TotalEnergies Gas & Power

Settlements, originally known as Data Policing once part of Operations, have been an integral part of the business for many years. They are based within Central Services and have a stronghold as a safety net for the business.

Starting from top left:    Nadia Haq, Zsuzsanna Jakabfi (who has left the team and is now the Pricing Power Manager), Robert Mulhern and Hannah Hawkins

Bottom left : Richard Powrie, Housnadevi Ramnial (AKA Anjee)  , Natalie Bousfield, Aaron Thomas, Mohammed Riaz, Odinakachi Monago (AKA Odi)  Alex Stringfield

And Margaret Beale behind the scene taking the photo ! 📷

The Settlement department’s core mission is to provide validation of data, guidance, and expertise to internal and external customers, ensuring the smooth running and protecting the profitability of our business. Daily, the department is engaged in investigating, resolving, and recovering from challenges presented by the industry and our customers.

Nadia HAQ, Settlements Development and Assurance manager, gives us more insights about the team dynamics, detailing specific roles to ensure the department’s mission is fulfilled.

Nadia, can you explain to us how the Settlement department is structured and what its main challenges are?

NH: Of course! The Settlements department is composed of 12 people and two teams.

In the “Reconciliation team” first, we manage energy imbalance risk by finding and fixing data issues that cause a difference between the energy we billed to the customer and the energy the industry charged us. For example, we can identify Meter Point Reference (MPRs) where the industry charged us to a higher read than the billed read. Besides, the Reconciliation team interacts with many departments of the business to manage portfolio imbalance. We tend to bring in new applications to make working life easier. And that's not all. We also like baking, gardening and we are never short of fun facts!

Biggest achievements for the Reconciliation team this year:

• Full Year Recovery - over £74 Million recovered from industry charges & customer billing imbalances. Our annual target was £12Million!
• Full Year Cost Saving stands at nearly £47 Million.

👏

“Transportation team” are part of Settlements. We’re responsible for validating and paying over £2.2bn of industry invoices a year. We take part in numerous projects throughout the business to ensure that our industry and customer charges are as accurate as possible, and ensuring we keep up with industry changes. We also love a good escape room and are never too far from the box of snacks!

Who are your clients and how do you go about supporting them in your day-to-day operations?

NH: We serve both internal clients, such as Finance, Sales operations, Major Business Servicing and Credit, and external customers and brokers, or Networks and Third-Party Metering companies.

Internally, in addition to the missions described above, we provide advice and share expertise in resolving complex customers queries, we supply industry insights, reports and validate data to support business critical projects and protect profitability of the business. 

Within the team, the Validation and Control Manager and the Settlements Data Manager are a supporting function of settlements. They are involved in creating accrual reports for Finance, build data extracts and tools for the teams, carry out in depth analysis on bespoke projects for the business. They are also responsible for the production of financial reporting, maintaining data suites for settlements that enables the team to efficiently carry out their business processes.

As Settlements Development & Assurance Manager, my role within the team consists in identifying areas of improvement and managing projects to enhance internal and business processes. I also mitigate financial risk by spotting improvements across industry costs and customer billing.

Thank you, Nadia! One word to conclude?

NH: One of the Settlement department core values is to offer training and development opportunities across the business, and I’d like to encourage people to do job watches with the team and do not hesitate to ask for help with any complex queries they may have!