Frequently Asked Questions

Energy brokers provide procurement for a commission – a supplemental charge applied to your price of energy. This commission is added to every unit of energy you consume – the more you consume, the more the broker makes.

Energy broker always give the same advice – you need a long-term contract. This maximizes their brokerage fee and minimizes their work.

In contrast, energy consultants provide a range of services (invoice processing, on-line data information services, analysis, procurement, risk management, budgeting, CO2 tracking) for a fixed fee. A client retains and pays an energy consultant so long as it continues to be a value-added partner.

Energy markets are complex and unique. While commodity price becomes more volatile, non-commodity costs continue to increase across the markets. It takes time, resources and market expertise to collect, manage and monitor energy data for multiple sites, especially internationally.

Since neither the energy management department nor energy data management tools is core to your business, it is more cost-effective to outsource the entire energy management process to an energy specialist with the expertise and leading-edge systems to support your needs.

It is easy to implement an energy management program, but the on-boarding process depends on your current situation. If you do not have a program in place – the implementation process involves the collection of your most recent year's energy invoices and supply contracts and some basic accounting information.

If you have an existing program in place – your historic energy data can typically be transferred from your old vendor to your new vendor along with your energy supply contracts.

Invoice processing and bill payment are similar in that both receive your invoices directly from your energy suppliers, capture bill data, and code invoices with your accounting information. After that, the processes diverge.

In bill payment, your vendor asks you to prefund the supplier payments by transferring funds to their accounts – they hold your funds and then pay your invoices.

In invoice processing, your vendor sends you a payment data file with your invoices (including accounting codes) that need to be paid – you upload the file to your accounting system and pay the invoices.

Big differences between the two solutions are (i) with invoice processing you keep control of your money, and (ii) invoice processing vendors are focused on capturing essential energy data not just the required payment fields.