Accruals
Summary
The terminology ‘Accruals’ in Envizi refers to system-generated estimates for missing consumption and/or cost data in Accounts. The missing gaps generally represent holes in a historical data set due to reasons such as missing invoices, or because the latest invoice is not yet available.
Envizi has the capability to accrue consumption data (derived using average historical consumption or linked interval meter data), and / or cost data (derived using historical cost data or latest received invoice). Accruals generated are stored in the platform alongside monthly actual data, and can be used for consumption, emission, energy and cost reporting just per actual data.
Accrual Calculation Methodology - Organization wide
Envizi provides several out-of-box accrual calculation methodologies for consumption and cost accruals. The principle is to generate the accruals based off data from a chosen historical period. Accruals are generated based on the daily average value of a pre-defined historical period, multiplies by the number of missing days in a month.
Accrual = Historical Daily Average * Number of Missing Days
Methodologies for calculating consumption accruals based on a predefined window of historical period:
Last 12 months*
Last 18 months*
Last 24 months*
Entire data set
Methodologies for calculating cost accruals:
Same as consumption's methodology above
Not Required
Last Invoice
*Months are counted from current month (inclusive), regardless of the last actual data point loaded in the Account, period is not relative to any missing data gaps
The change of Accrual methodology can be done through the user interface, however new methodology will only be applied to existing data set in the next calendar month. If you wish to implement the change immediately, please contact IBM Support.
Accrual Methodology by Account Style
Generally a chosen Accrual Methodology will be applied to all data set within the organization. However in some cases you may want to have different data type to use different accrual methodologies. For example, Natural Gas consumption for heating could be quite seasonal and normally peaks in winter, so method such as 'Same Month Last Year' would make sense. While Electricity consumption for lighting may exhibit a similar pattern throughout the year, so the 'Last 12 months' method would be more suitable in such situation.
To achieve this, you can request to set up different Accrual Methodology per Account Style as one of the followings:
Consumption Accruals by Account Style
Inherit Associate Settings (default)
Last 12 months
Last 18 months
Last 24 months
Entire data set
Cost Accruals by Account Style
Inherit Associate Settings (default)
Not Required
Same as consumption's methodology
Last Invoice
Account using linked Meter for Accruals
If your organization has been set up to use interval meter data to generate Account accruals, then the interval meter data prevails if the Account is linked to a physical Meter - regardless of the methodology set up on its Account Style.
Additional notes
Once actual data is entered into a period containing accrued data, the accrued data will be cleared and the actual data will be reported instead
Accruals are generated on Account data only. Accruals are not generated for filling missing gaps in interval metering data in Meters
Envizi has the option to 'lock down' data before a predefined date. If this option is enabled, calculated accrued data will also be stored and locked in the platform
Accruals FAQ
For more details about how Accruals are being managed in Envizi, such as Contiguous vs. Event data types, please refer to the Accruals FAQ page.