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CONTACT INFORMATION
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Energy Services of Pensacola,
FL Goes Live with CIS Infinity™
Energy Services of Pensacola,
the natural gas provider owned by the City of Pensacola has gone live
on CIS Infinity, the Customer Information and Billing System from
Advanced Utility Systems
TORONTO, CANADA, October 20, 2003 - Advanced Utility
Systems Corporation (Advanced) is pleased to announce that Energy
Services of Pensacola, FL (ESP) has gone live with CIS Infinity.
ESP bills for Natural Gas, Gas Light and Sanitation services. CIS
Infinity is handling the customer information and billing needs
of ESP and is dealing with the complexities inherent in providing
both natural gas and sanitation services.
ESP supplies natural gas to 52,000 customers in Escambia County
with the exception of Pensacola Beach and the Town of Century. They
purchase natural gas from many sources in the Southern states located
along the Gulf South Pipeline System. ESP is owned and operated
by the City of Pensacola who establishes natural gas rates.
The implementation of CIS Infinity at ESP began in July of 2002
and was completed within budget 11 months later in August of 2003.
The set-up occurred at three separate office locations which were
networked using terminal server. ESP is using an Oracle 9 database
on the UNIX platform.
Ms. Gerry Barker, Operations Support Manager at ESP commented,
“I’ve been working with the city from the beginning.
We first started using a computer system back in the 60s using key
punching and since then I have been through 5 new billing systems.
CIS Infinity is a very good system, it allows us to track customers
better, it stores more information than we have ever had and it
surpasses any other system we have had up ‘til now. The people
from Advanced were all wonderful and nice people and it [CIS Infinity]
was easy to learn.”
Cash collections for ESP are handled at four sites using the cash
register module built into CIS Infinity. Using CIS Infinity’s
collections module, ESP’s collections process has been significantly
enhanced. ESP is fully utilizing CIS Infinity’s cash register
and cash equipment including cash drawers, receipt printers and
OCR scanners.
CIS Infinity is being used to handle all of ESP's rates including
gas contract rates that had previously been handled using a spreadsheet.
CIS Infinity provides general ledger accounting detail to unbundled
rate charges in order to report on various rate elements and rate
classes. CIS Infinity’s rate engine is being utilized to handle
the monthly variances in gas charges without a rate change using
the CIS Infinity billing factor functionality. CIS Infinity is interfacing
with Pentamation, ESP’s accounting software.
ESP is using several specialized features of CIS Infinity such
as Sanitation Inventory, Gas Meter Inventory and Gas Instrument
Inventory. They are the second client of Advanced to use the Gas
Meter and Gas Instrument Inventory functionality in CIS Infinity.
Energy West of Montana, Wyoming and Arizona is also using this functionality.
Patricia Sorbara, CEO of Advanced commented “We are very pleased
that ESP is making use of the Gas Meter Inventory and Gas Instrument
Inventory functionality built into CIS Infinity. These functions
will assist them to better track and manage their inventory thus
saving them money.”
ESP is making extensive use of CIS Infinity’s service order
module to accommodate the demanding nature of the service calls
required for a gas utility. The Pledge functionality within CIS
Infinity is used by ESP to accommodate their EUAP program, allowing
customers to donate money to underprivileged customers who are unable
to pay their gas bill. Chuck Good, Assistant Director of ESP commented,
“We are very pleased with the pledge functionality built into
CIS Infinity. It allows us to seamlessly continue our EUAP program.”
About Advanced
Advanced Utility Systems Corporation is a privately owned
and operated software and services Company headquartered in Toronto,
Ontario, Canada. The company has grown from its 1997 start-up to
serve over 55 North American water, electric and natural gas utility
clients with its billing and customer information software CIS Infinity.
The team at Advanced Utility Systems delivers whatever it takes
to develop the ideal solution for the utility market. For additional
information visit our website at www.advancedutility.com.
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