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Case Study
Automating the Process for Regulatory Accounting & Filing
Industry:
Energy
Focus:
Complex data gathering & pixel perfect report creation
Senturus delivered an end-to-end solution that automated a complex data gathering and report creation process. The ability to securely gather data and output it in different report formats allowed the utility company to reduce rate-increase-pursual times by 50% while saving $20,000 in labor costs annually.
Challenge
The client has customers in 11 states, each with disparate operational regions or jurisdictions. The utility periodically requests rate increases to recoup operational costs. With multiple data sources to pull from – and different governmental bodies to appease, each with its own filing standards – the process to collect and consolidate historical, current and regional data for just one request was an insanely labor and time intensive effort that took months.
The regulatory accounting group was planning to submit seven rate increase requests in the upcoming year. It was an impossible goal given limited personnel. The client wanted an automated solution that would allow them to gather the data and output it in different report formats.
Solution
Operating on an aggressive timeline, Senturus worked in a series of sprints to architect an end-to-end solution that automated the complex data gathering and report creation process. By the end of the first sprint, the client had a strong viable product with basic functionality for automating the data gathering process and meeting near-term reporting needs. By the end of the project, the client had a set of highly responsive, drillable dashboards and reports that far exceeded expectations. Results included
- Integrated data from multiple data sources going back 20 years and covering 23 operational jurisdictions.
- Orchestrated a complex data clean-up process, organizing data to meet multi-tiered and overlapping business rules and provide data integrity.
- Implemented robust regulatory security measures, limiting access to data by user type and business unit.
- Allowed for ad hoc data loads of user-entered data.
- Designed built-in data error checking functionality to ensure the integrity of user-entered data.
- Met with the client early and often to get pre-emptive feedback, identifying and addressing lapses in functionality.
- Created sophisticated dashboards and reports with multiple levels of drill-down visibility.
- Formatted pixel-perfect PDF-, HTML- and Excel-based report output.
- Provided one-click access from the solution dashboard to the document management system, allowing retrieval of documents and receipts.
Benefits
- Automated the allocations process, eliminating weeks of manual labor and reporting errors.
- Decreased the time to pursue rate cases by 50%.
- Saved the client approximately 300 hours a year (or $20,000 annually) in labor cost.
- Saved the accounting group many hours so they can focus on higher value tasks.
- Brought together siloed business units, fostering a culture of cross-departmental collaboration over common subject areas.
Automating the regulatory filing and report process reduced the time needed to pursue rate increase cases by 50% while saving $20,000 in labor costs annually.
About our client
This client operates one of the nation’s largest electricity transmission systems, delivering power to 5.5 million customers in 11 states.