Sustainability & Risk/ Energy / Background Data - Utilities

Configuring Bill Processing: Checks When Approving or Archiving Bills

The business process owner can set application parameters that control whether or not the application checks when approving or archiving bills that you entered energy bills for only a month, and with no gaps between time periods. This is done using the Configure Bill Processing task.

The following application parameters control the checks that are done when approving and archiving bills:

CheckForMonthlyBills. Controls whether or not the application checks that bills are monthly, and that no gaps exist between bills. Enter 0 to disable the check; enter 1 to enable it. By default, this is set to 1, so the check is enabled. If the requirement is disabled, you can archive and approve bills for any time period.
CheckForMonthlyBillsExcludeTypes. Controls which bill types are excluded from the checking. In this way, the application can be set to check for monthly bills for most bill types (for example, electric bills that are usually monthly), but some specific bill types can be excluded for the checking (for example, propane or fuel oil bills that usually are delivered on demand, and are not billed on a monthly basis). You enter the values as a comma separated list of bill types.

Note: You can enter bills for any time sequence, but the weather model regression analysis requires that energy bills be entered in sequential monthly increments. If you want to use the weather model analysis, and are not entering bills for monthly sequences, then you must use the Bill Processing Exception report to adjust your data so that the weather model can run.

You are free to enter bills in any order, but when you approve or archive the bills, the application performs the check. If you have set the parameter to require sequential monthly entry of bills, then you receive a message that the bill doesn’t fit the monthly bill constraint. You must then correct this before archiving or approving the bill , or change the application parameter so that the check is not performed at all, or not for this type of bill.

Procedure: Configuring bill processing by setting application parameters

By default, the application is set to do checks when approving or archiving bills to ensure that bills are entered monthly and with no gaps, and to do this check for all bill types. To change this, use the following procedure.

To configure bill processing by setting the application parameters:

Select the Energy Management / Background Data - Utilities / Configure Bill Processing task.
To disable the monthly check for all bill types:
1. From the Bill Processing form, select No for the Check for monthly bills field.
2. Click Save.
To enable the monthly checks for some bill types:
1. Select Yes for the Check for monthly bills field.
2. To select the bill types for which the check is done, click the ellipsis in the Excluded Bill Types field.
  The Select Value dialog appears.
3. Click the x to clear the None selection for the Bill Type field.
  The list of bill types you have defined appears.
4. Select the check boxes for the bill types you want to exclude from the checking.
5. Click Save Selected.
To enable the monthly checks for all bill types:
1. Select Yes for the Check for monthly bills field.
2. For the excluded bill types field, ensure that the selection is None.
3. Click Save.