Energy Provider Product

This subsystem captures all necessary information to enroll a customer.  The information can be manually entered through an administrative interface, manual entered through a guided wizard interface or entered directly by the customer through a web interface.  

Special features include 

• Enrollment process flow that follows and adheres to all PUC regulatory requirements.  Easily updated verbiage allows for easy updates as regulation changes dictate. 
• The ability to quickly search existing customer accounts based upon multiple search parameters to insure information continuity for re-enrolling customers and reduction in duplicate customer accounts. 
• Quick retrieval of all location information based on minimal address entry. 
• The ability to enroll residential, commercial, CSA, and Reverse Generation customers. 
• The ability to process reverse generation accounts. 
• The ability to capture the credit rating of a new customer and automatically calculate and bill a required deposit amount prior to activating the customer. 
• The ability to capture ACH/Credit Card information, Instantaneous preauthorization on credit cards is used to insure account validity. 
• A process to automatically capture tax rate information associated with the service address. 
• Safe harbor information to protect battered spouses. 
• Alert information that can be used to aid support staff in dealing with chronically late pay or fraudulent customers.  
• An online process that uses a three tier methodology designed to make SQL injection attacks impossible.  
• A complete history of all plans, both current and prior associated with the customer. 
• The ability to link plans combining all transactions into a single invoice that allows customers to view charges for each service address separately, but pay for both via a single transaction even if the meter read dates are different. 
• The ability to specify multiple payment methods associated with a customer.  Either support staff or the customer can then easily alter the payment account used to satisfy a charge. 
• The ability to specify Guarantor information.  This allows support staff to easily charge an alternate entity should the primary entity be unable to pay. 
• The ability to have multiple people authorized to make decisions regarding commercial accounts. 
• The ability to quickly see all charges and payments associated with a customer’s account.  All transactions will be grouped by invoice thus allowing support staff to quickly see any pending transactions. 
• A list of all system generated notices including the date emailed to the customer.  
• The ability to handle delinquent customers.  This includes the ability to initiate payment plans in a variety of ways that include one-time payments, over time payments, and invoiced based payments. 
• The ability to track and manage customer referrals. 
• The ability to track all TDSP Usage and Pass-Thru charges. 
• The ability to create and track all manual charges. 
• The ability to track all outgoing ERCOT transactions such as switch, move-in, or move out. 
• The ability to manage re-enrollment. 
• The ability to capture Customer Issue Interaction via linked issue tracking.

This subsystem interfaces directly with Energy Service Group (ESG) for both residential and commercial customers.  ESG was chosen as the default EDI provider as they offered a common transaction format for all states.  The interface is written in such a fashion as to make switching EDI providers relatively easy.  

Special features include 

• Generic translation process to convert EDI files into database tables. 
• Minimal interfaces to the raw data thus making it easier to change EDI providers.

This subsystem allows sales staff to capture a variety of information about potential customers.  This information can be used to track the progress of sales attempts as well as ultimately creating new enrollments without having to duplicate enrollment information. 

Special features include 

• The ability to perform credit checks on commercial prospects. 
• The ability to specify guarantor information should the company’s financial history prove to be inadequate. 
• The ability to incorporate legal into the sales process to insure that all necessary paperwork has been reviewed and deemed to be in compliance with company policy. 
• The ability to auto generate commercial customer enrollments should the sales effort prove successful.

This subsystem automatically classifies any past due account or write-off account as delinquent.  Alternate collection methods can then be used for these accounts.  In severe cases, the accounts can be marked for disconnection and turned over to a collection agency.  If payment is made, the system will automatically remove the customer from the delinquent subsystem.  Tracking items and notices can be generated from within the subsystem to aid in the collection process. 

Special features include 

• Automatically adding or removing accounts from Delinquent subsystem based upon payment history. 
• The ability to easily see invoice vs. payment history. 
• The ability to capture money collected by outside agencies for tax purposes. 
• The ability to generate disconnect notices. 
• The ability to generate and store printable disconnect notices.

This subsystem is used to estimate energy demands in the near future.  The difference between this daily demand and the physical wholesale power purchased is used to either buy or sell block power to match a client’s estimated power needs.  

Special features include 

• The ability to do daily adjustments to wholesale power trades.

This subsystem generates a list of payments due over the next few weeks and allows support staff to request payment either individually or in bulk.  Payment requests that fail are placed in a denied status where notices can be sent via an automated process to the customer indicating that the payment failed and tracking items are generated to support staff indicating that the customer should be contacted to fix the problem.  Payment requests that succeed are automatically placed in a received status and then used to generate cash entries that are itemized against invoices.  This automatic itemization process allows support staff to easily determine if money is due as well as increasing the accuracy of the aging reports.  If payments are reversed, these automatic entries can be corrected manually during the process of balancing bank statements.  Any past due account is automatically placed in the delinquent subsystem where alternate collection methods can be used.  Credit card and ACH processing is currently handled thru an API interface with CyberSource.  The interface is written in such a fashion as to make switching Institutions relatively easy.     

Special features include 

• Automatic verification of payments and logging of responses. 
• Itemization of cash entries against invoices. 
• Ability to send notices to the customer for a variety of situations including a lack of funds or payment denied.
• Ability to alter payment methods to secondary accounts. 
• Ability to alter payment methods to guarantor accounts. 
• Ability to defer payments to a date when funds will be available. 
• Automatically flag denied payments whose payment method has changed so they can be reprocessed. 
• Ability to write-off payments as uncollectible. 
• Automatically placing unpaid accounts into the delinquent subsystem. 
• Automatic generation of payments due to the TDU’s. 
• Ability to generate customer refunds with proper authorization. 
• Ability to exclude specific payments from the batch being processed. 
• Ability to delay payment request without running it. 
• History of all customers’ payments.

This subsystem provides a wide variety of reports and messaging used in conjunction with the retail subsystem.  Examples include basic audit reports, pre and post close accounting reports, invoice generation and meter read cycle reports. 

Special features include 

• Report group segmentation. 
• Easy creation and inclusion of new or modified reports into the system. 
• Ability to group and manage report and message distribution. 
• Ability to automatically generate and distribute reports thru email. 

Reporting examples include but are not limited to 

• Basic audit reports
• Pre and post close accounting reports
• Invoice generation

Meter read cycle Ability to automatically generate and distribute system messages thru email.  Messaging examples include

• Commercial Prospect Requires Legal Approval
• Commercial Customer Requires Legal Approval

The subsystem extracts all relevant retail transactions and summarizes them into ledger entries during an accounting close process.  Once closed, a period can be locked thus preventing accidental alterations to transactions associated with that period.  The summarized ledger entries can then be extracted and entered into alternate accounting systems such as Quick Books if desired.  The accounting subsystem is also designed to accept manual entries and can therefore be used as a replacement for external accounting subsystems. 

Special features include 

• The ability to alter ledger number schemes without changing existing transactions. 
• The ability to maintain detail ledger entries that can be extracted and summarized for entry into external accounting systems.

This subsystem is used to automate daily processing.  Nearly all functions within the application can be entered into the task scheduler and run on an automated timer throughout the day. 

Special features include 

• The ability to create multiple schedules. 
• The ability to specify single or multiple starts within a schedule. 
• The ability to hold a process until a specified time. 
• Message logging indicating the status of each schedule process.