Audit Overview and Installation

Audits are designed to check the accuracy of EnergyCAP utility billing information. Audits may be run:

• During manual bill entry

• Following electronic bill import

• In other stages of bill processing

The purpose of using audits during manual bill entry is to minimize data entry errors by identifying potential issues prior to saving the bill.  Then the data entry person can return to the entered bill to confirm that the information is correct. If there was a data entry error, the bill can be corrected immediately and saved.  The audit can be run again to verify that the corrected bill passes. If there was no data entry error, but the bill still fails the audit, a Bill Message, and/or a Bill Issue can be created so that the bill can be identified as requiring further review. An audit task is also available for running audit groups external to the EnergyCAP program.

Running audits after electronic bill import can help confirm the accuracy of imported data. Other audits (or the same audits in different audit groups with different audit variance settings) can be used for energy management and analysis tasks.

The Audit Manager (Analysis/Audits) provides an interface for the user to create audit groups useful for the unique organization work flow and quality control. About 50 different audits are built into the EnergyCAP audit installation. These audits can be run individually or assigned to an audit group. The latter is the more common use. After the user has defined audit groups in the Audit Manager, a group can be assigned to the bill entry work flow via the Workflow Wizard (Tools/Work Flow Wizard). Then, the audit group will be automatically run during the bill entry process. Individual and multiple bills can also be audited from the Workflow Manager (Accounting/Work Flow Manager), and bills can be audited individually from the Create, View and Edit Bill windows.

The Audit Manager can be used to set or change global Audit Variances for individual audits assigned to Audit Groups. Group audit variances can, in turn, be overridden at the meter or account level.

Re-Audit Notes

Audits may be run multiple times. The same audit may be part of multiple audit groups. Running an audit more than once on a bill will cause the bill to be re-audited, regardless of the results of the previous audit.

If the bill failed previously, the audit result record will be updated with the new result.

The audit result table (called BillMessageLog) does not record the Audit Group; i.e. the Audit Group is irrelevant.  For additional information on re-auditing, see Repeating Audits-EnergyCAP Logic for Database Table Updates.

Audit Installation

Audit installation is not part of the EnergyCAP program installation. If you do not see audits in the Audit Manager when attempting to create audit groups, follow these instructions to install the audit package:

• Open EnergyCAP and navigate to the Audits Manager in the Analysis Module (Analysis > Audits).

• From the Audit Menu, select Install.

• Check the Remove Orphans checkbox.
  
  NOTE: This is a 'housekeeping' feature in EnergyCAP to remove outdated audit .dll (Dynamic Link Library) files from your computer. It will not adversely affect your ability to run EnergyCAP audits.

• Click on the OK button to install the EnergyCAP audits.

• When the audits have been installed, click the Close button.