Setting accrual preferences

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A system administrator sets the accrual methodology, which determines how the system calculates consumption and cost accruals across the organization.

About this task

An administrator defines the period of data on which to calculate average consumption. If you set the period to a small window, the average will be closer to the current trend.

The options are:
  • All available data to be used to establish average
  • Only use most recent 12 months of available data
  • Only use data in 18 months prior to current date
  • Only use data in 24 months prior to current date
  • Use data of last available month prior to the missing period
  • Use data from the same month of last year
  • Use weighted average of data from the same season of this year (weights = 3) and last year (weights = 1)
An administrator sets the accrual start date for contiguous data. The options are:
  • Accrue from data account opened
  • Accrue from start of first data

An administrator optionally selects cost accruals based either on the historical period that is selected for consumption or the last invoice. Cost accruals are turned off by default.

An administrator sets the accrual methodology. By default, only historical data from accounts is used to calculate the average consumption, which is then used to calculate accruals. An administrator can set an electricity account to use associated meter data instead. To use the Standard Accrual with Monthly Meter Data option, contact the IBM Envizi support team.

An administrator sets the accrual end date for contiguous data. The options are to accrue to:
  • Previous month, which is the default value
  • Current month
  • 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 12, 18, or 24 months into the future
Note:

Recalculating statistics on an account removes calculated accrued values and inserts new accrued values based on new historical baselines. Recalculation of accrued values also applies to electricity accounts that use associated meter readings to establish accrual averages. It also applies if you recalculate statistics for an entire associate. An exception is when the previous accrued values fall within the lock-down period.

Recalculating accruals impacts your organization if any of these conditions apply:
  • Your accrual window is different from the default period, that is, the entire date range.
  • You accrue contiguous data from when data was first captured as opposed to the default setting, which is when the account was open.
  • You enable cost accruals.
  • You select an alternative accrual ending month other than the default, which is up to the previous calendar month.

Procedure

  1. As a system administrator, from the main menu, clicks Admin > Organization Preferences.
  2. In the Data Management Preference section, set your accrual options under Missing Data Management - Accruals.
    1. Set the period to use to calculate average consumption.
    2. Set the accrual start date.
    3. Optional: Enable cost accruals and select the accrual methodology for cost.
    4. Set the accrual end month.
  3. Click Save.
    Important: Changes to the preceding accrual settings will not be effective to the existing data set until the beginning of the next calendar month.