Overview: Importing EDI Data

Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is a standard method used by utility vendors to transmit electronic billing data.  In EnergyCAP, the EDI Processor executes user-defined formulas (scripts) associated with the account to create bills from imported data. 

EnergyCAP’s part in the EDI process is simply to receive the EDI 810 v 4010 (X.12 compliant) transaction and to import specified billing invoice data into the database.  EnergyCAP does not produce any EDI compliant response transaction such as an EDI 997 acknowledgement.  EnergyCAP will not generate an EDI 820 Remittance. 

Each utility company’s implementation of EDI is different and each has rules and guidelines which govern the arrangement between the customer and the utility.  Most arrangements require that a VAN (Value Added Network) partner is in place to handle the distribution of the EDI transactions.  In addition, some utilities mandate a paperless invoice process with payments made via ACH/EFT methods through an EDI 820 Remittance transaction.

Contact your vendor(s) to determine the specific rules for their EDI offerings.  In most cases, there will be a trial period for a test group of accounts prior to switching from paper invoices to EDI transactions only.  The trial period helps to ensure that the bill detail is being captured properly and that the payment methods are working as expected.

If you are interested in implementing EDI for your organization, first contact your utility companies and begin discussions with them regarding EDI requirements.  Then contact EnergyCAP Sales (sales@energycap.com) to determine pricing for implementing EDI transactions in EnergyCAP.  You may also find the following online resources helpful as you investigate the benefits of EDI for your organization.

Southern California – Edison EDI Overview:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Data_Interchange

A Bit About Scripts

EnergyCAP Enterprise maintains a history of a vendor's bill scripts in order to match the bill period to the applicable EDI script version when importing bills.

Before importing EDI data, use the EDI Script Editor (accessible from the Contact Manager via the Contact menu item, or by right-clicking the desired account-View Script option) to create a script for the desired vendor.

Import Prerequisites

In order to import EDI data into EnergyCAP Enterprise, first verify the following:

• The data in the import file matches your EnergyCAP Enterprise dataset (account code, commodity, and meter code).
• The vendor’s EDI import ID matches the ID used in the import file. This ID is the concatenation of the vendor’s two-character ISA sender ID qualifier and the fifteen-character ISA sender ID code.

• The vendor is associated with an active, bill-enabled account for which the effective date is the same as or earlier than the effective date of the data to be imported.

NOTE: EnergyCAP Enterprise lists any errors that occur during the import process in the EDI Processor Problem folder of the Work Flow Manager.

The ediprofile.ini file, located in the Local Settings\Application Data\EnergyCAP Enterprise directory under the Documents and Settings directory for your Windows login profile, allows you to toggle global settings for the bill import processor:

• ReadDuplicates, for allowing the import of bills with duplicate bill dates for the same account (1=Yes, the default, or 0=No).
• UseTemplates, for specifying if an import bill mirrors the details that a manually-entered bill would inherit from the assigned bill entry template (1=Yes, the default, or 0=No); additional details which do not correspond to template details still get added to the end of the bill, while template details with no corresponding import details will not have values assigned.