Previous article linked

Utility bills were never designed for decision-making. They arrive weeks after the fact, buried in PDFs full of obscure fees — franchise surcharges, public purpose programs, indifference adjustments. Each utility formats them differently, and none of them explain how one location compares to another or what action to take.

The status quo isn’t much better. Many energy pay agents and utility portals are clunky, dated, and opaque. Logging in often feels like stepping back into the early 2000s: bills are hard to find, download options are buried, and insights are nonexistent. These tools weren’t built for CFOs or operators — they were built to check a compliance box. As a result, most companies treat bills as static receipts.

At TrueMeter, we treat them as signals. Our AI energy agents parse bills from thousands of formats, and normalize them into a single schema. But we don’t stop there. We also integrate interval usage data and baseline expected usage patterns, combining what was billed with how energy was actually consumed. That structured dataset powers dashboards that deliver CFOs and operators the insights they need instantly — not once a quarter, not once a year, but continuously.

Instead of being stuck with clunky portals or after-the-fact PDFs, companies now have real-time operational dashboards that benchmark performance, surface anomalies, and tie energy costs directly to decisions.

From Back-End Chaos to Front-End Clarity

Behind the scenes, TrueMeter’s parsing pipeline ingests raw bills, interval usage feeds from utilities, and tariff documents. AI and LLM models convert them into structured JSON, then enrich the dataset with contextual metadata like floor area, operating hours, and weather conditions. By layering in baseline expected usage, the system can distinguish between normal seasonal variation and true anomalies.

The result isn’t just a digitized bill — it’s a decision-ready dataset that captures both what customers paid and what they should have expected to pay, given their operations. This dual view powers dashboards that aren’t static reports, but dynamic control centers.

On-Demand, Store-Level Insights

The dashboard gives CFOs and operators the ability to view their portfolios as if every store were an instrument on a control panel. Because we integrate both billing data and interval usage streams, insights can reflect not only costs but operational behavior.

• Energy per square foot benchmarks allow true apples-to-apples comparisons across sites, highlighting which locations are most efficient and which are driving costs.
  
  
• Open/close efficiency reports flag locations where HVAC or lighting runs long after hours, by comparing interval data against expected baselines.
  
  
• Monthly usage trends reveal drift in consumption patterns before they balloon into budget overruns.
  
  

This level of visibility turns energy from a hidden overhead cost into a lever for operational excellence.

‍

Monthly Accounting Reports & Consolidated Billing

For finance teams, reconciling utility bills has traditionally been slow, manual, and error-prone. Utility portals often make matters worse: downloads are inconsistent, formats change without notice, and accounts are siloed across different logins. Energy pay agents don’t solve the problem either — they process payments, but rarely provide visibility or insights.

TrueMeter collapses that chaos into one consistent view:

• A single dashboard contains every utility bill, across every provider and jurisdiction.
  
  
• Controllers can export audit-ready reports in seconds, cutting close time dramatically.
  
  
• Reconciliations that once took weeks are reduced to a few clicks.
  
  

Because our pipeline normalizes all bill formats into one schema and aligns them with usage data. Finance leaders no longer have to wrestle with clunky portals or stale spreadsheets — they get live, structured data they can trust.

Location-Level Expense Attribution

Energy spend doesn’t just sit on the corporate ledger; it needs to be tied to the right business unit. By combining billing data, usage data, and baseline models, TrueMeter makes that possible without manual journal entries.

• Expenses can be allocated automatically to departments, sub-tenants, or franchisees.
  
  
• Opening or closing locations happens with a click instead of a spreadsheet marathon.
  
  
• Accruals can be tracked as granularly as needed — from the corporate portfolio down to a single store.
  
  

Instead of being a blunt line item, energy costs become transparent, traceable, and aligned with how energy was actually consumed.

Minute-by-Minute Outlier Detection

Utility bills, by their nature, tell you what went wrong weeks after the fact. By integrating interval usage data and expected baselines, TrueMeter surfaces anomalies in real time.

• Spikes, leaks, or abnormal loads are detected the moment they occur.
  
  
• Hourly demand curves are benchmarked against similar stores and against modeled expectations.
  
  
• Anomalies such as equipment running overnight — or even unauthorized energy use — are flagged immediately, not weeks later.
  
  

What once required forensic accounting is now highlighted in real time, allowing operators to fix problems before they escalate.

‍

Automated Service Requests & Warnings

When errors do occur, operators shouldn’t spend hours on hold with utilities or navigate outdated portals. TrueMeter’s AI agents step in to act automatically.

• Disputes, meter requests, or tariff reclassification forms are filed on behalf of the customer.
  
  
• Proactive warnings are issued when misclassified tariffs, unusual demand spikes, or billing errors appear.
  
  
• Every event is logged in the dashboard, so finance and operations can track what was filed, when, and how it was resolved.
  
  

This closes the loop from insight to action.

‍

User Permissions & Billing Settings

TrueMeter’s dashboards aren’t just about energy insights — they also give companies control over who can access what. With user permissions, finance teams, operators, and auditors can be invited with specific roles and access levels, ensuring the right people see the right data without compromising security.

Billing settings are equally seamless. Instead of navigating clunky utility portals, customers can manage payment methods and subscriptions directly through integrated services like Stripe. This makes onboarding new users and managing company-wide billing as simple as managing a SaaS product.

Together, permissions and billing management make the dashboard not just a reporting layer but a secure, collaborative workspace for everyone involved in controlling energy spend.

‍

Why TrueMeter Dashboards Are Different

Many vendors advertise “dashboards,” but most are just static visualizations of stale billing data. Utility portals are clunky and energy pay agents focus only on paying bills. TrueMeter is different because our dashboards are powered by live optimization engines, fed by both bills and interval usage streams, and tied directly to automated actions.

• Live data ingestion across hundreds of providers.
  
  
• Instant normalization of every bill format into one schema, validated against interval usage data.
  
  
• Continuous optimization as AI agents re-check tariffs, incentives, and anomalies against actual usage baselines.
  
  
• Operational impact where dashboards don’t just report, they act — lowering costs, resolving disputes, and fixing problems in real time.
  
  

This is the only scaled solution in energy that delivers real-time insights and execution from the same feed.

The Bottom Line

Utility bills used to be a blind spot: delayed, fragmented, and hard to act on. With TrueMeter’s dashboards, they become a source of financial control and operational intelligence.

CFOs gain predictable budgets and consolidated reporting. Operators gain live benchmarks and anomaly detection. Everyone gains confidence that an AI agent is continuously pulling bills, usage feeds, and baselines — optimizing and fixing issues in the background.

That’s why we don’t just call it a dashboard. It’s an AI-native control center for your energy spend.

‍