Dev Update: December 2024

December

Twenty Twenty Four

How To Build

Energy Software

(A monthly dev update)

Each month we coax our dev team into a room (using an elaborate set of food-based traps) and get them to tell us what they’ve been working on. Then we write it all down for you to read.

Happy New Year once again to all our friends and colleagues as we return from our Christmas hibernation.

Join us as we dust off the powdery coating from our chins (we think that's from the top of the mince pies but it could be eczema) and wipe the drool from our PJs as we look back at everything that we released last month.

If our dev team were distracted by the excitement of the jolly red man coming down their chimneys, it certainly didn't show in the number of items that we released.

There's plenty to unwrap (see what we did there?) in this month's update. One seemingly insignificant item worth taking note of though, is the 'Your Account' page. Although it's present-ly (sorry, we'll stop now) only a very minor improvement, it's the beginning of big changes within the admin of your account. Over the coming months, you'll see it develop much further and ultimately give you the power to add optional features, manage invoices and administer your users.

For this and everything else, take a look at our December dev update below:

Manage Historic Invoice Records

Having historical invoice data available to compare against the new could obviously be very beneficial. Whether that's old data found before you began validating for your customers; or exported data from another bill validator that you'd like to utilise within UC. We're happy to reveal that we've created a couple of great tools for managing historical invoices.

First up, when clicking "Import Batch" you can now download and subsequently use a new 'historic invoice' template. Here you can add extra information to your historic batches, such as 'Date Originally Validated', the 'Validation Result', together with any 'Notes' you'd like recorded.

Then, once added, you'll find a brand new tab labelled 'Historic' from which you can drill down and view/edit this historic information.

Built for: BILL VAL

Mandatory Fields For Each Data Import

Our system is vast and so is the potential amount of data that needs importing. As you'll likely know, we provide a handy set of templates to add your data to before attempting to upload. Some of these templates have mandatory fields as the system needs the information before it can successfully add it to your account. For instance, you can't bulk-add a list of customers without a name for each customer.

We know how fraught importing data on a large scale can be and we're passionate about making the process as pain-free as possible. We'll be putting a lot of focus into this area throughout 2025. As a first step, we've added a new simple feature that details each mandatory field required within each template. Now, (within Admin - Data Import) when you select a particular import, the required information is clearly shown so you can check off each column before attempting a new upload.

Built for: EVERYTHING

Refresh Button For Dashboards

We understand you want to see the latest data in your dashboards and given the volume of data, it's not always possible for the system to be continuously checking for new imported data to account for. Case in point, when importing supplier receipts the system needs to be told to go back and crunch the new numbers, taking into account the recently imported data.

We want to put the power in your hands so we've added a new "Update Now" button to key dashboards (Commission by US State, Financials USA, Financials (Tables) USA, and Partner Financials). Now you can be sure that the data visualised within your reporting is reflective of the data that's just been manually imported.

Built for: PRO CRM – US ONLY

Add Cost Line To Invoiced Volume Reporting

A simple but handy addition has been added for your customers within the customer portal Invoice reporting. We've updated the "Invoices: Cost & Usage Overview" dashboard to show the Total Cost overlayed as a line within the Invoiced Volume bar chart.

Built for: BILL VAL

Batch Name Added To Invoice Exported

When you're exporting invoice data (via Analytics - Export Data - Invoices) you'll now see all 'Batch Name' data associated with that invoice within the outputted file.

Built for: BILL VAL

Search By Batch Name

A new search field has been added to the bill validation results page that allows you to retrieve results based on the Batch Name.

Built for: BILL VAL

YU Energy EDI Parsing

EDI files from YU Energy have been mapped and can now be parsed within your BILL VAL account.

Built for: BILL VAL

Improved User Interface Of 'Your Account' page

The UI of the 'Your Account' page (Help - Your Account) has been brought up to date and a more accurate detail of your current subscription is shown.

Built for: EVERYTHING

History & Notes Added To Meter Lookups

When a Meter Lookup is performed against any meter, the returned information is now recorded to the 'History & Notes' section for that meter. This can be useful if you periodically wish to review the information via a new lookup, allowing you to see when the information was first recorded and if it warrants a new lookup to check for changes.

Built for: PRO CRMBILL VAL

Ability To Delete Historic Account IDs

Mistakes happen. If you've accidentally updated an account ID with an incorrect value then it can affect the way the system also accounts for commissions related to that account. Within the History & Notes section, you're now able to delete any incorrect additions.

Built for: PRO CRM – US Only

New Commission Types Added

When setting up the commission structure for a referral partner, you can now choose to add two new options to your arsenal, Fixed Fee and Combined.

Fixed Fee ensures the referral partner gets paid a fixed fee regardless of the consumption or commission put in place by the agent. Note that with this option, it's possible the split will be higher than the total commission for the contract. As such we've added a handy warning when this is the case.

Combined ensures a p/kwh commission and a Fixed Fee commission is applied. This will work in the same way as the traditional commission type with the exception that it will be for p/kwh and a fixed fee on top rather than a p/kwh and standing charge commission.

Built for: PRO CRM

That’s it for this month.

Our software evolves at such an exciting rate so please feel free to get in touch to discuss any of the functionality we’ve added since you last saw it. We’ll be more than happy to arrange a demo to show you around!

by Keaton Newman

Dev Update: November 2024

November

Twenty Twenty Four

How To Build

Energy Software

(A monthly dev update)

Each month we coax our dev team into a room (using an elaborate set of food based traps) and get them to tell us what they’ve been working on. Then we write it all down for you to read.

Welcome to the November issue of our monthly dev update. Depending on whichever side of the pond your heart lies, November typically makes you first think of either Fireworks or Thanksgiving.

We'd say on the UtilityClick dev team that we've felt a bit of both.

There's been the 'pop' 'pop' 'pop' of some really illuminating new features, like the UI adjustments made to make note visibility from Activities to the Customer Portal more obvious.

And there have been new features added to be thankful for too. Ones that aim to save time and effort, like the addition of Tender Consumption on Bulk Imports OR the new 'Save & Add' button within Quick Add Batch for BILL VAL.

For this and much more, take a look at everything we released throughout November:

Improved COT Submission For The Customer Portal

Our COT submission tool (within the customer portal) has proved useful for many of your customers but you've told us it would be great if we collected a few more questions within the form.

You've also told us that it would be useful upon a successful COT submission if an Activity could be auto-created with the details of the submission. Good news. We've added a new optional feature that ticks both these boxes. Contact your account manager to find out more.

Built for: PRO CRM

Tender Consumption Added To Bulk Imports

Previously there was no way to bulk update tender consumptions. We've added a column to Data Imports > Updates > Tenders so that multiple tenders can be overwritten. If the cell is empty then the system will leave the consumption as it is. When an update is made in this manner, you'll also see a change to History & Notes with the details of the change.

Built for: PRO CRM

Clearer Note Visibility Within The Customer Portal

We've built the Activity module to be as comprehensive as possible. With that brings complexity, especially around which Task and Activity types allow their subsequent notes to be visible within the customer portal.

We've added some better UI so that now, when an Activity is created with a Task or Activity Type that isn't compatible with the customer portal, the user is shown via a greyed-out checkbox. We're hoping this will help offer less confusion about which combinations can be sent to the customer and which can't.

Built for: PRO CRM

Customer Financial Details Logged In History

When a customer's financial details (e.g. Direct Debit) are created, updated or deleted, you can now see a 'History & Notes' log (via the Select Action button) of what's been changed and when.

Built for: PRO CRM

Save & Add Button Added To Quick Add Batch

We love efficiency gains and you told us it's annoying that when using the 'Quick Add Batch' feature, once completed, the popup disappears and you have to find and reload the feature to add another quick batch. We've made a simple change that means you can now choose to "Save & Add New Bill". Getting you right back to where you want to be quicker.

Built for: BILL VAL

Log Call Button Added To Customer Snapshot

Within the Leads module of our CRM you're able to quickly log any and all calls made to a specific prospect. You told us that it would be great to also have this feature within the Lead Snapshot section (when viewing each individual lead), rather than returning to the main Lead page each time. Consider it done.

Built for: PRO CRM

New Bill Validation Checks

We've added two new validation checks should you wish to utilise them. The first checks if the Customer Name on the invoice/batch matches the Customer Name against the corresponding contract in the system.

The second, checks if the First Line Of The Billing Address on the invoice matches Billing Address Line 1 against the relevant Customer within the system.

Built for: BILL VAL

Better Error Checking Within Meter Reads

When a customer first submits a meter read via the customer portal, we've added additional error-checking to help the customer spot when they've misentered their meter read.

Built for: PRO CRM

New Mapping For PE Solutions Bills

We've added new mapping details so that PDF bills from PE Solutions (previously Pozitive Energy) will now be correctly validated within the system.

Built for: BILL VAL

New Referral Partner Commission Types

We've created two additional commission types to use with your referral partners. There's "Fixed Fee" which will calculate a fixed fee regardless of the consumption or commission put in place by the agent.

And there's "Combined" which will accommodate the scenario when both a p/kwh commission and a fixed amount is required.

Built for: PRO CRM

That’s it for this month.

Our software evolves at such an exciting rate so please feel free to get in touch to discuss any of the functionality we’ve added since you last saw it. We’ll be more than happy to arrange a demo to show you around!

by Keaton Newman

Dev Update: October 2024

October

Twenty Twenty Four

How To Build

Energy Software

(A monthly dev update)

Each month we coax our dev team into a room (using an elaborate set of food based traps) and get them to tell us what they’ve been working on. Then we write it all down for you to read.

Welcome to the October edition of our regular look back at everything released last month. Just like the "years" in the All Star hit song by Smash Mouth: the features start coming and they don't stop coming.

This month you'll find a variety of features designed to help improve efficiency, like Quick Add Activities, Bulk Uplift improvements and Account Manager reassignment tools. There is also one particular release that in all honesty, some of us wish to put far out of our minds (Hello 'Supplier Contract Field Mapping').  It's been a long hard slog with many manhours spent but the team has done a great job and they are all now updated.

For this and much more, take a walk through everything that went out in October, right here:

As Smash Mouth would say:
"Hey now, you're a UtilityClick user, Get your game on, go play"

Supplier Matrix Contract Pads: New Fields Mapping

A couple of new requirements were updated within the new contracts so we’ve now got a field called Standing Charge Uplift ready to map which will automatically populate with the £/M/Y value stored in our system.

We’ve also asked the developers to create a new mapping for Annual Broker Commission to save you having to manually enter this value.  While we were mapping the contracts, we also added some new LOA mappings for Sole Trader Date of Birth and Home Address (for the last 5 years).

Built for: PRO CRM (UK Only)

Quick Add Activity

Our Activity section is great for reminding you that an action is required on a customer, tender or bill for example - however, we've been looking at ways we can make actually adding an activity much quicker for users.

So, now when you’re updating a deal status on a tender, keep an eye out for our new Quick Add Activity checkbox which allows you to (you guessed it) quickly add an activity from the same location as your status is updated.

Built for: PRO CRM

Bulk Uplift Tool Improvements

Previously, you could use the Bulk Uplift tool to change the uplift for matrix tenders. We've now improved this feature to also allow bespoke tender prices to have their uplift changed.

What's more, we've tailored the tool to be compatible with date filtering. So now, you can make a duration selection within 'Input Prices' (e.g. selecting the '12 months' tab) and then use the checkbox to select all quotes you wish to affect, finally, you can select the 'Bulk Change Commissions' option from 'Tender Tools'.

Note this is an optional feature so you may need to contact your account manager in order to see this new feature.

Built for: PRO CRM

History/Notes for Vendor, MOP and DC

You might have noticed that we’ve already got a way of seeing a history of changes within many parts of the system.  We want to expand that functionality to all areas so that it’s easier for you to track who has changed what.

Vendor, MOP, DC and DA have been sitting in the background of our system a little neglected but it’s about to be their time to shine (more to follow on that in the near future) - we’ve started by ensuring any changes to Vendor, MOP, DC and DA are logged in their history.

Built for: PRO CRM

Easily re-assign open activities

Each customer in your system is assigned to an account manager, and as the account manager works through their daily tasks they might create multiple activities to action later.

But what happens to those activities when a customer's account manager changes?  Well, at the top of our main customer screen, there is a button labelled ‘Actions’ which allows you to re-assign any selected customers to a new account manager.  Within that screen, we’ve now added a checkbox that allows you to also re-assign all of the open activities to the same new account manager, all in one go!

Built for: PRO CRM

'Need A Refresher?' Utiliversity Content Tab

No matter how much training you had at the beginning of your UtilityClick journey, there are always going to be things that slip your mind that you need a refresher on.  Our most common queries are related to customers, data imports and BILL VAL - look to the top right-hand corner of any of those screens and you’ll see a new ‘Need a Refresher’ tab has appeared. If you rollover it you will see a video tutorial and links to other useful helpers for the section you’re visiting.

Built for: PRO CRM BILL VAL

A Total count added to all pages

This is only a small one but a great little update in terms of user experience.  Maybe you know this already, but each user can choose how many items they’d like to see on their results page (just go to My Settings  > Items per Page within your user profile).

When result lists roll over to multiple pages we naturally show the page numbers at the top so you can navigate between them; included alongside that, we show a total number of records.  If the results all showed on one page though, there was no way of knowing how many items were listed.  We’ve fixed that so you can now see the total count of results no matter how many pages they’re listed on.

Built for: PRO CRM BILL VAL

Additional auto-calculations in Quick Add Batch

Quick Add Batch has been a lifesaver for when suppliers change the layout of their bills and they temporarily can’t be read by our BILL VAL parser.

We touched on this in our last update but it’s definitely worth mentioning again: we already had time-saving auto-calculations for Total Unit and CCL charge but we’ve now added an auto-calculation for Total Standing Charge too, this is based on the read from and read to dates so it’s really accurate, and because we’ve got so many other fields populated, the Amount Due net of VAT can now also be calculated leaving less and less for you to manually fill in.

Built for: BILL VAL

Bulk Creation and Amendments to Products

We love giving you a bit more freedom to be in charge of your own data.  One job that we get asked to do quite a lot is update payment terms and payment term settings.

You no longer need to request this via support. Anybody with SuperAdmin status can now do this by visiting ‘Suppliers’ and downloading a pre-populated template that can be edited in bulk.

Our system will recognise the changes and overwrite each product with the new information. These changes only apply new contracts after the amendments have been made, to retain your contracts and their historical forecasts.

Built for: PRO CRM

Lead Questions: Ability to bulk export

Two exciting additions have been made to our exports this month. The first is the ability to download lead questions from Analytics > Export Data.  This is something that wasn’t possible until now but gives you the chance to view all of your data-gathering questions in one place, or filter to just one customer/lead, or even to a specific account manager.

The next great addition is our meter read export.  Again, until recently you could only export meters from a singular customer screen, now it’s possible to download reads for all of your customers, or to filter by customer, site name and utility to name just a few.

Built for: PRO CRM

That’s it for this month.

Our software evolves at such an exciting rate so please feel free to get in touch to discuss any of the functionality we’ve added since you last saw it. We’ll be more than happy to arrange a demo to show you around!

by Keaton Newman

Dev Update: September 2024

A Dev Update

Special

Better Bigger Billyer?

This month we bring you something a little different as we focus on the many features we’ve added to BILL VAL.

We’re delighted to have Charlotte (our Head of Product) present us with a whistle-stop tour of the fifteen latest (yes fifteen!) features to be added.

More On BILL VAL

New Quick Add Batch Option

We've developed a 'Quick Add Batch' option so that if an import fails (or you simply need an invoice in the system as soon as possible), you now have the ability to quickly add a batch by manually adding the details.

Improved Sorting Of All Batches

We've overhauled the batch overview screen with better organisation of your uploaded invoices. Here you'll now find batches sorted under 'Batch Exceptions', 'Batch Imported', 'Under Query', 'Complete' 'Manual Batches' and 'All'. With the ability to move batches from one process to another via a simple 'Go' and click.

Monthly Consumption & Cost Tolerance Added

You can now choose to validate and set a tolerance for the previous month's consumption or the previous month's cost tolerance. This means that if a customer's cost or consumption has varied drastically from the previous month, you'll be alerted to it. Previously you could only validate from data for the previous year.

Pass And Fail Multiple Entries At Once

We've added a multi-select UI to the invoice screen so you can quickly bulk-select entries to mark as either passed or failed.

Allow 'Quick Add Batch' With Errors

You told us how useful the 'Quick Add Batch' button was but one of its quirks was that it was super fussy with its validation of data.

It's fair to assume that if you want to quickly add something you'll likely not mind if the data isn't 100% complete. As such, now when adding data via the 'Quick Add Batch' button the system allows the data to be submitted but will alert the user with relevant warnings on the incorrect data.

Editable Meter Type Via 'Quick Add Batch'

The 'Quick Add Batch' button is great at pulling through the relevant meter details where you need them but what if the meter type is now different to when it was first setup? (Ok, we admit we hadn't foreseen this as a possibility)

You've told us that for various reasons you may have initially set a meter with a different meter type than what is now required. Now when adding data via the 'Quick Add Batch', you can change the meter type (for that specific validation).

New High-Level Fail Summary

You told us that going through each individual invoice that has failed and checking the reason can be time-consuming whilst also making it difficult to spot trends.

Now when viewing all invoices within a batch, we've added a failed overview summary button that can be clicked to reveal further information on each failure. We've also added a handy 'Fail Reason' search field so you can drill down to invoices that have failed for a particular reason.

Improved Advanced Search Functionality

We've made it easier to dig through completed batches by adding the ability to search via Reference Number, Date Range, Customer Name and Meter Number.

Toggle Specific Meters

You now have the ability to toggle all meters that should be validated (and the date range in which the validation should occur). When toggled, the system now understands which meters to alert for if validation data is missing.

Mark Half Hourly Received

Within the reporting dashboard 'Efficiency: Meter Analysis' users can now see the cumulative days that HH data has been received against any given meter. Useful if the HH collection has failed/wasn’t available for a portion of the month.

Better UI When Viewing Validation Results

Users can now easily navigate through validation results. With the aid of a handy 'Next' button, you can quickly jump through each result one after the other without having to return to the main validation result screen.

Ability To Save Batch Notes

When creating a batch of invoices, users can now save notes against them to be recalled at any given date or by other team members. Simply click 'Go' - 'History & Notes' within the invoice overview screen.

Unique Activity References Added

If you're looking to assign a new activity via the batch overview screen (or when examining individual invoices), the system will now automatically utilise the unique reference from either entry when creating the activity. Making it much easier to trace back the activity to the specific batch or invoice in future.

Notes Flag Added At Batch & Invoice Level

Within the batch overview screen and at the individual invoice level, we've added a useful flag to each row to show if there are any notes associated with that entry.

New Bill Validation Trends Dashboard

We've added a new bill validation trends dashboard, allowing users to see a detailed history of validation results against an individual supply. Here users can see an 'Invoice Summary', an 'Invoice Reads Summary' and a quick '12 Month Read History'.

That’s it for this month.

Our software evolves at such an exciting rate so please feel free to get in touch to discuss any of the functionality we’ve added since you last saw it. We’ll be more than happy to arrange a demo to show you around!

by Keaton Newman

Dev Update: August 2024

August

Twenty Twenty Four

How To Build

Energy Software

(A monthly dev update)

Each month we coax our dev team into a room (using an elaborate set of food based traps) and get them to tell us what they’ve been working on. Then we write it all down for you to read.

This month our focus has been on reducing the time it takes for you to complete everyday tasks.

We’ve made some really positive, time-saving changes by adding filters to pages that contain lots of results, meaning you can see only what you need to and reduce the time it takes to find and display those results.

In addition, we’ve added more bulk functionality to BILL VAL so you can update your validation results super quickly!

We’ve also had an overhaul of our help guide section to help you be more self-sufficient, spend less time waiting on a response and more time being proactive. As always, if there’s anything you think would be useful to see on Utiliversity please let us know via our Support desk, we’re always open to suggestions!

For this and everything else, take a look below:

Highlighting Exceptions

If you’re ever wondering why a sale isn’t showing in your dashboards then our 'Comms Exceptions' tab in Pipeline can be super helpful.

Originally there were only two reasons a contract would show in this tab: If payment terms weren’t present and if Opportunity Type was set to N/A.  We’ve now extended the reasons to include any accepted contracts that aren’t included in forecasting, they will appear in the 'Comms Exception' tab with a reason of Comms Excluded, helping you keep tab of which contracts need attention.

And with this update comes a friendly reminder to check this tab regularly - ideally there shouldn’t be anything in this list.

Built for: PRO CRM

Speedier Tender Generation

This is a small change but it could save you a few precious seconds when creating contracts.  When you’re going through the process of creating a new contract, you’re asked to select the durations you wish to price for.  We’ve added a ‘Select All’ checkbox to this page in case you want to select all without the manual work of clicking each duration. Small design change, big time saver.

Built for: PRO CRM

Smoother Manual Overrides

Another small change we made this month is to the BILL VAL journey. Often when uploading a large batch, there can be multiple failures.  Previously, you could either pass each line manually, or bulk pass ALL items.

We realised that this wasn’t perfect and we’ve added some more functionality to our Bulk Actions - you can now select which lines you would like to pass or fail, giving you much more flexibility over manual overrides.

Built for: BILL VAL

Keeping Track of Account IDs

As Account IDs can often change in the US, it’s vital that we can store historic meter information against imported commissions to ensure the commission is applied to the correct location.

Until now, we weren’t able to export historic meter information but we understand how important it is to have visibility over this, so, you will now see a checkbox on the 'Portfolio' export where you can decide whether to export Account IDs to see when and who, various accounts were changed to and from.

Built for: PRO CRM (US Only)

Better Search Functionality

If you’ve ever uploaded an invoice you’ll know that they appear in the Customer > Supplies > Invoices section, but you’ll also know that until now they haven’t been filterable - meaning that large, unsearchable lists have lived in your system; not anymore!

You can now choose from a range of filters such as supplier account number, invoice and billing dates, invoice numbers and validation results to narrow down your results drastically, and for the cherry on top, you can put everything in date order too!

Built for: BILL VAL

Time-Saving Auto-Population

More usability-enhancing functionality here - when creating activities linked to a particular bill, we now pre-populate the ‘Linked To’ field with the relevant batch reference. That's not all, we’ve gone one step further and if you create an activity at the invoice level, we copy both the line reference and the batch reference into your activity - saving you tons of time and effort.

Built for: PRO CRM

A Handy Helper

You might have heard us talking about Utiliversity a lot recently.  We’ve now started to remove all of our old 'Help' content and replace it with up-to-date guides on how to use our system.

If you’ve not visited our 'Help' section before, it can be found in the top menu bar on the right-hand side.  Our ‘Online Learning’ section links to all courses or allows you to search for a course if you’re looking for specific help.  You’ll find answers to FAQs and guides on how to set up new sites, supplies and contracts to list a few.

Built for: BILL VAL

BILL VAL Fail Summary

Adding on from our other BILL VAL update, there are times when you might upload a batch of invoices and you’re aware that multiple items will fail for various reasons.

  It is now much easier to view these failures in one place. Within the overview, you can use our new dropdown to select which 'Failure Reasons' you would like to view results for. This will populate a list of invoices that failed due to your selected parameters, you can even select multiple reasons!

As well as this, you can view a quick breakdown of the error by clicking ‘Summary’ to see the failure reasons within the batch overview screen, rather than having to click away and revisit multiple times, we love this update and hope you do too.

Built for: BILL VAL

That’s it for this month.

Our software evolves at such an exciting rate so please feel free to get in touch to discuss any of the functionality we’ve added since you last saw it. We’ll be more than happy to arrange a demo to show you around!

by Keaton Newman

Dev Update: July 2024

July

Twenty Twenty Four

How To Build

Energy Software

(A monthly dev update)

Each month we coax our dev team into a room (using an elaborate set of food based traps) and get them to tell us what they’ve been working on. Then we write it all down for you to read.

The lead-up to the summer holidays is always a busy time for us but it hasn't stopped our devs speeding through BILL VAL parsing whilst adding some really useful functionality to the CRM (much more detail to follow on that one).

Another seven suppliers have been added/had their mapping updated but that's not all we've done on the BILL VAL front! We've developed a 'Quick Add Batch' option so that if an import fails (or you simply don't want to upload a bill), you now have the ability to quickly add a batch by typing out the details.

In other news,  we've made our HH Data Imports far easier to handle and we've integrated with another document signing service which is 12x faster (on average) at returning LOAs and contracts than DocuSign.

Read on for a more in-depth look at what we've been up to so far...

Signable Integration

We're always on the lookout for ways to make processes speedier for you, and this month we've made the move towards Signable where we're seeing much faster returns on LOAs and contracts - an average of 5 minutes as opposed to 1 hour.

There's also the added bonus of it being a lot cheaper - don't worry if you're not a fan of change though, we're not forcing anything on you, DocuSign is still integrated for uninterrupted use.

Get in touch with your account manage if you're interested in trying Signable in place of DocuSign.

Built for: EVERYTHING

New Support Area

UtilityClick sees a near future where you have instant answers to as many of your questions as we can pre-empt.

We've been working really hard on updating our help content via the Utiliversity site.  If you haven't seen it already, head over to utiliversity.com to have a look around and if you have any questions this should be your first port of call. It's jam-packed with courses that show you how to use the system to its full capability, and we have an FAQ section where you can read about subjects like how to reset a password, how to make a user active again and tips on checking your data import errors for common mistakes.

We are continuously adding to this knowledge base and are open to suggestions on content that might be helpful to you.
Also, keep an eye out for how the pages in your CRM are changing; we are adding help tools to each page to show you the answers to common questions and issues without even having to leave your site.

Built for: EVERYTHING

Charity Reg Number LOA Mapping

Our LOA mapping functionality makes creating LOAs simple and quick.  We noticed though, that we hadn't provided a way of mapping a charity registration number, so we've now added that in for you.  Just go to Admin > LOA Templates and you will see the newly added charity registration number option ready to map.

Built for: PRO CRM

Improved VAT Validation

We were recently made aware that, in certain situations, it could be useful for VAT to be set up at the site/supply level rather than the customer level. Our previous limitations were causing issues within BILL VAL but now, when adding or editing a supply, you will see that there is a new field to add VAT at the supply level, simply add the VAT here and BILL VAL will do the rest for you.

Built for: BILL VAL

Commissions Overview: New Filters

If you've ever tried to remove a meter from an existing tender you might have come across a little red error message saying that Supplier Receipts exist and you need to delete them before removing the meter.

You've told us though that it's sometimes difficult to locate said Supplier Receipts. Because of this we've added some extra filters to Analytics > Commissions so you can now search easily for Supplier Receipts based on the meter number, tender reference and customer.

Built for: PRO CRM

More BILL Parsing

We've continued adding to our long list of existing BILL VAL ready suppliers.  This month we've made amendments to Crown Gas & Power, Pozitive, EDF, Bryt, Brook Green, 100 Green and F&S.

Built for: BILL VAL

Quick Add Batch Button

You might have noticed that we've added a really useful button called 'Quick Add Batch' which aids in importing bills that are slightly different to our current mapping rules.

In the past, you'd have uploaded the bill, seen an error warning and been unable to import any of the values, now you can import values based on the contract details that are already in your system and add/change any extra information as you go - no delays or support tickets required!

Built for: BILL VAL

Improved Consumption Data Imports

HH and AMR data can be a pain to import just due to the sheer amount of values that need adding.

It's easy to miss a date or a reading, and really frustrating to have to sift through your import to find the error.  You'll be very happy to know that we've changed the way our data import works for this part of the system - now, if you're missing a date, or you've left a reading empty, our system will first warn you and then allow you to choose whether to cancel the import completely or go ahead and add the empty values as zeroes instead.

We've also looked at the issues you were having with Daylight Savings data, the system now fully supports the missing and extra hours in March and October respectively.

Built for: PRO CRMBILL VAL

That’s it for this month.

Our software evolves at such an exciting rate so please feel free to get in touch to discuss any of the functionality we’ve added since you last saw it. We’ll be more than happy to arrange a demo to show you around!

by Keaton Newman

Dev Update: June 2024

June

Twenty Twenty Four

How To Build

Energy Software

(A monthly dev update)

Each month we coax our dev team into a room (using an elaborate set of food based traps) and get them to tell us what they’ve been working on. Then we write it all down for you to read.

If you've been keeping up to date with our regular mailouts, it will come as no surprise to you, that this month we've worked on *drumroll* more BILL VAL mapping - but we of course have plenty of other updates to tell you about too!

We've mostly been busy in the background speeding up databases, site searches and making the dashboards more functional - these are things you won't necessarily notice straight away, but over time you'll realise your work day is far more efficient. We've also done some work to the meter lookup tool to integrate with our new MSN functionality, as well as mapping bills for BES, Ecotricity and Opus.

Take a look below for this and more and we'll see you back here next month for more updates.

More Bill Mapping

Three more suppliers joined our BILL VAL family this month: BES Utilities, Ecotricity and Opus, meaning you can now upload both NHH and gas bills for Opus, gas and electricity for Ecotricity and BES bills for all utilities.  This means we now have 13 suppliers available for BILL VAL parsing, with multiple utilities for each supplier!

Built for: BILL VAL

Speedier Service

We love welcoming new customers, and recently we've onboarded some with some rather chunky data requirements.  We want to make sure that both new and old users don't experience any unnecessary slowdown, no matter how large their datasets. Because of this, our devs have been working hard in the background to speed up our databases and in turn speed up your searches.

Built for: EVERYTHING

Meter Lookup tool & MSNs

The meter lookup tool is great for saving you time when entering customer/lead information - it literally does the job for you.  As you know, we recently added in the ability to assign multiple MSNs to a meter.  We’ve now made sure that if you use the meter lookup tool, the MSN returned from there is entered into your system and used by default as the Primary MSN. Don't worry, we’re keeping any MSNs you’ve added manually too, just in case you do want to overrule the lookup tool for any reason.

Built for: PRO CRM

Dashboard Enhancements

Customer portals have become extremely popular recently, so we’ve had a good look at how we can enhance them for you and your customers.  We’ve tidied up some dashboards and we’ve taken out some of the filters to make retrieving information that little bit more efficient.

Built for: PRO CRMBILL VAL

Minor Display Improvements

As our work continued with BILL VAL mapping, we noticed a small issue where the count of failed and skipped invoices would change depending on which tab you were viewing.  Small display bugs like this don’t affect data quality but we’re perfectionists, so it triggered us to have a really good look around BILL VAL and make some small but important display alterations.

Built for: BILL VAL

That’s it for this month.

Our software evolves at such an exciting rate so please feel free to get in touch to discuss any of the functionality we’ve added since you last saw it. We’ll be more than happy to arrange a demo to show you around!

by Keaton Newman

Development Update - May 2024

How To Build A CRM

(A monthly update from the development team)

This month we reluctantly said goodbye to the football season, and now we need something else to fill our weekends with…so, we've set ourselves the mammoth task of adding even more suppliers to our rapidly expanding BILL VAL service.

Our developers have already mapped a huge amount of bills this month and because of this we welcomed eight new suppliers to the system, but we’ve got many, many more lined up for future months. What's more, as the format of bills change continuously (thanks for that suppliers 😉) we will continue to monitor and update our mapping accordingly.

For our US customers, we’ve not forgotten you. Upgrades are being made all the time to improve your journey through the UI and this month we’ve looked at how the system can help manage rolling contracts better. Additionally, we’ve put our new vocab knowledge to good use and updated your exports so that they actually make sense to you.

For this and other new features, read on for our May Development Update...

More Bill Val mapping completed!

It’s been a busy one for the BILL VAL devs!

On top of all their other tasks they’ve managed to map eight completely new supplier bills, as well as re-map existing bills (that have been amended from their previous setups)

This month we welcome:
Corona (Gas and Electricity)
Ecotricity (Electricity)
E.On Next (Electricity)
Smartest (HH)
Regent (Gas) and
United Gas & Power (Gas and Electricity)
to our BILL VAL Native Format family.

Keep an eye out because there’s even more lined up for the coming months.

Built for: BILL VAL

Rolling Contracts: Auto-Update

We thought it would be great if our system took out some of the manual work when it comes to rolling contracts, so we created a new deal status called 'Residual'.

When a contract with this deal status comes to within 30 days of its Live End Date, our system will automatically update the Live End Date to 30 days in the future, meaning you don’t need to manually oversee the live end dates for automatic renewals.

Built for: PRO CRM (US Only)

US Exports Updated

We're always learning - UK and US energy industries use very different vocabulary and we are doing our best to maintain linguistic accuracy when it comes to these international differences.  We've recently updated our exports on the US system and replaced the UK units and column titles to actually make sense in the US, sorry about that guys!

Built for: PRO CRM (US Only)

Team Member's Access To BILL VAL

Up until recently, only SuperAdmin users could access BILL VAL but we've recognised the need to offer visibility to your Team Members too, so now when you add a new team member to your system, you can decide whether the user needs access to BILL VAL or not.  This keeps important restrictions in place for other admin areas of your system, whilst still allowing teams to import and validate bills.

Built for: BILL VAL

That’s it for this month.

Our software evolves at such an exciting rate so please feel free to get in touch to discuss any of the functionality we’ve added since you last saw it. We’ll be more than happy to arrange a demo to show you around!

by Keaton Newman

Development Update - April 2024

How To Build A CRM

(A monthly update from the development team)

This month we really wanted to focus on how usable our system is, so we’ve been putting ourselves in your shoes and using the system as if we were the customer.

This has highlighted multiple areas where we thought tooltips and/or references would come in handy. You’ll notice these as you click around the system and we know it will have a positive impact on your routine.

We’re also making more of our existing notes system.  You may not have noticed, but throughout our software, there is a History & Notes feature where changes are automatically logged, you can also leave a note for yourself (it’s ok we talk to ourselves too!) or a note for a colleague who might be working on the same item.  We wanted this to be a bit more prominent, so within BILL VAL we made it more obvious!

Other things we’re proud of are simultaneously adding functionality to our supplier set-up whilst also removing a step that you previously needed to take and removed the multiple steps previously required to download all of your contract documents.

Read on for a more in-depth explanation of what we’ve been up to and we’ll see you back here in a month.

Searchable BILL VAL Queries Within Activities

You might remember that last month we created unique references for each BILL VAL record, we've now incorporated that reference into any activities raised via 'Under Query'.  You'll notice that the reference will now appear in the 'Linked To' field of the activity and will be searchable on the Activities page too.

Built for: BILL VAL

Easier to locate missing dates from your bills

We've been making more big improvements to BILL VAL.  It's now really easy to see where gaps in dates have occurred in your bills.  The ability to set a start and end date for bill validation on individual meters means that if your imported bills have gaps in their dates, they will show up in BILL VAL Exceptions, making it really easy for you to chase up any missing invoices.

Built for: BILL VAL

Other bits and bobs...

We've also added the following other bits and bobs...

Better tracking of BILL VAL notes

BILL VAL is a big part of our system and contains many sub-sections.  We know that our customers like to make notes to keep track of changes or, leave messages for other agents that might work on the same invoice.  We thought it would be good to highlight when a note has been made, so you can now see a little green rectangle underneath the reference wherever a note has been left, no more missing notes!

Built for: BILL VAL

Download all your contract documents

Over the years we've added the ability to upload more and more supporting documents to your contracts, but now we've made it more efficient to re-download them all into one place.  You'll now find a 'Download All' button within View Contracts which allows you to export all your contract attachments at once, meaning you no longer have to click multiple buttons to retrieve your important documents.

Built for: PRO CRM

More tooltips

We’ve made more UI improvements this month.  In our Pipeline there’s a really useful tooltip when you hover over the customer’s name; it tells you who the Account Manager and Lead Generator are, without having to click into the customer details screen.  We’ve copied this functionality into the Procurement tab so you can get the same quick and easy access to info about a customer.

Built for: PRO CRM

Better management of contract terminations

We've made managing Supplier Terminations easier by automatically setting up each new supplier with a 'Termination Required' flag, this will help you keep on top of your contracts and prevent terminations from being missed in the future.

Built for: PRO CRM

That’s it for this month.

Our software evolves at such an exciting rate so please feel free to get in touch to discuss any of the functionality we’ve added since you last saw it. We’ll be more than happy to arrange a demo to show you around!

by Keaton Newman

Development Update - March 2024

How To Build A CRM

(A monthly update from the development team)

Welcome back to the March edition of our regular dev update and with it, we've felt a little like Dr. Sam Beckett.

If you remember the 90's TV series Quantum Leap...

"Dr. Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life, striving to put right what once went wrong and hoping each time that his next leap will be the leap home."

Ok, well maybe we've not been looking to leap home but we've certainly been striving to put right what once went wrong.

As you'll know we release a lot of feature improvements to our software but sometimes these improvements inadvertently supersede other elements that you've previously found useful.

You've told us where improvements could be made and we've taken this month as an opportunity to develop them.

Below you'll find where we've leapt to add a useful copy function for meter serial numbers, we've strived to add the 'child invoice number' to invoice batch exports and we've hoped to make the bulk updating of customer/leads a little more robust.

For this and Other Bits And Bobs check out all of our dev updates from March below.

Oh boy.

Copy That!

We recently added functionality to store multiple serial numbers against a supply where we replaced a text box with a dropdown. In doing so you told us that you could no longer select the number and copy it. We're good listeners so you'll now find a 'Copy' button next to the MSN dropdown to make copying those numbers a breeze again.

Built for: PRO CRM

Export Improvements

A while back we made it so that parent and child references are imported in BILL VAL, but for technical reasons we weren't able to add the child number to the batch export. We've worked around that and it's there now so you can analyse your bills more easily.

Built for: BILL VAL

More Control Over your Imports

We know how handy a bulk import can be so we've been looking into how we can improve them. It came to our attention that you weren't able to add parents to leads when bulk importing, meaning you had to manually edit individual leads post import.

You can now add parents to leads in bulk by going to Admin > Data Imports and selecting the Leads option in the dropdown, saving you tons of time and effort.

Continuing on this front, last month we mentioned that we wanted to give you more control over your own data. You now have the ability to add, edit and delete customer parents in bulk, allowing you to flexibly manage your customers without having to ask our support team for help.

Built for: PRO CRM

Other bits and bobs...

We've also added the following other bits and bobs...

Progress with MOP/DC Suppliers in Forecasting

We're working on updating our MOP/DC supplier section so that contracts placed with these suppliers can be included in your commission forecasts in the future. This month, we've been busy creating new payment terms which will include the ability to choose which month(s) the invoice is expected in. Watch this space!

Built for: PRO CRM

Easier to Reference Bill Val Batches

We're still making regular improvements to our BILL VAL service and this month we've added a reference number (similar to the ones you use for contracts/tenders) which will come in really handy if you have a query for support or want to quickly search for a specific batch import.

Built for: PRO CRM

That’s it for this month.

Our software evolves at such an exciting rate so please feel free to get in touch to discuss any of the functionality we’ve added since you last saw it. We’ll be more than happy to arrange a demo to show you around!

by Keaton Newman