It’s All in the (Line Item) Details

If you are tasked with hand-keying utility bills into EnergyCAP, this blog article is for you.

Have you ever sat down to enter a bill and found that the line items on the bill entry screen don’t match the bill you are holding in your hands? Recently introduced functionality in EnergyCAP makes it easy to update the line items for a meter to match your paper bill, and there are multiple ways to do it.

One option is to add or edit line items as you are entering the bill. Or you can copy the format from an existing bill you already have in the database. The latter option is especially helpful when you’re tracking lots of specific line items.

Change once and reuse the new format
From the bill entry screen, you can add line items to your EnergyCAP bill to match your paper bill—this includes customizing line captions and types. When you are finished updating the layout of the bill and click “Save,” you are automatically prompted with options for reusing your new bill layout:

• Use one time only: Ideal for situations when you’re processing a special bill that you don’t expect to receive again
• Use for all new bills on this meter: Helpful when your vendor changes your bill format or you want to start tracking details in a different way
• Use this layout for all meters with the same vendor and rate: Saves you time and makes sure you’re consistently tracking similar bills
• Pick specific meters to reuse with this bill layout

Apply a Format
If the bill you want to track contains many lines and details, and you already have a bill in your database from the same vendor and commodity with the details you want to track, you can do the following:

1. Open the bill that contains the lines and layout that you want to reuse. The bill may have been hand-keyed or imported.
2. Select Apply Bill Format… from the meter’s Actions menu.
3. Choose the meter(s) to which you want to apply the bill format.

Bill Formats and Imported Bills
Updating the bill format for a meter will only impact the default line items that appear when hand-keying bills. Bills that have been imported or processed through Bill CAPture will not be impacted.