Sigma provides a basic accruals report that can be used to accrue using calculations based on existing utility data. The report can be exported from Sigma in spreadsheet format for use by your finance department.
Accrual with gaps filled by averages
The report can be used only with electricity, gas, or water accounts.
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When the report has run right click on the table and send it straight to Excel which is very quick. You will see a range of useful output columns which you can include in your report requirements.
Output columns:
Site, account, supplier name (obtained via the supply point)
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Billed days | total ‘from’ to ‘read’ days found in the bills in the report dates period (start date to accrual date), including a portion of or all the first bill (if the ‘from’ date of the first bill matches the report start date) |
| Actual billed consumption | Total consumption on all the bills in the period including a portion of or all the first bill |
| Actual billed cost | Total cost (+/- VAT as per selection on report) on same criteria as ‘actual billed consumption. |
| Average p/unit | Actual billed cost / actual billed consumption |
| Average usage/day | Actual billed consumption / Billed days |
| Average cost/day | Actual billed cost / Billed days |
| Missing bill days | Any difference between the number of days from the report start date to the read date of the last bill found before the accrual date and the total Billed days |
| Accrued days | Number of days between the last bill found before the accrual date and the Accrual date set in the report |
| Missing consumption | Missing bill days * Average usage/day |
| Accrued consumption | Accrued days * Average usage/day |
| Total consumption accrued | Missing consumption + Accrued consumption |
| Missing cost £ | Missing bill days * Average cost /day |
| Accrued cost £ | Accrued days * Average cost/day |
| Total cost accrued £ | Missing cost £ + Accrued cost £ |
| # Bills | Number of bills with read dates on or between the report start date and the accrual date |
| Frequency | The period specified on the last bill found before the accrual date. |
| Last bill date | The read date of the last bill before the accrual date. If a bill exists in the account with a read date that lies after the accrual date then this column is populated with ‘Bill after accrual date’. |
| Last bill = estimate | ‘E’ if the last bill read date before the accrual date is an estimate, else blank. |
| # Estimates | Total of read dates on the bills between the start date and the last bill before the accrual date that are flagged as estimates |
| Units | The account utility units |
Report Template Options
| Report Template | Description |
|---|---|
| Auto Accrual | This method will automatically identify whether to run a basic accrual or a Price accrual |
| Basic Accrual | Best Suited for Short term accruals. This will take the price per unit and consumption figures from the latest invoice and use them to calculate what the costs may be up to a specified date if the consumption followed the same usage and the price remained the same as it is |
| Price Accrual | Best Suited for Long term accruals. This will take the price per unit from the latest invoice but will look for consumption within the last year for the same period (for example to calculate consumption during March 2019 it will look at the consumption in March 2018). This is useful as it will provide a better account of peaks and troughs in usage over a long period of time (as gas for example is likely to be used more in Winter periods than in summer). |
Accruals Master
This is for Electricity, Gas and Water accounts only else the account gives a row of zeroes.
This works on the basis that it will accrue:
Either Basic accrual (latest bill) or Price Annual (latest for p/unit cost rate and nearest bill going forwards after the accrual date but in last year, for consumption rate.
If it finds units charges and standing charges on the latest bill (the expected situation) it accrues these separately to give a much more accurate accrual than using an average rate for the latest bill.
If last year’s bill is for negative consumption when doing a Price Annual accrual it will default to using the latest bill this year resulting in a Basic Accrual.
It will accrue sewerage-only accounts if the ‘s’ flag only is ticked in the account screen and label the utility as Waste water. (If ‘s’ and ‘w’ are both ticked it will do an appropriate accrual for water and sewerage).
If bills have just costs (such as MOP accounts) it will accrue the MOP charges on a per day basis.
If bills have cons and all costs in one lump (rather than separate cost rates for the units) then it will use an average pence rate.
The report tells you the bill it has used to discover daily consumption rate and if necessary a reason for the bill it has selected .
If last year and this year are both credits then no accrual will be done.
You can set an ‘accrue from’ date so that to give the year end forecast from now (near the end of Feb) you can firstly accrue to the end of Feb which will attempt to use last Feb’s bill for daily consumption rate, then accrue from 1st – 31st March to get 31 days’ accrual with an attempt at using last March’s bill for daily consumption for this period. This is better than accruing to 31st March in 1 hit which will use last March’s bill inaccurately for the remainder of February as well as the whole of March.
If the report encounters a discount% figure, as a simplification it will just use the average p/unit rate for such accounts.
P/unit totals for electricity includes contract rates, CCL:, DUOS, and green electricity additional rates. This is multiplied by the no. of units on the bill used for rates (i.e. on the latest bill) and this all inclusive sum is subtracted from the bill total to give standing charges. This residual standing charge is then divided by the days on the ‘rates’ bill to give an accruable daily standing charge.