Indurent, one of the UK’s leading providers of industrial and logistics real estate, serves more than 2,000 customers across a complex national estate.
With around 5,000 utility invoices passing through Bill Capture each month, getting accurate information into the hands of finance and operations quickly matters. By introducing EnergyCAP and taking greater ownership of utility management in-house, Indurent reduced the average time between receiving invoice data and having it reflected on the ledger from 62 days to under 10.
The result is greater control of utility data, better visibility of spend and more time for the team to focus on managing utilities rather than chasing information.
When utility data affects the wider estate
William Trollip, Operations Director at Indurent, leads the utilities function, bringing more than 20 years of mechanical and electrical experience, including data centres and telecommunications.
For William, utility management is not an isolated back-office activity. It touches finance, accounts payable, service charge reconciliation, supplier management, leasing and the day-to-day operation of the estate.
Before EnergyCAP, invoices took an average of 62 days to move from receipt to the ledger. That delay meant outstanding invoices and aged debt were harder to address quickly, while finance lacked a timely view of actual monthly utility expenditure.
For a property business, the consequences can go further. Unresolved utility accounts can affect the operation and lettability of a property, contribute to void-period exposure and make service charge reconciliation more difficult.
Meanwhile, William’s team was spending valuable time chasing invoices, investigating payment issues and resolving discrepancies.
Control the controllables
Against a backdrop of rising and volatile utility costs, William’s approach is straightforward: “control the controllables.”
Indurent cannot control wholesale energy markets or every movement in utility prices. It can control how effectively invoices are processed, how quickly discrepancies are identified, how clearly spend is understood and how utility information is used across the business.
EnergyCAP provides the technology to bring more of that capability in-house. Invoice Capture supports high-volume processing, validation identifies exceptions requiring attention, and dashboards give Indurent’s teams a current view of utility expenditure across the estate.
Rather than utility knowledge sitting outside the organisation, Indurent can retain visibility of its data and build its own understanding of portfolio performance.
Automation does the repetitive work while Indurent retains the knowledge, visibility and decision-making.
For William, the value has started with getting those fundamentals right:
The impact
62 days → under 10 days
Invoice data to ledger, giving finance more timely visibility of actual utility costs and helping the team address outstanding invoices sooner.
~5,000 invoices each month
A consistent process for handling invoice data at scale across a complex estate.
3,000+ anomalies surfaced
Potential discrepancies identified for investigation rather than being lost amongst thousands of invoices.
From processing invoices to managing utilities
The change is not simply about processing invoices faster.
By automating much of the administrative work, William’s team can spend less time chasing information and more time on cost control, exceptions, portfolio performance, supplier issues and the strategic management of utility expenditure.
And Indurent is still relatively early in its EnergyCAP journey. William describes the business as “quite a young customer”, with further capabilities still to adopt as the utilities function develops.
The results so far demonstrate what can be achieved by getting the fundamentals right first: reliable data, faster processes and greater internal control.
Could more of your utility operation sit in-house?
Managing utilities across a large, complex estate often means multiple suppliers, thousands of invoices and a mixture of internal teams, external bureaux, consultants and disconnected systems.
For some organisations, that model works. For others, automation creates an opportunity to bring more capability in-house without bringing the administrative burden with it.
And as utility costs continue to put pressure on operating budgets, the principle is a useful one for any large organisation: control the controllables.
You may not be able to control the market price of energy, but you can control how accurately you are billed, how quickly problems are identified, how well you understand your consumption and costs, and how efficiently that information moves through your organisation.
Indurent reduced its invoice-to-ledger cycle from 62 days to under 10, while giving its own team greater visibility and control of utility information.
