90% of your invoices collect themselves. It's the other 10% that keeps your team up at night.
Credit management in utilities
In utilities, the collections process is not primarily a cashflow problem. It is a compliance, fraud, and exception management problem. One wrong disconnection in December affecting a residential or small business customer, one missed debt assistance flag, one large commercial non-payer who keeps receiving service because nobody issued a stoporder in time. Your ERP was not built to navigate any of this. Onguard was.
In a nutshell
Onguard is a purpose-built credit management platform used by energy suppliers, network operators, water companies, waste processors, and district heating providers across the Netherlands and Belgium. In utilities, 90% of invoices are collected automatically via direct debit. The remaining 10% involves exception cases that ERP systems cannot handle: NVVK/schuldhulpverlening trajectories, seasonal disconnection bans, meter fraud, and strict regulatory rules on when and how a company can act. Onguard sits above SAP and Exact as the workflow layer for this complexity, running up to 12 simultaneous active workflows, managing 40+ subsidiary labels from a single template, and issuing automated stoporders back to the ERP. Named clients include Enexis, Renewi, Milieuservice Nederland, and Ennatuurlijk. Onguard has 33 years of domain expertise in receivables management and an average client relationship of over a decade.
Your choice is the same as theirs
Your ERP has one instinct: invoice unpaid, send a reminder. Do it again. Escalate.
Why utilities credit management is not a standard collections problem
A letter goes out. A family gets disconnected in winter. That is not a collections failure. It is a compliance crisis.
Your ERP has one instinct: invoice unpaid, send a reminder. Do it again. Escalate.
That logic works for straightforward commercial debtors. In utilities, it is a liability.
A residential customer or small business with a young child in the household cannot legally be disconnected between November and February. A residential or commercial customer enrolled in a debt assistance programme through the NVVK must have all collection activity paused immediately. A large commercial client showing signs of meter fraud needs a completely different response than a business that simply forgot to pay. A customer declared bankrupt needs their file routed to a curator, not a dunning letter.
Your ERP does not know the difference between any of these. It wants to send the same letter to all of them.
Your credit manager currently fills that gap manually. They cross-reference the ERP, the customer contact system, the fraud calculation module, and a spreadsheet, building the picture by hand before deciding what action is appropriate. That process is slow, error-prone, and entirely dependent on one person remembering every exception rule.
When they get it wrong, the consequences are not just operational. They are reputational and regulatory.
The sub-sector changes. The underlying complexity does not.
Energy, waste, water and district heating: the same compliance burden, different contexts
Energy suppliers and network operators: seasonal disconnection bans, NVVK protocols, household protection rules, and the separation between supplier and network operator create a web of conditions that must be checked before any collection action.
Waste processors (Renewi, Milieuservice Nederland): grown through acquisition, managing 40+ subsidiary labels, with operational disputes arriving from field systems that have no connection to the collections workflow.
Water and district heating providers: higher regulatory and reputational stakes than most sectors. The exception management requirements follow accordingly.
In every sub-sector, the credit manager's job is less about chasing payment and more about navigating the conditions that govern whether, when, and how they are allowed to act.
Up to 12 active workflows. One cockpit. No manual cross-referencing.
What Onguard does for utilties credit teams
Onguard connects financial data, customer contact records, fraud signals, and field inputs into a single workspace above your ERP and operational systems.
- A workflow for every exception, running simultaneously
A standard ERP runs two or three basic collection sequences. Enexis runs 12 in Onguard simultaneously: separate automated workflows for fraud, WSNP, NVVK trajectories, bankruptcies, seasonal disconnection restrictions, and more. When a customer's status changes, Onguard routes them automatically. No spreadsheet check, no manual decision. - Stoporders: closing the gap between collections and operations
When a confirmed major non-payer keeps receiving service, Onguard issues a stoporder directly back to the ERP, triggering an automatic supply halt. No internal email, no coordinator, no waiting. The signal travels from Onguard to the ERP without human intervention. - The entity table: 40+ labels, one template, no consultant
A single template adapts automatically via the entity table, inserting the correct logo, footer, and account details per entity at the point of send. Adding a new subsidiary after an acquisition takes minutes, not a template project.
it. - Dispute uploads from the field
IA waste technician flags overloading. A meter reader detects fraud. Onguard accepts dispute uploads directly from external operational systems, routing field data into the debtor dossier automatically and triggering the next workflow step.
The ROI here is not DSO reduction. It is the cost of getting the exceptions wrong.
Measurable results in utilities operations
In utilities, the business case for Onguard looks different from other sectors.
With 90% of invoices settled automatically via direct debit, a DSO reduction argument misses the point. The value sits in the 10%, and it has two components.
- Operational cost reduction:Every manual exception case currently requires a credit manager to pull data from multiple systems, verify conditions, decide on the appropriate action, and execute it. Onguard automates this entire sequence for the exception types you have configured. The same team manages a significantly larger and more complex portfolio without additional headcount.
- Compliance and fraud loss prevention: A wrongful disconnection in winter generates regulatory scrutiny, potential fines, and press coverage. A commercial fraud case that continues receiving service because nobody issued a stoporder in time represents direct financial loss. These costs are real and largely invisible until they materialise. Onguard makes them preventable.
- 15-30% reduction in cost of collections, achieved by automating exception workflows and eliminating manual data work across fragmented systems.
- Named clients: Enexis (12 simultaneous workflows), Renewi (40+ entity labels managed from one template), Milieuservice Nederland, Ennatuurlijk.
Don't just take our word for it
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Onguard and SAP. Onguard and Exact. Better together.
How Onguard works with your ERP
Your ERP stays exactly where it is.
SAP, or Exact continues to record invoices, payments, and financial positions. Onguard connects to it, reads the relevant data, and builds the credit management and exception workflow layer on top. The stoporder capability works precisely because Onguard can write back to the ERP when a supply halt is required, creating a closed loop between collections intelligence and operational action.
The combination also pulls in data from your external systems: customer contact platforms (VMVS), fraud calculation modules (FBM), and field reporting tools. Onguard becomes the single screen where all of this comes together.
What you gain by combining both:
| What SAP and Exact manage | What Onguard adds above them |
|---|---|
| Records invoices and direct debit results | Manages the 10% exception cases with full workflow automation |
| Sends standard dunning sequences | Runs up to 12 simultaneous conditional workflows per exception type |
| Holds financial data in one system | Connects FBM, VMVS, field systems, and ERP data in one cockpit |
| Cannot issue automated supply halt commands | Issues stoporders directly back to the ERP without manual intervention |
| Requires separate templates per entity | Manages 40+ entity labels from a single adaptive template |
30 minutes, your exception portfolio, no slides.
See it in practice; Request a demo
A demo takes 30 minutes. In that time, we show you how Onguard connects to your ERP and operational systems, how simultaneous workflows manage your exception cases automatically, and what it looks like when your team stops bridging systems manually and starts managing exceptions from one screen.
Calibrated to the specific compliance and workflow complexity of utilities credit management.
Frequently Asked Questions -
Credit management for utilities
We serve both commercial and residential customers. How does Onguard handle the legal restrictions that apply to residential disconnections?
Onguard manages seasonal disconnection bans and household protection rules through dedicated exception workflows. When a customer falls into a protected category, Onguard automatically routes them out of the standard collection sequence and into the appropriate restricted workflow. The credit manager does not need to check manually. The condition is built into the workflow logic and enforced automatically, removing the compliance risk that exists when the process depends on individual memory and manual cross-referencing.
Some of our customers are in schuldhulpverlening (NVVK debt assistance). How does Onguard handle these cases?
NVVK trajectories are a configured exception workflow in Onguard. When a customer enters a debt assistance programme, their file is automatically moved to a paused or restricted workflow that suspends standard collection activity for the duration of the trajectory. Communication is adapted accordingly. The trigger can come from a direct upload from the debt assistance body or from a flag in your customer contact system. Either way, the routing is automatic and auditable.
We have a large commercial customer we suspect of meter fraud. How does Onguard connect fraud signals to the collections process?
Onguard integrates with external fraud calculation modules (FBM) and accepts dispute uploads from field systems. When a fraud signal is registered, whether by a field technician or through your fraud module, it flows directly into the debtor dossier and triggers the fraud-specific workflow. That workflow can escalate internally, pause other collection activity, and, when confirmed, trigger a stoporder back to the ERP to halt service. The process runs without the credit manager needing to manually bridge the gap between the fraud team and the collections team.
Our waste or energy group has grown through acquisitions and we now manage 40+ subsidiary labels. Does Onguard handle multi-entity communication without a consultant for every template change?
Yes, and this is one of the most significant operational benefits for waste and energy companies that have grown through acquisition. Onguard's entity table allows a single letter template to be adapted automatically per entity at the point of send, applying the correct logo, footer, and bank account reference without requiring separate templates for each label. Adding a new entity after an acquisition is configured directly by your credit team. No consultant, no template project, no waiting.
We use SAP. Our credit team has described it as too closed and rigid for our exception workflows. What does Onguard change?
SAP processes invoices and records financial transactions. It is not designed to manage dynamic, conditional exception workflows, and the utilities sector has some of the most complex exception requirements of any industry. Onguard sits above SAP as the workflow engine, handling the routing logic, the exception conditions, and the communication management that SAP cannot do natively. SAP remains the financial record of truth. Onguard handles everything that happens between invoice creation and payment when the path is not straightforward.
Our field teams detect disputes (overloading, meter issues) that need to reach the credit team. How does that work in Onguard?
Onguard accepts dispute uploads from external operational systems via a direct integration. A waste technician logging an overloading event, or a field engineer flagging a meter issue, can have that data flow directly into the relevant debtor dossier in Onguard, triggering the appropriate workflow response. The credit manager sees the dispute in context, with the full customer and financial picture alongside the field report, without making a single phone call or checking a separate system.
We offer flexible payment arrangements to customers in financial difficulty. Can Onguard support variable amounts and non-standard payment dates?
Yes. Onguard supports highly flexible payment arrangement configurations: variable instalment amounts, variable durations, and non-standard payment dates (the 1st, 3rd, or 10th of the month, for example). These arrangements are managed within the workflow system, so follow-up actions adjust automatically based on whether instalments are being honoured. For utilities companies managing a high volume of residential customers in financial difficulty, this replaces a significant amount of manual monitoring and intervention.
What does Onguard do that SAP or Exact cannot handle natively in a utilities context?
SAP and Exact handle standard dunning sequences for straightforward payment defaults. They have no awareness of regulatory exception conditions, no ability to run simultaneous specialised workflows for different case types, no connection to fraud modules or field systems, and no mechanism to issue automated supply halt commands back to the operational system. Onguard fills precisely this gap: the workflow intelligence layer that sits above the ERP and manages everything the ERP cannot, in a single cockpit your credit team controls directly without IT involvement.