First Data Utilities Launches Revenue Assurance Solution

First Data Utilities announces First Data Revenue Assurance, a unique Web-based revenue assurance service that analyzes data from a utility’s existing billing and metering systems to identify revenue recovery opportunities. First Data Utilities is accepting select utility companies for participation in an initial trial of the service. First Data Revenue Assurance will be presented at the First Data Utilities booth during the 2007 utility CIS Conference in Orlando, Fla., May 21-24.

Billing and metering errors and omissions are considered to be the main causes of lost utility revenue, yet most utilities lack the means to pinpoint discrepancies buried in their volumes of customer and meter data.

Karen Blackmore, program director of Energy Retail Strategies at Energy Insights, stated, "In recent years we have witnessed the emergence of new metering hardware and meter data management (MDM) software products that promise revenue assurance benefits through better tamper reduction and the availability of better quality metering data. These solutions can certainly return results, but they are unlikely to reveal billing-related revenue losses and so cannot offer a complete revenue assurance solution."

First Data Revenue Assurance addresses this issue and reveals both billing and meter related revenue recovery opportunities, providing the most comprehensive revenue assurance analysis service available in the industry.

Using First Data Revenue Assurance is a simple three-step process. Data is uploaded using a secure Web connection, advanced algorithms are applied to the data to identify and prioritize revenue recovery opportunities and the results are made available on a secure Web site. Because First Data Revenue Assurance is available as a Web-based service, utilities can begin effective revenue recovery activities as soon as their first sets of data are uploaded and processed. Lengthy system implementation is not required and the up-front cost is minimal.

"Already the results achieved for utilities by First Data Revenue Assurance indicate that there are millions of dollars to be saved by utilities using this technology," said Billy Love, Revenue Assurance product manager at First Data Utilities.