Property Management Firm Saves 20 Hours a Week with RPA

Every company monitors its energy spend slightly differently. That means a facility and property management company operating across multiple locations needs to work with and manage hundreds of various schemes. To be successful, stakeholders need the internal processes to be as efficient and consistent as possible to remain on top of the procedures, rules, and reporting of each and maximize ROI.

A large property management firm in the United Kingdom quickly realized what it needed was an experienced and agile partner who could adapt to the company’s fast-paced, organic growth and evolving strategic vision. A partner who knew which approaches were likely to work could add value as a sounding board.

That was precisely what our customer found when it partnered with Bill Identity as a Utility Bill Management provider to help streamline the process of energy budgets and bill validation for their properties.

Problem

The company lacked an automated approach to managing the energy data, and the bill processing-to-payment cycle was complex, fragmented, and resource-intensive. They were experiencing expensive and time-consuming internal accounts payable and accounting processes and struggled to find one source of truth for their data. Data integrity was causing issues across the substantial number of sites and late payment of bills resulting in substantial late payment fees and higher utility disconnection risks driving customer dissatisfaction and, at times, disruption.

Solution

A real-time Robotic Process Automation (RPA) driven solution with a single customer view, integrated processing, payment, and accounting across all utilities, including electric, gas, and water.

Key opportunities identified to enhance their energy category’s performance:

• Automated audit & process assurance for Accounts Payable
• Ongoing energy data validation, visibility, and quality control
• Reporting automation, sophistication, and data integrity
• Advanced accruals & budgeting automation to drive accuracy and provide better planning and cost reduction in real-time
• Reporting abilities to assist with ESOS2 reporting and audit regulations

Outcome

Working with Bill Identity as a Utility Bill Manager has set the company free to focus on opportunities that add value. Manual data entry and locating lost bills no longer have a role to play in its approach to managing their energy category, and that saves time and money. And, because contracts expire at different times, having set and forget reminders to stay on top of them gives the property management company a significant advantage in the market.

Bid deployed its RPA-driven Accounts Payable automation solution across the entire client portfolio, including historical data for contextual analysis and trend prediction, all energy contracts, bill validation, and payment. Bid saved the customer over 17,000 pounds in credits and refunds from utilities and reallocated nearly 20-hours per week of employee time spent on bill management.

The Implemented solution delivered:

• Centralized portfolio management – open/close, site inquiries, alerts & reports.
• Immediate bill receipt to payment file creation to avoid late payment penalties and utility disconnections.
• Integration of bill processing and payment file creation with the organization’s payment system.
• 24/7, anywhere anytime portfolio accessibility provides visibility and reporting with payment-grade data audit credentials.

What is bad data costing you? Find out how to take control of your utility data and identify savings with Bid’s eBook, Take Control of Your Energy Data.