Invoice Processing Automation at ista North America

Ista North America (formerly USIEnergy) of Norcross, Georgia is the first company to provide customized energy management services to multifamily property owners throughout North America. Among the services provided by ista North America include capturing and storing all water and energy use data, information essential for creating best energy management practices. Each invoice is individually audited to verify consumption, bill amount, due dates, and service period dates, a process that often reveals operating inefficiencies. Once an invoice is authenticated, it is processed for payment.

Process Your Invoices Automatically

All utility invoices can be viewed online, giving customers the flexibility to view invoices 24 hours a day. Ista also issues quarterly CDs containing images of all invoices. Finally, after analyzing all the data captured, ista recommends ways to help landlords reduce cost and improve overall performance on their properties.

The Challenge

With hundreds of different invoice formats arriving in Norcross every day, ista requires a capture solution that can handle variable or unstructured forms. Capturing variable documents, such as invoices, is not so easy. Traditional document imaging technology relies on template-driven data analysis; consequently, these systems produce outstanding results with standard forms but are less reliable in a more dynamic environment. Taskmaster utilizes rules-based data analysis to locate and extract data from highly variable documents.

For example, to find an invoice date, a common required field for Accounts Payable, Taskmaster rules trigger a keyword search that looks for the words "invoice date" or a series of aliases. Once found, a rule prompts the system to look to the right or below for a date. A validation rule verifies that it fits the formatting for a date, and if it checks out, the system populates the field.

Ista selected Datacap Taskmaster for Invoices , with its rules-driven architecture, because it demonstrated that it could easily capture variable invoices and its "open code" enabled ista engineers to customize the system to meet their very demanding invoice processing requirements.

The Solution

The Taskmaster for Invoices application, which went into production in 2003, significantly expands ista's ability to recover utility costs and identify opportunities for future savings on behalf of multifamily properties nationwide.

Taskmaster for Invoices automates ista's capture, processing, and management of data captured from paper and electronic sources. The solution reduces the burden of utility invoice processing while improving on the success of existing document imaging technology.

The Result

"Ista North America selected Datacap because Taskmaster for Invoices is a proven, powerful tool to better capture, process, and manage the information that is so important for our clients," said ista Founder and CEO Michael Anderson. "We invested in this technology because we saw a way to better serve our clients. Increased production, more accurate data capture, a more streamlined workflow - all of this means the people we work for will be able to save more money and make better energy management decisions."

"These technologies increase our invoice processing output by 100%, giving us more time to analyze the data we collect, notes David Richitelli, Vice President of Client Services. "Our multifamily clients can expect a significant difference in the speed and accuracy with which we identify opportunities for Vacant Unit Cost Recovery (VCRO) and other cost recovery initiatives."

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