Increased efficiency thanks to modern tools for consumption billing – an interview with BUD Managing Director Roman Küter

Heating and water bills are often regarded as unpleasant baggage that goes along with property management: tedious, time-consuming and full of complexities. But a property service provider in northern Germany shows that there is another way. With the introduction of EXAD 2.0, billing is not only more efficient, it’s almost child’s play. Roman Küter, Managing Director of BUD BAU- UND DIENSTLEISTUNG GMBH and an expert in property management, gives us exciting insights into his company’s digital revolution – and demonstrates why he can sleep soundly at night despite all the challenges.

Editorial team: Mr Küter, your company is an important property service provider in northern Germany. Its business areas include energy management, tradesman services, condominium administration and many other services. We are interested in finding out what you believe are the biggest challenges you currently face in the area of utility cost management.

Roman Küter: On the one hand, for a number of years we have been seeing a strong increase in the number of properties to be invoiced. In addition to performing a lot of necessary meter changes, we also had to adapt our administrative and commercial processes. This includes the software used to make the billing process as digital and automated as possible – because the shortage of skilled labour is making itself felt in our business, too.

On the other hand, we have to implement constantly increasing legal requirements, which are associated with considerable complexity. The EED and the German CO₂ Cost Sharing Act are just two examples.

Editorial team: How have you managed to conscientiously implement the growing legal requirements of recent years?

Küter: First of all, we had to familiarise ourselves with the laws internally and, with support, filter out exactly what is relevant for us and what needs to be implemented. Following this, our service providers also had to implement the requirements, of course. In terms of billing, EXAD 2.0 was fortunately always up to date at very short notice. As a result the hurdles were lower for us, as a lot of things had already been implemented by the system.

Editorial team: What role does digitalisation play in this?

Küter: Digitalisation is indispensable for implementation. The most significant changes in the recent past – at least in this business area – are based on the exchange and preparation of data. Without appropriate interfaces and automated processing, these tasks would definitely not be feasible.

Editor: You prepare accounts for GEWOBA Nord Baugenossenschaft eG. To what extent does EXAD support you in this and why do you rely on EXAD as a billing tool?

Küter: Naturally we looked at other programs in addition to EXAD. With EXAD, however, it was the overall concept and the innovative ideas that convinced us. As the product was still new, we were able to exert a certain amount of influence ourselves during the project planning phase. But, above all, we had been using EXAD 1.0 until then, which meant that we already knew the protagonists on the PROMOS side. This gave us the confidence that it would be a successful project, even though being a pilot customer always involves some amount of risk.

Editorial team: Last winter, you used the new EXAD 2.0 version to perform the billing for your entire inventory for the first time. What were your experiences with it?

Küter: A software changeover is always a challenge. However, together with PROMOS, we started migrating our data and training our colleagues at an early stage. Of course, there were a few teething problems. Everyone had to get used to the new environment and the control effort was correspondingly higher. One or two bugs also had to be fixed at the beginning. However, thanks to the simplifications in EXAD 2.0 and very close project support from PROMOS, we were able to complete all the accounts on time and without any major delays.

Editorial team: How did the support from PROMOS go? What changes do you see compared to previous years?

Küter: During the data migration and the accounting period – in addition to a weekly jour fixe meeting – we had a kind of dedicated line to the technical support and our project managers. We searched for errors and worked on special cases together until late in the evening. Thanks to the really excellent support, we performed the introduction during ongoing operation without any major problems. Compared to previous years, we were able to automate and simplify many processes with EXAD 2.0. As a result, we are significantly faster in the current accounting period despite an increase in the number of properties.

Editorial team: Can you give specific examples of which manual work steps or media discontinuities have been eliminated thanks to EXAD 2.0?

Küter: Automated device replacement and the integration of meter readings are some of the things that offer significant added value. Tasks that are now largely realised at the touch of a button via an interface to the device management software required a great deal of manual work in the previous system. Furthermore, today we almost exclusively use digital data exchange with our largest customer, which also eliminates the need to print all invoices, for example.

Editorial team: To what extent do you think the use of EXAD equips you for future challenges?

Küter: After the experience of the last two years, I am confident that EXAD will handle the complexity of future challenges well. In the last two accounting periods alone, extensive legal requirements had to be implemented in addition to the actual software implementation. This has worked very well and gives us the confidence that we will be able to deal with any changes in the future.

We are also still in regular contact today and, despite the geographical distance, we also meet in person to talk constructively about future projects and ideas.

Editorial team: That sounds excellent! What are your next goals?

Küter: The next short-term goal for the upcoming billing period is to replace the final manual work step for us – cost entry – with data exchange. In the future, however, we would also like to offer other services, such as tenant electricity billing. We will discuss this during our next exchange with PROMOS.

Editorial team: Thank you very much!

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