Is your organization using EDI to pay utility bills?

1. EDI
vs.
Urjanet

2. EDI vs. Urjanet
EDI, in very loose terms, is an electronic communication method built on standards for
exchanging data between two entities. In the context of utility billing, EDI provides a process
solely for invoicing and payment. EDI implies a series of sent and received messages, and due
to its electronic nature, human intervention is minimal.
It’s true that organizations who use EDI to pay their utility bills no longer have to deal with
paper bills or the scanning, sending, and storing processes of using OCR technology or human
error due to manual data entry, but deploying the EDI process comes with its own set of
drawbacks and restrictions that have some current users of EDI technology questioning its
efficacy and fit for their organization.

3. Lack of Standardization
The standard used for utility billing, EDI 810, has allowed for utility providers to implement it
rather loosely. What this means is that the format in which the utility bill is received varies
from provider to provider, oftentimes requiring resources to manipulate the data to get all of
the bills in the same format. This lack of standardization can create challenges when a multi-
facility organization has many different utility providers, as it can be costly and time-intensive
to execute this additional step of re-formatting.

4. Setup Costs
The requirements for EDI involve a lot of time and money, not to mention technical know-how
and a deep understanding of business processes in order to properly set up and implement
EDI. A method for translating or interpreting the received files must be established first in
order to accept the file, then to validate the sender (or “trading partner”), the file structure, and
the individual field information, and finally to convert the file into the right format for the
organization’s backend systems. Many providers also require quite a few forms and
agreements to fill out and sign prior to implementation, adding even more steps to complete
before the process gets up and running smoothly.

5. Difficulty Accessing Data
Because EDI 810 is the standard used for invoicing, it’s typically not a great method of
accessing bill data for any other purpose than to pay the bill. Additionally, data points that
might be useful to departments like sustainability and energy management get left behind in
EDI feeds because they aren’t absolutely necessary in the bill payment process. Managers in
other departments must find another way to get the data they need, often leading to feeling
second to accounting and finance.

6. No Bill Image
Bills sent via EDI do not arrive with a bill image. In the event that a particular statement needs
to be referenced, viewed, emailed, or printed, having the bill image is tremendously helpful.
Furthermore, as mentioned above, sometimes data points get left off the EDI feed that could
be useful for analysis. Having a bill image provides every single data point on the bill so that
nothing gets left behind.

7. No Historical Data
A major drawback for EDI is that some utility vendors do not provide any past information
regarding a particular account. Benchmarking and forecasting becomes virtually impossible
without historical data, and to do so requires starting from scratch to gather enough data to
report on. However, some utility providers may provide this information, but will generally
only do so upon special request.

8. Time to reconsider?
If the lack of standardization, setup costs and investment, difficulty accessing energy data, and
lack of bill image and historical data are an issue for your company, Urjanet can remedy these
concerns through our automated utility bill data feed. You get data that:
● Is standardized
● Requires minimal setup effort on your end
● Can be delivered to your accounting systems, as well as your sustainability, energy
management, energy procurement, and business intelligence programs simultaneously
● Includes a bill image
● Can be traced to as far back in time as the utility will provide

9. For more information,
check out our blog post:
urjanet.com/edi-vs-urjanet