Utility & Billing Operations

Utility billing is where most programmes lose money, not because the rates are wrong, but because the chain between the meter, the tariff, the municipal bill, and the tenant invoice has gaps no-one is held accountable for. Meerkat Energy closes those gaps.

Where the leakage actually happens

• The municipal bill doesn’t match the bulk meter. Even a small percentage gap on a large monthly municipal account is real money walking out the door every month.
• The reseller margin is wrong. Tariff updates from NERSA, the municipality, and the supplier all hit at different times of the year, if the reseller margin isn’t reset, the landlord absorbs the delta.
• Tenants move in/out without billing reconciling. Pro-rated charges, meter handovers, and final invoices are easy to miss when nobody owns the move-out process.
• Solar / borehole / generator / grid are billed as a single number. A reconciliation that doesn’t separate the sources hides whose energy was consumed and whose tariff applies.

What we actually do

We run the monthly billing cycle as a service, every site, every meter, every tariff line, and produce billing flat files that drop directly into the landlord or property management company’s billing system. Where the landlord prefers, we issue invoices directly to tenants and manage collections (prepaid via STS or wallet, post-paid via debit order or EFT).

The numbers are reconciled against three layers at month-end:

1. The municipal bill (what was charged at the bulk meter).
2. The check meter (what was actually delivered into the site).
3. The tenant meters (what was consumed downstream).

Each layer should balance to within reconciliation tolerance. When it doesn’t, the variance is investigated, the Rand value is quantified, and the recovery / refund is processed.