The US energy industry has long crossed the $200 billion mark, as the country continues to be the largest producer and consumer of clean energy. That, on the surface, means bright times for energy brokers, but as one gets under the hood, not all is pretty and dandy. From increasing competitiveness to intensifying regulations to manual processes; a number of impediments are restricting energy brokers from realizing their true potential, with an omni present concern being commission reconciliation. In this blog post, we discuss how sparkplug, a cohesive energy broker business software from Enerex, addresses different aspects of commission reconciliation and helps energy brokers to optimize operating efficiency, eliminate human errors and improve their bottom line.
Data Processing
Most energy brokers start with a financial system without a CRM and have manual processes to manage multiple spreadsheets, which is too tedious and time-consuming, and also has the probability of human errors. To add to the challenges, Supplier spreadsheets are in different formats, which brings in great complexity. As a result, brokers that rely on manual processes end up investing a significant number of hours on data management that can be automated using sparkplug.
Commission Management
Every broker has to pay commissions to sales team, agents and sub agents. Moreover, with multiple deals to manage, each having multiple accounts, keeping track of every detail can get simply overwhelming. sparkplug takes the trouble out by enabling brokers to define their commission payout parameters for all the parties involved, while eliminating the possibility of human errors that cost businesses tens of thousands of dollars. sparkplug also allows you to generate simple reports for each of your payees and turn those into PDFs or simply send straight to your printer.
Payment Verification
With hundreds of payments to manage, it is easy for even the most vigilant professionals to miss out a detail or two, which can have a butterfly effect on the bottomline of the business. sparkplug comes integrated with a Payment Verification feature that ensures the accuracy of all payments. The brokers get a birds-eye view of all payments and receive alerts whenever the system diagnoses any mismatch.
Deal Audit
Deal audit is a key function that every energy broker has to carry out, periodically. sparkplug enables brokers to check whether the payments received from Suppliers are accurate to forecasts. If the payment from any of the deals is not in harmony with the forecast, the solution highlights the difference. This enables energy brokers to identify the gaps in the payments and take remedial measures as and when required.
Wrap Up
Rising above the waves of the energy industry requires brokers to up their game by investing in a future-ready solution. One that can address every operating need of their unique business and deliver clear, sustainable results. sparkplug is that solution. M3 Energy, a New York based energy firm, migrated its business operation to sparkplug and discovered missing payments of not one or two, but more than $25,000! The unpaid accounts were collected upon, which covered their annual cost of sparkplug a few times over. To learn more about the solution, fill out our contact form and we will take it from there.Enerex
