Always a Step Ahead – Make Use Of the Time-Wise Advance of Heating Costs Billing Procedures

Now we´re going a step further and are offering another billing method for the optimisation of billing processes with the extension of the IBEKO family by the settlement of heating and water based on plausible consumption data.

As a real estate manager the time-critical generation of utilities statements for your tenants or apartment owners rests on you every year. Usually you are performing the utilities statement independent from consumption in your SAP® system on your own, but for consumption dependent billings you are looking at heating and water costs, sometimes even at other positions, like the consumption dependent disposal costs, services from different heating meter readings and other billing service providers.

While a surprisingly big number of real estate managers still sort paper settlements of billing service providers manually to the utilities statements, there is an increasing number of companies, which is already using the external settlement letters in PDF format. That´s definitely a step in the right direction, but still doesn´t exploit the optimisation potential of billing procedures by far. By request PROMOS.FS offers this procedure as a combined settlement, but still prefers the billing procedures based on e-records. E-records (outcome records) were defined by the ARGE HEIWAKO (Bonn) and make a standardised data exchange in the consumption dependent billing procedure possible.

Those e-records not only contain the settlement outcome of a tenant, but also cover the settlement outcome of single types of costs, like the basic and consumption costs of heating, as well as the device data of particular meter reading devices, like a heat cost allocator, heat meter, water clocks and more. Beyond that, the e-record is the basis for the generation of integrated utilities statements in SAP®, in which the outcome of consumption independent and dependent settlements are combined in one document. The integrated statement letter is a product of PROMOS consult .

In the standard IBEKO procedure PROMOS.FS takes over the entire data exchange to and from the billing service provider, who provides an e-record as the outcome of the settlement per property, which will be examined by PROMOS.FS and processed in the SAP® system of the customer until the settlement and the integrated settlement letter. During the procedure of the settlement of plausible consumption data PROMOS.FS takes over the entire data exchange as well, but designs the actual billing process differently.

For the generation of consumption dependent settlements of heating, hot and cold water mainly three types of data are required, which sadly aren´t available at the same time process-related.

At first, the consumption data of the apartments and, if necessary, the consumption data from frontloading and sub-distribution are gained by the heat meter reading service provider hold back for the settlement after the account period.

In the next step the tenant and property data (ML) are gained from de SAP® system by PROMOS.FS and forwarded to the heat meter reading service provider. The ML data provides information for the settlement of a property about the tenant, the commercial tenant or owner the duration of rent, the exact apartment or commercial object and the floor space (heating space, usage space, etc.). This data is available right at the beginning of the year as well.

In the last step the costs relevant for the settlements are accounted in the SAP® system and released for the settlement by the real estate manager. PROMOS.FS identifies the costs and energy consumption data from the SAP® system and forwards it to the heat meter reading service provider, who generates the settlement and provides PROMOS.FS the settlement outcome (e-records) for further processes.

This procedure of integrated utilities statement (IBEKO) of PROMOS.FS has proved itself for 12 years and provides the real estate manager a complete statement of heating and water costs in the SAP® system.

PROMOS.FS Gives You the Crucial Leg-Up

At which point does the settlement of plausible consumption data give any advantages?

With the view on the billing process losses of time are caused, because the heating meter reading service provider can only generate the settlement when all costs relevant for the settlement (as the last step of data supply) are given. Many real estate managers can only account the relevant costs at the end of the first quarter and sometimes even at the end of the second quarter, because they get those relevant settlements very late as well. As soon as the heat meter reading service provider can bill, further weeks pass by until the settlements are ready. Possible mistakes due to incorrect device readings or missing costs can only be seen after the completed settlement, which means that additional weeks pass by until the final completion of the settlement.

At this point the settlement of plausible consumption data steps in.

Directly after the supply of ML-data the heat meter reading service provider generates a settlement with the real consumption data, but fictional costs. In this case you speak about the “permille-settlement” or the “1000 € settlement”. All consumption data in this settlement are already made plausible by the heat meter reading service provider, whereas e. g. potentially required device estimations are already made. Early during the year PROMOS.FS gets the e-records and can perform comprehensive examinations about the settlement structure of the property, the correctness of user settlement durations with the help of ML-data, and also the plausibility of consumptions compared to data from the previous billing period, already in advance of the posting of costs via the real estate manager.

At the point when settlement relevant costs are posted in SAP®, PROMOS.FS receives a correct settlement regarding the consumptions. As far as corrections are required from the heat meter reading service provider, those were already corrected.

When the costs relevant for the settlements have been approved by the real estate manager, PROMOS.FS retrieves them from SAP®, promptly calculates the real costs incurred by the user on the basis of e-records, which contain the plausible and verified consumption data, and provides the now secure e-records as a result of the consumption dependent billing for the posting and as a basis for an integrated settlement letter in the SAP® system.

The savings caused by standardised processes largely result regardless of the number of usage units to be billed. Meaning, if you are managing just a small number of rental objects, you also benefit by this procedure!

The Advantages At One View:

• You gain speed within the billing process significantly.
• You reduce the effort for preparing settlement letters substantially.
• You considerably increase your settlement performance.
• You make your customer feel satisfied on a quality basis by delivering a punctual and error-free settlement.
• The use of the procedure of plausible consumption dependent billing is cost-neutral within the terms of the Heating Costs Ordinance for the real estate manager.
• You act legally and binding regarding the allocation of costs as well as meeting statutory regulations.
• You sustainably increase your reputation and ensure competitive advantages in the struggle for solvent tenants.

PROMOS.FS supports and advises you with the settlement on the basis of plausible consumption data. Simply contact us!

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PROMOS Facility Services GmbH is a service subsidiary of PROMOS consult and has made it its business to guarantee quality of utilities statements sustainably – independent of meter reading company and portfolio-wide. If you like to learn more about our services, inform yourself here >>