Over the course of the past few weeks, I’ve been involved with several customers moving to automated meter reading systems. One customer is migrating to an AMI system and currently reads in thousands of gallons and applies a multiplier to their readings to bill in gallons. Another is implementing an AMR system and reads and bills in hundreds of gallons.
Both are using a contractor to replace their meters, so I asked if either would be changing to reading and billing in gallons and explained this is the ideal time to make the switch.
Why read and bill in gallons?
I’ve written before about a compelling reason for changing to reading and billing in gallons, but with an AMI system, there is an even better reason. If you plan to offer an online portal so your customers can access their daily usage, as the customer moving to AMI does, do you want them to be able to reconcile their daily usage to their billed usage? If you do, then you will have to read and bill in gallons.
What does it take to make the change?
If, like the AMI customer, you are already billing in gallons, just reading in larger units, all you need to do is drop the multiplier on your readings and start reading meters to the gallon.
On the other hand, if you are like the AMR customer and reading and billing in the larger units, you will have to make some changes to your data. These data fields would need to be changed for each account in the system:
- Previous reading
- Current reading (if readings have been updated)
- Usage (if readings have been updated)
- Any usage history used to calculate the moving average
- Moving average
- Number of dials
What’s it going to be…?
If you’re making the change to an automated meter reading system and you’re not already reading and billing in gallons, you have two options – make the change or fall victim to the TTWWADI syndrome. What’s it going to be…?
