Most of water of water, gas and electricity providers have started to recognize the value of using modern technology on their daily works to save on cost and reduce the distance staff have to travel to collect information. Collection of raw date from meters is automated and electronically relayed back to the central station where it is worked upon. The benefit associated with automated meter reading billing software obviously outweighs the limitations.

This real time data which is then processed to produce meaningful information can be helpful to utility providers and their clients, this is because they can control production and consumption of gas usage and production, water consumption and production and consumption of electric energy.

Automatic reader technology for meters includes handheld, radio frequency, wireless and technologies that use network and lastly power line transmission. Back then these devices were viewed as expensive but today due to technology advancement and awareness most clients are embracing it because of it economical benefits.

Some of these automated devices are touch based devices which is simultaneously used together with handheld device. It has probe which when it come into contact with any meter it can automatically take the reading, record them in a laptop which then transmits the data collected to a central station.

The software scans the database serial number and when they match it saves the readings to be downloaded later. Transmission of data back to the central computer can also be done through use of infrared data transmission port.

Automated meter hosting is an office remedy which enables the user to monitor closely his or her water or gas consumption from the comfort of their homes through the use of internet. Such system uses data which is collected and transmitted on real time basis and is managed in a database by software for data acquisition. The users only have to log in into the service providers website and view the information. Data from web application can be analyzed by use of analyzing tariffs, charting profiles and utility bill.

This technology allows for extra service work whereby gauge readers can be able to process more than a hundred different orders and also supporting other functions such as disconnections, upgrades, collection of data, removes and transmission of information. This improves workers productivity by processing many orders within a short period of time, enhances satisfaction by customers with accurate and fast billing.

These programs can be helpful for tenant billing. Such programs are used together with reading systems that are automatic for entirely automated billing. Manual gauge readers can be used to create invoices. They allow for several rates to be used simultaneously to different users. That is minimum charges, tax rates and fixed rates based on amount of kilowatts consumed.

This is not to mean that it does not support a single fixed rate for individual users. Demand billing and time billing are not handled by this program. Automated billing software can perform data logging as well and it advisable for energy providers to consider using them.