Bill Validation Application

StrategyVaR Associates LLP expressed the necessity of a billing validation and procurement system for one of its leading providers of energy procurement, risk management, renewable energy, carbon management and compliance services to corporate, I&C and public sector organizations.

Indice was tasked with the implementation of the new application, having previously developed StrategyVaR’s risk management module. The application is a multitenant SaaS system, designed to make the most of the latest Cloud features.

The system introduced a new paradigm for modelling tariffs on a regime basis. This empowered our clients that naturally operate on multiple countries & different currencies with a unified view of their data. With UK’s energy industry tariff system being fairly complex, Indice gladly accepted the challenge. The web application enables the user to efficiently verify the data contained in myriad supplier invoices and to provide clients with a range of useful management information such as variance and consumption reports.

One of the main requirements was to allow users to enter a prodigious amount of data ranging from basic information like clients, sites and meters to more precise figures like meter reads and half-hourly meter measurements. Through our innovation we created a refined templating system that is able to capture and model different kinds of unstructured data sources such as CSVs, plain text, as well as XLSX and EDI files. This data is then fed to the system’s top of the line importers. The EDI importer is one of the most sophisticated importers for the TRADACOMS standard to date. To add to the complexity of the data entry process Indice was called upon to provide a business versioning feature that utilizes fact data linearly through time in order to support changes in dimensions like meter hardware and supply contract durations. Additionally, Indice had to bring into play a versioning scheme of the highest type to provide an audit trail for historical data. This was all achieved while also supporting manual data entry that was meaningful and easy to use.

The invoice validation engine is implemented with the use of an intricate pipeline pattern that incorporates the aforementioned tariff system and is handled by a highly scalable task engine.

Key features include:

• Adaptable unit conversion engine

Units can be extended based on business needs including custom units that are not commonly used.

• Commodity agnostic

The system can provide bill validation services regardless of industry and commodity.

• Multiple region/regime support.

The application can incorporate dynamic charges from any regime or country including complex legislation rules.

• Foreign exchange rates calculator

The built-in calculator readily converts foreign exchange rates and presents them in an easy to read form.

From our knowledge of the UK energy broker market there is, at present, no comparable integrated procurement, bill validation and reporting software currently being marketed.  This consequently has given StrategyVaR’s client a substantial ‘first mover’ advantage over competitors.

We are very happy to have concluded yet another far-reaching product for StrategyVaR Associates LLP. Our collaboration has been nothing but exemplary.