How does EnergyCAP save you time?

How does EnergyCAP energy management software save you time? Our clients frequently tell us that EnergyCAP has made them more productive and efficient in their jobs. But exactly HOW do these time savings come about?

Bill Entry

EnergyCAP software has built-in features to accommodate data entry—features that no spreadsheet can duplicate. When you are ready to enter a bill into the EnergyCAP database, there’s a built-in search feature that looks for account numbers, meter ID, vendor, even a building physical address. Just start typing and EnergyCAP will use the information to find the right account, no matter how big your organization is.

After you find the right account, you will discover that your account/meter is associated with a specific bill entry template that corresponds to the data points you’re pulling from that specific utility bill. The template can be as detailed and granular as you like. You can even design it to mimic the appearance of the physical paper bill, to reduce confusion or uncertainty for data entry personnel. Whether you like to point and click, or rely heavily on your keyboard, EnergyCAP has been engineered to take you smoothly through the process of accurately recording your energy information.

Perhaps you don’t want to enter bills at all. Through EnergyCAP’s new Bill CAPture service, you can avoid bill entry altogether. Would that be a time-saving improvement in your bill entry processes?

Reporting

What’s the use of having data if you can’t share it? A common frustration for energy stakeholders is the difficulty getting customized energy information to the people who need it. EnergyCAP”s filtering features makes it very easy to supply only the needed energy information. Add the power of automated email delivery options, and you have a tool that can eliminate a lot of the repetitive work traditionally associated with energy reporting.

Another reporting advantage is EnergyCAP’s Excel® export capabilities, which open the door for ad hoc reporting. How much time can you save with EnergyCAP’s reporting features? That will depend on your organization’s needs, but one client claims that reports that used to take his team days to generate are now produced in seconds with EnergyCAP.

Benchmarking

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and EnergyCAP’s graphical interface has been designed to make your energy data understandable and actionable. The Groups & Benchmarking feature provides user-configurable and automated means for comparing peer groups of buildings or meters. This enables you to see at a glance which group members are outliers, and what the savings potential might be in terms of use or cost.

Filtering options make it easy to exclude small accounts, or focus on certain categories or commodities. EnergyCAP even maintains a series of “Auto-Groups” for you automatically, such as meters on a specific rate, or buildings with the identical primary use. There are commodity-based groups as well. Would it save you time to benchmark similar buildings or meters? Would it save you more time if your software did it for you?

Auditing

Verification of data is important to ensure the integrity of your energy information, and the decisions you will make based on that information. EnergyCAP’s library of audits can be used to develop audit groups for any combination of utility bills. Each audit can be further user-customized with specific tolerances, providing maximum flexibility, usability and precision. “Fat-finger” audit groups can be used independently or paired with other audits to ensure flagging of estimated bills and other suspect bills even before they are paid. Once the audit groups have been created, they can be set to run automatically.

Would automated audits save you time? Miami-Dade County processes thousands of bills every month, and they use a nightly automated audit routine as part of a creative utility bill processing and analysis solution that is saving them an estimated $2 million each year just on electricity. They have found a way to save time AND money! Virginia Beach‘s automated audit processes have resulted in national recognition.

Analysis

Analysis is all about access—access to the data you need in a format that makes energy information intelligible. EnergyCAP’s exclusive PowerViews present your data using the charts and graphs that make trends obvious and energy issues hard to ignore. With user-configured hierarchies that enable you to view only the buildings, accounts, or meters you are interested in, analysis becomes as simple as clicking your mouse.

Would it save time if your software created the visuals you needed to make your analysis easier?

Doing the Math

Each one of these EnergyCAP features can impact the way you perform the work of energy management. Why not sit down with a pencil and quantify the time savings for your organization? And feel free to comment and share a time-saving story with our blog audience!