Demo AquaGrid: water utility operations day

Demo AquaGrid supplies potable water and wastewater services to 410,000 connections across three municipalities. It bills residential, commercial, and industrial customers in AED and SAR, applies progressive tariffs and subsidies, manages meters and leaks, pays treatment suppliers, and reports service levels to regulators. OSERP connects customer premises, meters, routes, reads, tariff versions, bills, collections, work orders, assets, subsidies, and finance.

1. Create premises, accounts, and service connections

The premises record stores property, municipality, zone, GPS, customer, occupancy, service type, connection size, meter, sewer status, tax class, and effective dates. A customer account stores legal name, ID or registration, billing address, contact, payment method, credit status, subsidy eligibility, and communication consent. Connection versions preserve ownership and tariff history when a tenant changes.

Field	Demo value	Impact
Account	AQ-00048291	Billing and receivable key
Premises	Villa 18, Al Barsha	Service location
Meter	AQ-MTR-883120	Consumption identity
Class	Residential	Tariff and subsidy
Meter size	25 mm	Fixed charge
Read cycle	Monthly	Billing schedule
Currency	AED	Invoice and receipt
Sewer service	Active	Separate charge

A disconnected premises can retain historical invoices and collections but cannot receive new consumption charges. New meters require commissioning, serial validation, seal number, and installation evidence.

2. Read meters and validate consumption

Meter-read batches record route, cycle, reading date, device, reader, opening/closing value, unit, read type, GPS, photograph, exception code, and import file hash. The engine calculates consumption as closing minus opening and flags rollover, negative reads, excessive jumps, tampering, or missing reads.

Villa 18 moves from 12,840 to 13,220 cubic metres: consumption is 380 m³. A validated estimate is permitted only under policy and is marked estimated with reason and later true-up. Duplicate device messages are idempotently rejected; a corrected read creates an adjustment referencing the original.

3. Configure progressive tariffs and subsidies

Tariff versions store municipality, service, customer class, fixed charge, consumption bands, rate, effective date, tax, minimum bill, late fee, and regulator approval. The residential tariff may charge the first 20 m³ at AED 2.00, the next 30 m³ at AED 3.00, and the balance at AED 5.00. A tariff change after the read date uses the version effective for that consumption period.

Subsidy profiles record beneficiary, eligibility evidence, municipality, percentage or capped credit, start/end dates, funding source, approval, and claim status. A 25% subsidy is shown as a separate credit line, never hidden in the base rate. Expired eligibility stops future credits and creates a review task.

4. Generate bills and handle adjustments

The bill header records account, premises, meter, cycle, read dates, currency, tariff version, tax, due date, payment terms, estimated flag, and status. Lines record fixed charge, consumption band, wastewater, environmental fee, subsidy, late fee, discount, and adjustment reference.

For 380 m³, the bill displays each band calculation, fixed charge, wastewater percentage, tax, and subsidy. A backdated meter correction produces a debit or credit adjustment linked to the affected bill and read. Cancelled bills remain auditable; reversal requires reason, role, and replacement document.

5. Manage collections and payment channels

Receipts store account, bill, payer, bank or wallet, transaction ID, value date, currency, gross amount, provider fee, allocation priority, and status. AED 1,950 paid through a kiosk is matched to the oldest open bill, while an overpayment remains customer credit until allocated. Duplicate wallet callbacks are rejected by external ID.

Dunning stages use due date, amount, vulnerable-customer flag, dispute, promise-to-pay, and service-protection policy. A disputed meter read pauses collection action for the disputed amount but does not suspend unrelated bills. A bounced payment reverses allocation and records the bank reason.

6. Operate service requests and field work

Work-order headers record account, premises, request type, priority, SLA, crew, vehicle, appointment, meter, and status. Lines record parts, labour, excavation, photos, before/after readings, customer signature, and cause. Requests include leak, no water, low pressure, meter replacement, illegal connection, sewer blockage, and move-in/move-out.

A detected leak creates a priority work order and estimated loss record. Repaired leaks store isolation, repair part, downtime, recovered volume, and approval for any bill adjustment. Illegal connections require inspection evidence and regulator notification; a field user cannot waive a charge without the configured authority.

7. Control treatment, assets, and suppliers

Treatment-plant assets store pump, filter, reservoir, pipeline, cost, useful life, meter, inspection interval, energy allocation, and depreciation book. Purchase orders record chemical, energy, laboratory, and contractor requirements with water-quality specification, delivery test, lot, tax, currency, and approval.

Inventory lots capture chlorine or reagent batch, expiry, storage condition, quantity, and certificate. A failed lab result quarantines the lot and opens a corrective action. Supplier invoices match purchase order, delivery, quality certificate, and consumption allocation.

8. Multi-municipality close and regulatory reporting

The group reports in AED while a municipality contract or supplier may use SAR or USD. Each bill, receipt, subsidy claim, energy invoice, and supplier payment stores transaction rate, source, timestamp, realised FX, and revaluation status. Revenue, subsidy, tax, wastewater, and regulatory-fee accounts remain separate.

Close reconciles meter reads to bills, bills to receivables, receipts to bank, subsidies to eligibility, work orders to parts, treatment inventory, plant assets, water-quality results, leakage, tax, FX, and GL. Regulatory snapshots retain billed volume, non-revenue water, pressure, outages, complaints, quality tests, subsidy claims, and report version.

KPI	Before OSERP discipline	After OSERP discipline	Improvement
Read-to-bill accuracy	95.1%	99.6%	+4.5 points
Non-revenue water	24%	16%	33% lower
Billing adjustment cycle	14 days	3 days	79% faster
Subsidy claim rejection	8.5%	1.4%	84% lower
Month-end utility close	10 days	3 days	70% faster

Practice challenge

Create a premises and meter, import a validated and an anomalous read, apply a tariff version, calculate a progressive bill and subsidy, receive a kiosk payment, reverse a duplicate wallet callback, raise a leak work order, quarantine a chemical lot, revalue a SAR supplier invoice, submit a regulator snapshot, and close the cycle. Explain every field, formula, permission, journal, tax result, API identifier, exception, and audit event.

Related: AR Invoice field guide, Inventory field guide, Fixed Asset field guide, Payment Receipt field guide, and API cookbook.