Video

Solving Challenges with Tenant Billing at Longwood Center Boston

See how utiliVisor helped Boston senior property manager at National Development, Marie O'Brien, manage complex tenant billing at the state-of-the-art life science research building in Boston, MA.

Video Transcription

Questions we asked

  1. What issues did you have with the previous process for billing tenants? [0:00 - 1:04]
  2. What is unique about this property and its billing? [1:04 - 2:29]
  3. What happens now if a meter has an issue? [2:30 - 2:54]
  4. What has changed since utiliVisor's involvement? [2:54 - 3:35]
  5. What is the most valuable thing utiliVisor brings to the table? [3:36 - 4:42]
  6. Anything else you'd like to add? [4:42 - 5:00]

 

1. What issues did you have with the previous process for billing tenants?

00:00:04,280 --> 00:00:05,600
We just started to question,

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I think the whole spreadsheet
in general

00:00:08,560 --> 00:00:11,400
and the validity of the numbers
that were actually being generated

00:00:11,400 --> 00:00:14,720
because we couldn't really tie
or back into what was happening.

00:00:15,000 --> 00:00:17,800
The calculations
were so complicated

00:00:17,800 --> 00:00:20,400
and all tied to each other
throughout the spreadsheet

00:00:21,240 --> 00:00:24,720
that it was very difficult to,
if there was an error

00:00:24,720 --> 00:00:27,600
or if a tenant, you know, number
at the end of the spreadsheet

00:00:27,680 --> 00:00:30,600
didn't make sense to prior numbers,

00:00:30,840 --> 00:00:34,800
it wasn't easy for us to back into
how we got to that error.

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Before we even got to the billing.

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We had to take a step back and say
we had to look at the meters

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and say, are these accurately readings?

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Um, you know,
where are these meters?

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Are they calculating
the right amount of usage?

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And so that was kind of step one

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with utiliVisor was having them
come in and do a full meter

00:00:53,360 --> 00:00:56,160
audit as part of our building
recommissioning effort that we did.

00:00:56,520 --> 00:00:59,760
And once we were able to determine
that these meters were accurate

00:00:59,760 --> 00:01:01,960
and some of them weren't,
we actually had to replace them,

00:01:02,280 --> 00:01:04,440
then we were able to move into
to the billing piece.

00:01:04,800 --> 00:01:06,160
So I think what we have here at

What is unique about this property and its billing?

00:01:06,160 --> 00:01:09,480
Longwood is it's very complex,
but it's also proprietary.

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I've never seen another system
like this, and I'm sure

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Melissa and her team can speak

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a little bit more to the specifics
of the complexities.

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But, um, basically
that's why we wanted some help.

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So they have airflow,
they have water meters

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and they have electric meters
they have steam meters.

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So they have every type of meter
you can imagine.

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Installed at the building.

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Each tenant's
bill is really their share

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of that consumption
from pieces of equipment.

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So it's kind of set up in a type
of pro-rata

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share situation
where they're kind of

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getting billed, their usage
of an air handling unit.

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But the output of that air handling
unit is the sum of the tenants.

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So you have to sum all the meters
to calculate the usage

00:01:55,760 --> 00:01:57,960
for that one tenant.

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So it just gets to be a little bit
complex

00:02:01,280 --> 00:02:03,400
and, you know, when you're going in

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to generate the cost

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for equipment to run there’s you know,
domestic water as an input

00:02:09,600 --> 00:02:13,440
the gas from the utility,
and the electric from the utility.

00:02:13,440 --> 00:02:17,160
So it's more than a typical
electric meter.

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This is the bill, they get charged

00:02:19,560 --> 00:02:22,080
what the bill was so, you know,

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it's multi-utility

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on the inputs,
And multi-utility on the outputs.

00:02:27,840 --> 00:02:30,320
So it’s pretty complicated.

What happens now if a meter has an issue?

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Since we are billing

00:02:31,760 --> 00:02:33,920
that pro-rata share amongst
all the tenants.

00:02:33,920 --> 00:02:35,960
If there's a meter issue,

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on one of the tenants side
that can affect

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the charges that will go out
to all of the tenants.

00:02:41,400 --> 00:02:45,120
So we also have alerts
set up on the data

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that we're receiving
so if a meter drops off immediately

00:02:48,240 --> 00:02:50,880
we are able to know
and reach out to the building

00:02:50,880 --> 00:02:54,840
and try to diagnose what
caused the issue and try to fix it.

What has changed since utiliVisor's involvement?

00:02:54,840 --> 00:02:56,040
The whole process.

00:02:56,040 --> 00:02:57,680
So we used to have to

00:02:57,680 --> 00:03:01,680
take the bills and enter the data
into the Siemens spreadsheet.

00:03:01,680 --> 00:03:04,080
So we no longer have to do that.

00:03:04,560 --> 00:03:06,360
And from there we would then

00:03:06,360 --> 00:03:08,640
generate a tenant invoice
that we would send to each tenant.

We no longer have to generate
That all comes from utiliVisor,
which is super helpful.

00:03:15,640 --> 00:03:19,040
So two major steps off of our plate

00:03:19,080 --> 00:03:22,760
that now we just received
the invoices from utiliVisor,

00:03:23,120 --> 00:03:25,880
we take a quick glance at them,
make sure that everything

00:03:25,880 --> 00:03:28,720
looks in line and that there's
no major red flags.

00:03:28,720 --> 00:03:31,200
But as Melissa said,
they're also looking at that,

00:03:31,200 --> 00:03:34,520
which is obviously added
layer of comfort for us.

00:03:34,680 --> 00:03:36,000
Then if we don't notice anything,

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then we then
we send them off to the tenants.

What is the most valuable thing utiliVisor brings to the table?

00:03:38,040 --> 00:03:41,400
For me personally,
it's the security and the comfort.

00:03:41,400 --> 00:03:44,920
Knowing that utiliVisor
is looking at this data

00:03:44,920 --> 00:03:47,640
and verifying it
before it comes to us.

00:03:48,600 --> 00:03:51,120
Just having that added layer

00:03:51,280 --> 00:03:54,120
of someone else
confirming the data, I think for us

00:03:54,120 --> 00:03:57,600
this is the most valuable
on top of working with the team.

00:03:57,600 --> 00:04:00,760
I mean, we've thoroughly enjoyed
working with utiliVisor.

00:04:00,760 --> 00:04:04,840
It's been a super easy process
and they were able to,

00:04:04,840 --> 00:04:05,600
this probably isn't

00:04:05,600 --> 00:04:08,840
the right terminology,
but kind of dumb things down for us

00:04:08,840 --> 00:04:12,640
and speak to us in layman's terms
to make it easy for us

00:04:12,640 --> 00:04:16,600
to understand the complexity
of these billings and calculations.

00:04:16,600 --> 00:04:19,280
Because for a normal traditional
property manager,

00:04:19,280 --> 00:04:22,880
this isn't necessarily something
that we would do to that level.

00:04:23,200 --> 00:04:26,240
It's, you know, more of a very high
technical

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engineering level,
which we needed some help

00:04:29,920 --> 00:04:31,600
wrapping our heads around.

00:04:31,600 --> 00:04:33,320
Having all of that data

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from the tenant side
in one collective place

00:04:38,360 --> 00:04:40,680
makes the financial monthly

00:04:40,680 --> 00:04:42,920
process a lot smoother.

Anything else you'd like to add?

00:04:42,920 --> 00:04:44,680
No, but in all seriousness, it's

00:04:44,680 --> 00:04:48,360
been a wonderful relationship
with utiliVisor

00:04:48,360 --> 00:04:51,560
and we are very grateful
and thankful that we were able to

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find these guys to help us
because it has taken

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a lot of pressure off of us.

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And, so we're very,
we're very happy and thankful for that.