Ista North America Finds the Value using our ECLynx EDI Solution
Ista North America, a leader in utility expense management, processes bills from many different utility companies across the nation. Ista needed to have the high volume of bills processed into an importable layout for their EnergyCap software used to analyze the bills. In addition, Ista needed a user-friendly bill image they could provide to their clients. Since utilities tend to make changes to their EDI formats quite often, we expected to make frequent updates to our maps and custom programs.Break Down of Scenario:
- Many trading partners all with their own 810 invoice formats
- Ability to integrate with the EnergyCap Software on the backend
- Ability to display a user freindly bill image
- Easily update maps and custom programs to handle utility changes
Solution:
Xebec Data contacted all their trading partners (utilities), mapped utilities' invoice layouts based on their implementation guides, built custom programs for utility and made sure the transmission of bills was working. We chose to implement Xebec's ECLynx web based solution with integration. This allows Xebec to host the entire EDI solution and allows Xebec specialists to update maps and programs when the utilities make changes; Ista doesn't have any software at their site requiring patches and updates.Xebec, with its extensive work in the utility industry, was able to easily integrate with Ista's EnergyCap software loaded at Ista's site, and created an easy to view invoice bill image that is linked to the EnergyCap entry that their clients can view. We agreed the easiest way to integrate with Ista's backend was to send each daily batch of files to their FTP server for processing. This eliminated all manual intervention for Ista, the files would simply be waiting for them each morning. In the event that a file doesn't appear to be correct, or any other problem arises, Ista simply calls us and we handle everything for them.
In addition to the files that are produced and sent to Ista, a web based bill image is available on our website for viewing and downloading. This allows Ista employees to access the same files from wherever they may be providing they have an internet connection.
