Aclara Complex Billing
Complex billing made simple
Managing complex billing is challenging enough; the last thing you need is a billing application that requires scripting or database programming each time you want to design or change a rate.
Aclara Complex Billing is a reliable, automated, highly scalable system for generating accurate bill-ready billing data, invoices, settlement statements, and transaction reports. Aclara Complex Billing can quickly represent any rate - no matter how complex - with no programming. It’s easy-to-use, graphical rate designer and flexible data model provides direct control over billing calculations, reducing the time it takes to create rates and generate bills. This capability makes it more flexible and less expensive than home grown and third party complex billing applications. With comprehensive audit trail capabilities, Aclara Complex Billing is also a much more robust, reliable solution than spreadsheet billing, critically important in this era of Sarbanes-Oxley.
Aclara Software has integrated Aclara Complex Billing with Aclara Bill Analysis to provide seamless access to billing information and load profiles for customers and business customer service representatives.
Aclara Complex Billing can be used for:
- Complex C&I Billing
- Generation and Distribution Billing
- Wholesale & Retail Customer Billing and Transaction Settlement
- Billing and Settlement of Transmission and Ancillary Services
- Shadow Settlement for Asset Owners and Service Providers
Flexible Rate Design
Aclara Complex Billing enables you to:
- Create or model any pricing method, rate schedule, or scenario, no matter how complex- including interval data-based rates, index-based rates, coincident peak, ratchets and curtailment rates.
- Calculate any number of charge types for C&I rate schedule or ancillary transmission or distribution service or for any commodity type, unit, or time interval.
- Change or redesign a tariff calculation while preserving the previous calculation for re-settlement activity.
- Design rates with a graphical rate designer that does not require programming scripts or database table changes.
Complete Billing Work Flow
Aclara Complex Billing is a complete billing engine that delivers:
- A graphical user interface guides that user through the complex billing workflow - from defining bill cycles, scheduling bill runs and data import/export, handling exception reporting, and reviewing results, to invoice production.
- The ability to create and control any number of billing, late billing, and re-billing cycles of any interval length for any selection of accounts, as well as support on-demand billing.
- Support for summary, consolidated and conjunctive billing.
- Printed or electronic invoices, - which can include nested line items to differentiate charge categories - or links to your existing CIS system for the actual creation of bills.
Full Audit Trail Capability & Diagnostics
Aclara Complex Billing delivers complete auditability along with extensive, automatic validation:
- For every action involving the addition, deletion, or processing of data, the system records the date, time, and user ID associated with the action.
- All input data and superseded calculations, scenarios, and results are time-stamped and saved in history data tables-no data is ever lost or overwritten.
- Built-in mechanisms detect, trap, and report errors in execution; detailed diagnostic messages are logged for every process transaction.
- Automated validation routines speed up the billing process and improve accuracy.