News
Energy Services of Pensacola goes live with
CIS Infinity
Energy Services of Pensacola, the natural gas provider owned by the City of Pensacola has gone live on CIS Infinity, the Customer Information and Billing System from Advanced Utility Systems.
Toronto, Canada. October 20, 2003
Advanced Utility Systems Corporation (Advanced) is pleased to announce that Energy Services of Pensacola, FL (ESP) has gone live with CIS Infinity®. ESP bills for Natural Gas, Gas Light and Sanitation services. CIS Infinity is handling the customer information and billing needs of ESP and is dealing with the complexities inherent in providing both natural gas and sanitation services.
ESP supplies natural gas to 52,000 customers in Escambia County with the exception of Pensacola Beach and the Town of Century. They purchase natural gas from many sources in the Southern states located along the Gulf South Pipeline System. ESP is owned and operated by the City of Pensacola who establishes natural gas rates.
The implementation of CIS Infinity at ESP began in July of 2002 and was completed within budget 11 months later in August of 2003. The set-up occurred at three separate office locations which were networked using terminal server. ESP is using an Oracle 9 database on the UNIX platform.
Ms. Gerry Barker, Operations Support Manager at ESP commented, "I've been working with the city from the beginning. We first started using a computer system back in the 60s using key punching and since then I have been through 5 new billing systems. CIS Infinity is a very good system, it allows us to track customers better, it stores more information than we have ever had and it surpasses any other system we have had up 'til now. The people from Advanced were all wonderful and nice people and it [CIS Infinity] was easy to learn."
Cash collections for ESP are handled at four sites using the cash register module built into CIS Infinity. Using CIS Infinity's collections module, ESP's collections process has been significantly enhanced. ESP is fully utilizing CIS Infinity's cash register and cash equipment including cash drawers, receipt printers and OCR scanners.
CIS Infinity is being used to handle all of ESP's rates including gas contract rates that had previously been handled using a spreadsheet. CIS Infinity provides general ledger accounting detail to unbundled rate charges in order to report on various rate elements and rate classes. CIS Infinity's rate engine is being utilized to handle the monthly variances in gas charges without a rate change using the CIS Infinity billing factor functionality. CIS Infinity is interfacing with Pentamation, ESP's accounting software.
ESP is using several specialized features of CIS Infinity such as Sanitation Inventory, Gas Meter Inventory and Gas Instrument Inventory. They are the second client of Advanced to use the Gas Meter and Gas Instrument Inventory functionality in CIS Infinity. Energy West of Montana, Wyoming and Arizona is also using this functionality. Patricia Sorbara, CEO of Advanced commented "We are very pleased that ESP is making use of the Gas Meter Inventory and Gas Instrument Inventory functionality built into CIS Infinity. These functions will assist them to better track and manage their inventory thus saving them money."
ESP is making extensive use of CIS Infinity's service order module to accommodate the demanding nature of the service calls required for a gas utility. The Pledge functionality within CIS Infinity is used by ESP to accommodate their EUAP program, allowing customers to donate money to underprivileged customers who are unable to pay their gas bill. Chuck Good, Assistant Director of ESP commented, "We are very pleased with the pledge functionality built into CIS Infinity. It allows us to seamlessly continue our EUAP program."
More about Advanced: Advanced Utility Systems Corporation is a privately owned and operated software and services company in Toronto, Canada. The company has grown from its 1997 start-up to serve more than 60 North American and Caribbean water, electric, and natural gas utilities with its billing and customer information solution, CIS Infinity®.
For more information, contact:
Philip Playfair
Chief Marketing Officer
Advanced Utility Systems Corporation
(416) 496-0149 x229
Chuck Good
Assistant Director of ESP
850 474-5305
Success Stories
Northern Kentucky Water District:
"Our customers needed a seamless upgrade. We had more confidence in the Advanced strategy than any other vendor's -- their implementation and conversion process were designed to flex for a unique situation like ours."
City of Bellevue:
"Throughout the 10-month conversion and implementation project, Advanced brought excellent people to the table, and we've arrived at the end of the project with all our requirements met."
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