Energy Invoice Validation & Utility Bill Auditing Services
Utility invoices are often complex. For large multi-site businesses, the complexity only increases. Discrepancies are all too common in energy bills with suppliers making mistakes that often go unnoticed. Ignite are highly experienced at uncovering these errors and efficiently recovering the costs for you.
With Ignite, our historical bill validation service is all about simplicity – our experts uncover discrepancies, query them with your suppliers and directly manage the process until you receive the money back into your account.
What is retrospective bill validation?
Historical or retrospective bill validation is the process of reviewing utility invoices going back a maximum of six years to uncover discrepancies. It is a pain-staking process where any incorrect charges are identified across your electricity, gas, water and meters.
The auditing of energy bills is a resource-heavy process and one that needs experts to execute. Utility invoicing is notoriously complex, with a whole host of charge types and varying rates that make spotting the discrepancies increasingly difficult. Any errors or anomalies are identified and queried with the supplier. When the queries are resolved, you get the money returned.
At Ignite Energy, we tailor this service to your specific needs. We can tackle the whole six year period or offer a more bespoke service.
The benefits of Ignite’s historical bill validation service
The benefits of historical energy invoice validation are numerous. We know from experience that there is a significant percentage of errors in commercial utility bills. Our team is adept at uncovering them. The fact that it is a retrospective process designed to recover money you’ve already paid out, effectively means you get money into your business without requiring capital.
By gaining control over your utility invoices, you are in a much better position going forward. You can be confident that you are only being billed for the energy you use.
Getting an energy management and bill validation expert like Ignite to complete your historic bill validation means that your internal resource can focus on initiatives to benefit your business rather than the time-consuming task of bill validation. We provide these energy audit bill analysis services so you get maximum benefit with minimum effort.
The money you receive back can be significant. It can allow you to invest in infrastructure, employ new staff or embark on new projects, including energy efficiency measures. This has the potential to make all the difference in these difficult times.
Ignite offers an ongoing bill validation service to our clients too. You can then add energy efficiency projects and other proactive measures to reduce your energy demand and costs further. Bill validation, retrospective and ongoing, gives you a foundation on which to cut costs and secure future savings.
The Ignite team is highly experienced when it comes to analysing energy usage data for complex, multi-site portfolios. When we analyse your data and your invoices, we often spot opportunities. Sometimes, it’s as simple as identifying a site that is no longer owned by you, or a site that is underperforming in terms of energy efficiency. It’s a way of wrestling back control of your estate.
Energy Invoice Audit Process
Our historical bill validation process is rigorous. We audit your invoices to ensure that every element of your utility invoices is correct with any discrepancies quickly identified. We check your energy bills against actual consumption, using data to validate previous bills. We also make sure that the charges outlined in your supply contracts at the time match our calculations.
Our energy invoice audits and commercial bill validation service is the most comprehensive available. The analysis we carry out is based on years of experience across various industries and a deep understanding of utility contracts and all charges.
There are often over a dozen different charge types on a typical commercial electricity bill. Costs are also calculated in different ways. The aim of our validation services is to ensure that historical errors are corrected and you get the money back that you have overpaid. We make sure that you have been charged correctly for electricity, gas, heat and meter services for the past six years.
Historic bill validation software
Ignite utilises market-leading bill validation software to manage the process seamlessly and give you a clear view of the progress. We have further customised and extended the bill validation software to gather and analyse historic data. This makes sure we spot every discrepancy in your old invoices.
What’s included in Ignite’s Bill Validation Service?
Our historic bill validation service includes the following:
- A line by line audit of your historic utility invoices,
- An in-depth validation of complex, regionally dependent distribution and transmission charges,
- Reconstruct each charge element from source data using historical rates.
- Identify anomalies, estimation errors, incorrect tariffs, omissions, consumption and leakage and allowances under schemes such as CCAs.
- Data management
- Invoice validation
- Query management solution
- Cost recovery
- Portal access 24/7
Recovering historical overcharges – how Ignite work
Our service is all about uncovering incorrect billings and then recovering six years of savings for your business. When Ignite uncover discrepancies in your historic energy invoices, we take ownership of the bill query process. It is an end-to-end service Our team speaks directly to your suppliers on your behalf. We have a good working relationship with many utility suppliers and are highly experienced in raising and resolving queries, so that you get the money back in as short a time as possible.
Our recovery process has several stages that allow us to keep you firmly in the loop. We log all invoice queries in our system, using customer portfolio dashboards. This gives you an overview of invoice queries raised, closed and outstanding, along with resolution performance. We use these logs to keep track of the queries, chase the suppliers and update on progress until they are resolved to our and your satisfaction.
How Ignite charge for our historic bill validation service
Ignite are flexible when it comes to how we charge for our utility invoice service. We find a method of payment that’s suited to your specific situation. It’s best to contact us to discuss your options.
How utility auditing ties in with Ignite’s other services
Our historic bill validation offering can be provided as a standalone service. However, many businesses choose to partner with Ignite on other services, allowing us to take an ongoing active role in their business energy management.
This includes:
- Ongoing energy bill validation
- Energy efficiency projects to drive down usage
- Net Zero Strategy
- Energy Procurement
- Energy Data analysis
Ignite Energy – Putting Your Needs First
To discuss historical bill validation for your organisation contact us today. Ignite pride ourselves on delivering results with outstanding customer service. If you haven’t had experts audit your utility invoices, you could be missing out on thousands of pounds.
Speak to us on 0333 023 2222 or email us at enquiries@igniteenergy.co.uk