Glossary
EnergyCAP modules
- Dashboards and Maps
- Sites and Meters (sometimes called the Facilities tree or Facilities hierarchy)
- Accounts (sometimes called the Accounts tree or Accounts hierarchy)
- Bills
- Groups and Benchmarks (create groups, view benchmarks of groups)
- Vendors and Rates
Licensed features
- Chargebacks
- Interval data
- Emissions
EnergyCAP objects and terms
Accounts
Are the foundation of the of the Accounts module.
- Used to track consumption and generate invoices containing the account number, service address, use, and amount owed.
- EnergyCAP accounts receive bills for one or more meters.
- Are associated with a single vendor.
- Can either be a vendor account or an internal chargebacks account.
Account GL Record
Account GL Record is available, but it is not a best practice to use this feature. The Meter GL Record and associated subcodes are most often used with accounting reformatters.
Account name
The account name is the common label for the account.
Account number
The account number should match the exact account number on the bill including spaces and other characters.
Account alert
Displays if the bill's date range falls within the alert's effective period. Add it on the account page.
Account memo
Displays for all meters linked to an account. Add it by editing an account
Alias
You can add up to five aliases per account and vendor to reduce kickout errors when importing bills.
Audits
Bill audits automatically examine bills for accuracy and unusual patterns. A bill audit flags a bill for review.
Bill entry note
Displays during manual bill entry for a specific meter. Add it on the meter's Properties page.
Bill note
Add a note to any bill during manual entry or include the note in a bill import file.
Calendarization
Calendarization more accurately allocates utility bill use and cost to the appropriate calendar month by prorating the cost and use by day. Calendarization is required because most utility bills start and end date don't correspond to the exact calendar month.
Commodity
A meter tracks resources such as electricity or water. These tracked resources are also called commodities. The commodity is assigned to the meter when it is created.
Cost Avoidance
Cost Avoidance is the Measurement and Verification of energy and cost savings because of energy management projects.
Cost Centers
Cost centers are folders that group accounts. You can nest cost centers to build a hierarchy. Cost centers are used to restrict user access in the Accounts hierarchy.
Dashboards
Give quick visual insight into your utility bill data. You add and configure widgets to a dashboard. Dashboards can be shared internally or made public.
Emissions sources
An emissions source consists of a group of records detailing a shared origin and quality of greenhouse gases.
Energy Projects
Energy projects help you track summary data for energy initiatives.
GL Record and subcodes
GL Records and subcodes help you store and export billing information to an accounting system. Twenty subcodes are available per account/meter relationship.
Maps
Maps help you quickly locate your facilities and view high-level metrics.
Meter group
Automatic or manual grouping of meters to use for comparison in the Groups and Benchmark module or as filters in dashboards, reports, and bill lists.
Meters
Physical or virtual devices that measure utility consumption (for example, electricity, water, gas). Meters are typically attached to sites or spaces.
Normalization
Normalization adjusts your energy use data by applying weather conditions from a selected comparison year to all bills. This removes weather as a variable, making it easier to compare energy use across years.
Organizations
Organizations group related sites to help manage and report on energy data. Organizations let you:
- Group sites
- Restrict user access
- Act as filter in reports, bill lists, and dashboards
Rate schedule
A rate schedule defines how charges are calculated for a meter.
Site Group
Automatic or manual grouping of sites to use for comparison in the Groups and Benchmarks module or as filters in dashboards, reports, and bill lists.
Sites
Sites can represent a physical or logical place with properties such as size, location, and age. Sites can have a type of Building, Campus, Complex, Park, Parking, Site.
Sites are the parents of meters and spaces and the children of organizations. A site cannot be under another site.
Sites have area, a weather station, and a primary use.
Spaces
Spaces help you organize your site hierarchy and manage interval data submeters without affecting main site totals. They provide an optional layer between sites and submeters preventing double counting.
Vendor
Vendors provide utility service to meters and are linked to accounts. There are two types of vendors in EnergyCAP:
- Utility company
- Interval vendor (used to generate chargebacks)
Bills module and billing terms
Accrual
An accrual is a gap-filling estimate used to close out a fiscal period before the actual utility bill is received.
A/C/E and V/P/R
Flags used with the Advanced File Format when importing bills.These flags help the system decide how to handle bills with the same start date, end date, and account code when importing bills into an open batch. (All bills in a pending batch are marked as void until the batch is closed.)
Batch
A collection of records (such as bills or transactions) processed,imported or manually entered into the system as a single unit and tracked as a unit in EnergyCAP.
Bills
Official records of utility charges, typically issued monthly, containing consumption, cost, and service period details.
Bill header
Top-level details on a bill, including account number, bill date, period start/end, total amount due, and vendor. You can configure what header information is required or optional.
Bill import formats
Bill import formats help you import a bill file that always has the same format. Map your columns, and the same mapping is applied each time you upload the file.
Bill line / Bill line item
The individual line items on a bill. (charges, use, fees)
A bill line has several parts:
- The caption (you can control)
- Bill line type
- Values for the bill line type (use and/or cost)
Bill line type
Previously called Observation type. Bill line type represents the most granular level of detail on a utility bill such as charge, cost, demand, tax, etc.
Bill list
Bill lists help you find specific bills and take actions on them. You can share bill lists with others.
Bill workflow settings
Bill workflow settings let you configure how the system handles utility bills. Including managing bill headers, bill import, bill export.
Split account charges
You can configure how to split account level charges when you import bills. It is helpful to review your cost category configuration before configuring your split account charges.
Summary bill
A summary bill from a utility provider is basically a consolidated invoice that rolls up charges for multiple service accounts into a single document. A summary bill typically results in multiple bill transactions.
Interval data (licensed feature)
Interval data provides a more granular view of use and demand. It is time-series usage data recorded at regular intervals (for example, every 15 minutes), used for analysis, outlier detection, and demand tracking. Includes the sub-concepts below.
Three types of readings:
- Source readings
Unprocessed by EnergyCAP - Computed readings
Computed readings have rules and units applied. - Summarized readings
The summarization method is applied to the computed readings in each time interval. The smallest time interval is 5 minutes. Summarized readings are snapped to the clock and are used for reports, widgets, and Trend Insights.
Calculated channels
A calculated channel lets you combine readings from different sources to create a custom data stream. You can use readings from the same meter or fixed constants to build formulas that meet your specific reporting or analysis needs.
Calculated meters
Calculated interval data meters are meters that contain a single primary channel, and that channel is a calculated channel. These meters do not hold their own interval data: instead their values are derived from other meters.
Channel
A channel stores interval data for a specific type of measurement. Each meter can have multiple channels to track different types of interval data.
Interval data connectors
Connectors let metering systems that aren't directly compatible with EnergyCAP send interval data to the application through its APIs.
Interval data import
You can use a reading import profile to import meter readings for one or more meters at one time.
Reading
A recorded value from a meter that indicates usage at a specific time (e.g., kWh for electric meters).
Routes
Some organizations read meters in a specific order each month, this is known as a route.
Submeter
A secondary meter that tracks usage for a subset of the load measured by a main meter, often used for tenant or department chargebacks.
Trend insights
Trend Insights shows actual meter data from your primary value channel or demand channel, alongside a forecasted range based on historical patterns. This feature helps you detect use or demand trends and is available for meters with supported data.
Chargebacks
Chargebacks help you allocate utility costs within EnergyCAP by turning a single vendor bill into detailed internal bills. Other terms you might hear: cost allocations, campus distributions, or tenant bills.
Bill splits
Bill splits distribute a utility bill to multiple destination meters and is configured at the account.
Bill calculations
Bill calculations generate a new bill based on the meter's configuration. Calculates use and cost independently and is configured directly on the meter.
Chargeback meter
Sometimes called a virtual meter. A logical meter created to allocate or calculate usage and costs, often based on formulas or submeter data.
Chargeback workflow
A chargeback workflow helps you group together and run similar chargeback steps in a specified order each month
Data Mapping
The process of aligning source data fields (for example, from bill files or interval data feeds) to the corresponding fields in EnergyCAP.
User and access management
Database
The physical location of a customer’s data and configuration.
Datasource
A datasource is a customer’s unique identifier that points to a virtual space where a customer’s data and configuration are stored and managed
User (visitor/contact)
A person with access to EnergyCAP’s platform, either internally or externally. May be an admin, analyst, or casual viewer.
Onboarding
The guided process of bringing a new customer live on the system, including configuration, training, and data import. Enrollment The process of registering customer’s vendors/bills into the EnergyCAP Bill Capture platform.
Bill Capture terms
Transactions
Number of unique account/meter relationships in each bill. For example, if a bill contained two meters, that would be considered two transactions.
Transaction type
A classification that identifies whether the bill transactions are live, historical, maintenance, or setup enrollment.
Bill acquisition method
A classification that indicates the method by which the utility bill transaction was retrieved such as web download, mail redirect, PDF upload, EDI, electronic transfer, etc. Previously called File Type.
Bill acquisition partner
The partner or technology responsible for acquiring and retrieving the bill.
Bill processing partner
The partner or technology responsible for extracting the data from the bill.
Adjustments
The process for identifying bill transactions that should not be billed, typically due to an error on EnergyCAP’s part.
Enrollments
The process of adding new account(s) to be managed for Bill Capture service. This is typically an onboarding activity which adds all planned accounts; however, additional enrollments may occur throughout the life of the customer.