes
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Documents Processed
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Incentives Handled
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Overall Budget Tracked
Industry
- Energy & Renewables
Location
- Eastern USA
Challenges
- Time consuming rebate processing and report generation.
- Error-prone spreadsheet and paperwork-based processing.
- Manual regulator interfaces were, and stakeholders accustomed to traditional practices.
Product(s) Used
Enhancements Achieved
- Annual report generation made easy.
- Completely automated workflow and email notifications.
- Streamlined rebate processing.
- Single system for electric and natural gas program processing.
Executive Summary
The Challenge
- All business processes and regulator interfaces were manual, and stakeholders were accustomed to their traditional practices
- The change in business processes following implementation must comply with the protocols.
- Energy consumption was recorded, maintained and tracked on spreadsheets.
- The business operations for electricity differs from natural gas, and rebate processing consumed a lot of time.
- The utility had business processes for Natural Gas, and had to be brought into a single system.
- Hardcopies and paperwork were the main ways for rebate processing, so the probability of errors was high.
- The utility has several programs, and with every program having a large number of measures, report generation was tedious and time consuming.
- Eventually, the entire business process was slow, and every phase of the program had a longer life cycle.
The utility was looking for a reliable solution to manage the overall business process. They were looking for a tool to effectively track energy efficiency and generate reports in a single click, based on the repository of records. ANB Systems’ flagship product, eTRACK, was implemented by the utility to manage, track, and report their energy efficiency and demand response programs. The utility trusted ANB’s experience in providing comprehensive solutions to make their business processes easier.
The Transition
The automated workflow and tracking processes in eTRACK facilitated the utility to overcome its challenges. Our energy efficiency tracking tool has been implemented to track the data from various stakeholders, submitting the energy efficiency tracking and rebate process records to the utility. eTRACK has effectively replaced their cumbersome manual spreadsheet and paperwork methods of processing payment from different data sources into single medium with data repository.
The Workflow
- All the service providers submit the data in designated format to eTRACK.
- eTRACK processes the submitted data, and automated emails are sent to respective stakeholders for hierarchical approvals.
- The Program Manager reviews the data and submits the savings and incentive amounts.
- Upon validation, Program Manager approves the invoice from eTRACK.
- eTRACK sends an automated notification to Senior Manager for hierarchal approval for payment processing.
- The Senior Manager reviews the invoices and approved the payment.
- An automatic email notification is sent to the service providers on approval.
- An automated email is also triggered to the admin department for initiation of actual payment processing to Accounts Payable.
- The colossal task of generating annual reports is made easy. eTRACK helps the utility to pull annual reports in just a click of a button.
The utility now has a well streamlined business process, and eTRACK has improved their rebate processing and reporting procedures 10x faster and efficient.
About ANB Systems
ANB Systems is a leading technology platform provider in the US energy industry. Commencing our journey in 1997, we have built state-of-the-art software product suites for managing retail energy services, energy efficiency programs, and demand-side management operations. Be it revenue augmentation, growth, cost reduction or operational efficiency, we leverage our hundreds of person-years of hands-on IT-consulting experience in addressing the business challenges of retail/wholesale energy and energy efficiency service providers
Our Products
eTRACK, a unified technology platform for tracking and reporting on energy efficiency and demand response programs.
Retail Energy Desk (ReD), a robust productivity tool for wholesale and retail energy service providers for data and operations management.
