News | February 27, 2001

National Water & Power introduces new Internet service for submetering and utility billing industry

National Water & Power (NWP), the leading provider of billing and utility management services to the multifamily real estate industry, has recently introduced IRIS™, a revolutionary Internet Reporting and Information Service for multifamily Owners and Property Managers. The service, which was developed by NWP and is used by them exclusively, dramatically cuts down work load by eliminating time consuming and wasteful paperwork, and allowing Property Managers to enter and access resident and unit data around the clock.

The reporting service is password protected and gives Property Managers the ability to input into the Internet their property's resident activity, including move-ins, move-outs, roommate changes, services added, and start and stop billing information.

Other key features of the service include a real-time delinquency report, updated daily with each resident's current billing history; a billing status report, which indicates the total amount billed to residents within a billing cycle; a current resident list, which allows the Property Manager to know who is currently being billed, including past due amounts; a transaction report, summarizing all Internet activity entered by the Property Manager and NWP; and a final bill register (FBR) which summarizes the monthly billing cycle by resident.

IRIS also offers a portfolio function, which contains comprehensive reports on all properties at which an Owner is using NWP's billing services. The reports include all properties' billing activities over a three month period; all billed properties within a specific month; all properties pending billing; and scheduled bill dates.

"The NWP web-based information transfer and reporting system is state-of-the-art," said Stephen Parthum, Vice President Asset Management for Berkshire Realty Holdings, L.P., which is currently billing 55 properties comprised of approximately 18,000 units with NWP. "It allows for the timely and accurate transfer of data and allows all applicable people within my organization to view reports at the touch of a button saving valuable time and energy. As a corporate/headquarter-based asset manager responsible for monitoring our program across the country, I have found the system to be a valuable tool. In addition, our on-site staff benefits tremendously by having online access to the NWP system and having access to reports and data as needed. I look forward to working with the NWP team as we maximize the program's effectiveness."

"Because the data on our Internet service is entered on a daily basis, current information is always available for analysis, which allows multifamily Owners and Property Managers to take a proactive approach to collections and recovery of utility costs," said Robert Fincher, NWP's Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing. "With the innovation of IRIS, our new Internet service, NWP continues to be the benchmark by which the utility billing industry is measured."

NWP (privately held) provides a broad range of billing and customer care solutions to both the real estate and utility industries. Headquartered in Santa Ana, CA, the Company's billing and submetering operation has contracts for services for more than 400,000 apartment units in 32 states for some of the country's largest public (REIT) and private property owners. Open-c Solutions, a wholly-owned subsidiary of NWP, located in Minneapolis, MN, develops and implements customer information systems (CIS) software for major utilities, energy marketers and billing service bureaus.

For more information about NWP, call 800.323.3178 or log onto www.nwpco.com.

Source: National Water & Power