January 5, 2005—Viterra Energy Services, a provider of consumption-based metering and billing of energy and water, was named Best Energy Management/Submetering Company by readers of Apartment Finance Today magazine. The Reader’s Choice Award is announced in the magazine’s December 2004 issue.
In the fall, Apartment Finance Today asked its subscribers to name the best providers of various financial services, management services and building products. The survey was conducted by an independent research firm that sent surveys to 3,000 randomly selected developers and owners from the magazine’s subscriber file. The response was impressive, with 25% of those contacted completing the survey.
This past year, Viterra added several new services to its marketing mix, including Opti-Heat, its new heat cost monitoring system. Opti-Heat is an all-inclusive billing service that includes regulatory affairs consultation, detailed property survey and analysis and superior client and resident relations services, as well as being a state-of-the-art heat cost monitoring system and a first-class energy billing service. The system accurately measures time or time and temperature for forced hot air furnaces, hydronic baseboard systems, fan coil boiler and chiller systems, fireplaces and domestic hot water heaters so that residents are charged for their actual usage.
A unique feature of Viterra’s Opti-Heat service is its ability to remotely determine that each measurement device is working correctly and has not been accidentally or intentionally disabled.
This combination of accuracy and reliability increases resident acceptance of paying their own heating and cooling costs. In addition, residents benefit from knowing that they are not paying for someone else’s energy usage and that their conservation efforts are accurately measured and rewarded.
Viterra also has expanded and enhanced its Utility Expense Management (UEM) and Electronic Data Exchange (EDE) services. Viterra’s UEM service provides reliable bill processing and payment services that virtually eliminate late fees and accounts payable costs, recover energy theft, allow vacant unit cost management, recover billing errors and ensure that its clients are getting the best rates. EDE enables Viterra to upload and download its clients’ resident and billing data information electronically, drastically reducing new account set-up time, property managers’ time spent on utility billing and increasing data accuracy.
For more information, contact Viterra.
