LODESTAR Corporation has announced that Progress Energy will use LODESTAR Energy Information Platform, LODESTAR Adapter and BillingExpert to bill its wholesale contracts.
Progress Energy, a diversified energy company with two utilities – one in the Carolinas and one in Florida – serves residential, retail and wholesale customers. Recently, the company acquired a new series of contracts that needed to be billed within a short timeframe. LODESTAR’s products will enable the company to effectively manage this opportunity. LODESTAR’s services will enhance efficient data validation and will provide increased ease and adaptability.
“The applications we’ve implemented enable Progress Energy to calculate and bill within a day. Prior use of spreadsheets for these tasks led to increased labor time and a narrow scope of functions the company was able to perform,” explains Beth Kearns, director of North American Professional Services at LODESTAR. With the passing of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, more emphasis is placed on controls. The LODESTAR system incorporates auditing of critical data and the capability of reporting these items on an ad hoc basis.
“After having evaluated a number of other vendors, we selected LODESTAR as the best solution for us,” says Penny Gray, competitive commercial operations controller for Progress Energy. “LODESTAR provides a controlled environment for billing as well as the capability to handle the complexity of our contracts. LODESTAR’s BillingExpert provides excellent audit features and an external portal for our customers.”
With implementation still underway, Progress Energy is already expanding the types of contracts billed, and the company is successfully conducting data validation.
