Solution: Prenova has a proven, proprietary three-stage process for utility bill auditing. During the first stage, when a bill payment partner is utilized, Prenova conducts a preliminary pre-payment audit on all invoices that have exceeded pre-established thresholds, which generates an exceptions list. Prenova prioritizes these invoices by due date, and negotiates with each utility to extend the payment date while we research the issue. If this cannot be accomplished, we’ll ensure the invoice is paid on time to eliminate any late fee charges, and then begin work to identify the root cause of the issue and resolve that issue with the utility. All exception lists include audit comments, and the audit history is held throughout the life of the customer contract.

During stage two, all invoices are processed through a proprietary, automated program where our algorithms and models combine to evaluate each invoice against baselines and benchmarks to identify potential exceptions. All potential exceptions are then researched and resolved by our analysts. Because Prenova warehouses all levels of energy and customer information, our bill audit services in terms of analyses, assessments of opportunities/risk, actions and measurable returns are limitless. This allows Prenova to recommend and provide other detailed analytics and services to facilitate decisions for further resolving identified anomalies where the root causes aren’t readily apparent in the bill data itself. The fact that we warehouse more information than any other vendor puts more decision-driving capability at the disposal of our analysts than would be available to conventional energy analysts. This directly results in more robust and impactful service outcomes.

Our third stage begins with the scrubbing of data, where we eliminate repetitive errors and avoid the occurrence of new errors.  We then conduct final data validation, process that cleansed data through seven levels of data enrichment, and then create baselines for ongoing measurement & reporting.

Outcome: Prenova’s Bill Audit identifies and directly resolves issues and anomalies, and we work to obtain all associated refund and credits due to the customer. Customers can be assured that they are paying only for the relevant services rendered by the utility. Customers are also assured that they have the most accurate and reliable price, usage and cost baselines , which are created from the historical bill data and other sources that may be available. This refined baseline is critical for budgeting and forecasting, and for measuring outcomes from the strategic plan.