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.

Data can be selected for the report via a list of specific accounts only, or by sites - in which case it then does all EGW accounts found under the sites.

The ‘end date’ is a future accrual-to date.

‘Offset by days’ can be set to automatically calculate the start date backwards from the end date.

The ‘start date’ is where you wish to go from in the past in order to derive an average cost rate and daily consumption rate.

Estimated bills are processed identically as ‘actuals’.

The report finds any holes in the billing stream between the start date and the last bill date before the accrual date and reports the number of days found and missing. (When processing the first bill forward from the start date it ignores any days’ consumption and cost that lie before the report start date, on a pro-rata basis and counts only the days from the report start date).

The tally of billed days can be calculated using the bill ‘read’ dates and ‘from’ dates taking a portion of the first bill (if necessary) up to the last bill before the accrual date.

For each account the report calculates an average utility cost rate and daily usage rate from the totals of the billed days. It applies these daily rates to accrue for any gaps in the billing series and then to the accrual at the end.

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).