C2C – water and wastewater services
provider of choice
'Billing & Account Management' February '09
C2C have a dedicated Billing team within the Water Resources leg of the business. The team are split into two, dealing with either Bill Processing or Key Accout Management for all Ministry of Defence (MOD) sites within Package C of Project Aquatrine.
MOD sites vary in both size and characteristics. Sites may be purely operational, purely residential housing or a combination of residential, commercial and operational areas.
The Bill Processing team are responsible for receiving, processing and paying all water and wastewater bills issued by Statutory Undertakers (SUs) The team deal with in excess of 12,000 SU bills per year for almost 4000 accounts relating to the 1500 plus MOD sites. This is achieved by following an approved procedure for dealing with the end-to-end bill process. All bills are dealt with in a timely manner in order to maintain good working relationships with SUs.
The Key Account Management team are responsible for ensuring C2C pay the correct amount for the Top 100 sites within the contract, which makes up almost 90% of the total SU bill. Their role is to determine the correct SU bill, and compare it to the actual SU billed amount, for the various components of each account. This is achieved by fully understanding all of the facets of each key site. The team are also responsible for making, negotiating and recovering claims from the SUs, which has enabled them to build a good working relationship with all of the SUs within the North, East and South East of England.
There may be several reasons for the differences including bills being invoiced using estimates rather than actual reads, tariffs being inappropriate in comparison to consumed volumes, and excessive leakage levels which can be reduced through detection and repair efforts to cost effectively minimise water wastage.
The Billing team have successfully recovered in excess of £2M in claims from SUs since October 2007. They continue to identify and recover claims through the following initiatives;.
Tariffs – most water companies operate a tariff system where by you can be charged a ‘smaller pence for cubic metre’ for a fixed annual charge, which may be cost effective if you use sufficient water. We calculate and monitor this, and change the tariff if necessary preventing over payment and providing a future saving (see Case Study One below).
Surface Water/Highway drainage – if you are connected to a foul sewer some companies now charge you at least a highway drainage charge which covers the cost of treating water that has entered a sewer from the roads. Surface water drainage charges are applicable if the area of your land runs off into the SU sewer. Both of these are chargeable unless proved otherwise by the customer. So there may be cases where you are not actually connected. We provide a service to undertake a desk top exercise, and site survey where required, to determine connection and proceed accordingly.
Leakage – C2C have a sophisticated leakage monitoring IT system, Autochart, enabling gross water and leakage volumes to be determined on a daily basis, using C2C check meters installed immediately downstream of SU meters. We can also monitor increases in gross water supply based on SU meters and billed volumes. C2C have highly skilled in-house personnel, and sophisticated leakage detection equipment, to investigate increased volumes and potential leakage. C2C also have dedicated repair teams at their disposal to complete repairs. The end-to-end process can be achieved within three working days. Autochart is used to determine the impact of the leakage efforts and make a claim for wastewater losses from the SU. All leakage claims are made from the SU in accordance with their leakage policy.(see Case Study Two).
Standing Charges – when a meter is installed, water companies charge a standing charge to recover the cost of maintaining said meter. This cost is related to its size. Sometimes a meter may be over sized resulting in an excessive standing charge. We establish the correct meter size required and determine the cost benefits of replacing the meter with a smaller one against the cost savings over an appropriate time period.
Over-estimated Consumption – by law the SU only has to provide one actual read annually. If you are billed more frequently then they will bill based on an estimated daily average which is usually higher. When an actual read is then provided you may be due a credit. However, some companies do not automatically deduct this off the next bill and the credit may go unclaimed. We check historical bills for estimated reads and any credits owed. We also pursue the claim with the relevant SU.
Double Charging – if the estate is large with unmeasured properties and a metered supply on, sometimes the metered supply actually also supplies the unmeasured properties. In such circumstances, we will organise a site survey with a representative from the SU and a C2C field technician to prove if this is the case, the unmeasured account will be closed and any monies paid will be refunded.
Case Study One – Duke of York
The Duke of York Military School was historically being charged £1.30 per cubic metre of water by Folkestone and Dover. They have a tariff scheme in place where customers using in excess of 50,000m3 per annum qualify for a discounted rate. In 2008 it was noted that Duke of York was consuming nearly 75,000m3. However, C2C were still paying the larger rate. After some investigation it was identified that the Duke of York has been over the threshold since late 2006. We have since had the account changed to a large user tariff with a charge of £0.96 per cubic meter and subsequently we will go forward saving approximately £25,000 per year.
Case Study Two
As part of our contract with the MOD we have installed our own electromagnetic (Emag) meters immediately downstream of the SU meter. This helps us monitor leakage more accurately and efficiently. Imphal Barracks was targeted as part of our planned leakage reduction programme due to the volumetric cost of water and leakage level calculated using daily flow data from our Emag meters. C2C detection staff detected the leak, using noise correlating equipment, which was quickly fixed and a claim was submitted. We are now in receipt of £15,000 for the leak and have prevented any further water being wasted. We continue to monitor the site, using Autochart, to ensure leakage levels are not exceeded.