Introduction

The following Comparison is of three utility resource accounting software programs that we believe to be the best known or the best on the market today. The Faser product has been around for over a decade, The Utility Manager for about 4 years and Utility Smart has just recently been released. Others that may be available can be submitted for evaluation and rating against these programs.

UBAS has been involved in the population of various software programs with end user data for over 5 years. We have used the output from these programs to help identify and track cost savings measures for our clients as well as to develop consumption profiles for use in tariff program selection, relative to deregulated markets. Because of this experience, we have developed a unique set of skills as well as expertise. We are expert at analyzing a client's utility bills and finding savings opportunities from raw billing histories. This expertise enhances our ability to customize the set-up of these software programs to best allow our clients to track and monitor those opportunities, and savings, into the future. More and more, we are being asked to provide database maintenance for our clients. High quality, flexible software is very important to us in providing this service.

With this Comparison, we have focused on what we believe to be the most important features that such a software program should offer. These features are based on three overriding criteria:

	The program must have enough flexibility to handle the vast number of variables that exist in utility billings across the country.
	The program must have enough flexibility to allow expert set-up teams to set-up the database in a way that best fits the client's circumstances.
	The program must have enough flexibility of output to provide clients with custom reporting that meets their exact needs.

We have assigned weighting factors to each of the features that we are comparing. These weighting factors are based on what our set-up teams have defined as most and least important in doing their job, as well as what our analysts have defined as most and least helpful in doing their job.

UBAS is committed to providing our clients with the best values available through our services. These can be relative to proper rate tariff selection as well as to the selection of resource accounting software. Software is a tool that helps accomplish the end goal of better utility management. UBAS will continue to support and use the product that continues to demonstrate highly rated features at good value. Just because a product is less expensive does not mean it is the best value. We look at features and benefits and compare those against cost to determine value for the price of the software.

The following is not a self-running presentation. You will have complete control of moving between screens. The buttons at the top of each screen will take you to comments and examples relative to each program for that particular feature.

The "Final Rating" page summarizes the entire Comparison. Start by reviewing this page and then go to the the individual pages that provide the detail you may need to better understand each feature being rated.

Should any of the pages be difficult to read on your monitor, print the page for easy reading.