Utility Data Collection and Reporting
Why
Many companies spend a lot of time and money attempting to collect their relevant utility and sustainability data. Problems with manual data entry, spreadsheets, inconsistent collection methodology, and disorganized data storage run rampant at most companies. Fundamental to all energy and sustainability initiatives is the underlying data. How much does a facility use? How much is a facility paying? Without easily accessible and highly accurate data, the integrity of all future decisions is undermined.
How
The Foresight software and our data analysts will collect and consolidate all your company’s utility bills into a singular cloud-based platform. For utility companies that offer online billing, Foresight automatically collects images of your bills on a monthly basis without any human beings involved in the data entry. For utility companies that do not offer online billing, our dedicated team of utility bill analysts will work with you to create a simple, repeatable, minimally invasive process to collect the bills and enter them into our database.
Foresight will empower you to compare your portfolio’s building energy use/cost performance, normalize weather data, billing days and square footage. Foresight will enable you to track multiple sustainability metrics across all of your buildings.
Benefits
• Centralizes segmented data across a company’s entire facility portfolio
• Saves time for numerous stakeholders attempting to collect and manually enter data
• High data quality due to automated collection and minimized human data entry
• Simplified management reports proactively distributed to appropriate company staff
Case Study
Client Profile
30 location manufacturing company with over 180 utility bills flowing into the portfolio of buildings.
Before Foresight
Utility bills were processed by the Accounts Payable Department at each individual location. Cost and Energy Usage information was entered into a spreadsheet by staff at each location and then emailed to a teammate in the sustainability department at corporate headquarters. Although the spreadsheet was supposed to be filled out each quarter and emailed to corporate, it was only being done consistently on an annual basis. Upon collecting all the spreadsheets, staff would aggregate all the spreadsheets into a master database to be used for the company’s annual corporate responsibility report. It was estimated that it took nearly 300 hours of staff time to implement this process each year. Beyond time, data integrity was constantly in question by all staff involved.
After Foresight
Approximately 145 of the 180 bills were able to be accessed by Foresight on a monthly basis. The other 35 utility bills were saved in a secure cloud based file sharing application by the company’s AP staff each quarter. From there our staff would enter the data and image of the bill into the Foresight platform. All of the bill data was aggregated and populated into easy to read reports that were proactively emailed to key staff at each location and corporate headquarters on a monthly basis. Additionally, the sustainability staff was able to export the data on an annual basis for the corporate responsibility report whenever they needed it. Staff time required to implement this process has declined to less than 30 hours per year, saving our client 270 staff hours. Additionally, concerns around data quality and integrity have been eliminated due to Foresight’s automated collection tools and quality control processes.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does your software automatically collect my utility data?
If your utility provider offers online billing, our software will collect your data through your log in credentials. Our solution is secure and encrypted so no one (including us) knows your passwords.
We don’t do online bill pay or have online logins to our utility data, can you help us still?
Yes, in most utilities, simply setting up online access does not mean you have to set up automatic bill pay. Therefore we can simply set up the online access and not ever interfere with your current Accounts Payable process.
Do you pay our bills?
We do offer bill pay solutions through a strategic partner. In many cases, our bill pay services are between $10-30 per bill per month.
How often do you collect our bills?
As often as your utility provider sends them. Typically, monthly, sometimes quarterly.
What if I need custom reports created from my utility data?
No problem! We know that each company needs to see their data in unique ways. Our data team will work with you to provide customized reports that deliver the maximum value to your company.
How much does it cost?
Utility bill collection and reporting can range from $10-30 per utility bill per month. The number of bills you need collected impact the cost. If your bills are online accessible or not impacts your cost. Your need for customized reports impacts the cost as well.
As of December 2022, Foresight was collecting energy and sustainability data for over 4,000 facilities across the globe on a monthly basis.
The Foresight team and software solutions has saved our organization hundreds of hours each year collecting utility data. Beyond the time savings, we have been able to see our utility data across our entire portfolio of facilities in more meaningful and actionable ways. We trust our data, we see it on a regular basis, and we don’t have to spend the time chasing it down!
Senior Safety & Sustainability Manager / Global Operations Engineering, Herman Miller
