What a Level 2 audit is — Level 2 Auditing

This assumes you have never read a utility bill closely, and that everything else about how a business works is already familiar. Say so if that is off in either direction.

The short version

A Level 2 audit asks one question: is this customer on the cheapest rate they are allowed to be on?

Greenlight audits utility bills. When we find savings, the customer pays less and we take a share of what they save, for as long as they save it. So a finding has to be real and it has to be provable. A clever idea that does not survive the numbers costs us more than it earns.

We work at two levels. Level 1 is sales tax — is this customer being taxed when they should not be, and can we claim the past years back. It is valuable, and it is fairly mechanical. Level 2 is the price plan itself — is the customer buying on the wrong terms. It pays better, it lasts longer, and it is harder, because the answer is buried in a document the customer has never read.

Here is how a Level 2 audit works

Read the bill. Not to check the total — to find out which price plan the customer is on, what they used, and how hard they pulled.
Find the rulebook. Every charge a utility makes has to appear in a public document called a tariff. You find it, and you find the exact version that was in force when the bill was issued.
Describe the customer. What class they are, what voltage or meter size they take, how much they use, and how spiky that use is. This decides which other rates they are even allowed to buy.
Test the alternatives. Run the customer’s own twelve months of usage through every rate they qualify for. Whichever is cheapest is the answer. If it is not the one they are on, you have a finding.

Step 1

A bill arrives from the customer’s site.

It tells you what they paid. It does not tell you whether they should have.

Step 2

You find the rulebook it came from.

One short code on the bill names one price plan in the book. That code is the door in.

Step 3

You describe the customer.

What they use, how hard they pull, and what the tariff will let them buy.

Step 4

You test the other prices in the book.

Cheaper is not enough. It has to be cheaper and allowed, on their own numbers, across a full year.

Where the tools fit, and why you still need this

We have software for the heavy parts. The calculator builds a rate model and runs the comparison. The audit assistant sweeps a bill against everything we have found before. You will use both.

None of that helps if you cannot tell whether the answer is sensible. A tool will happily compare the customer against a rate they are not eligible for, using a tariff version that expired two years ago, missing half their cost because the supply bill goes to a different inbox. It will produce a confident number. You are the person who has to know it is wrong.

The one thing to remember

You are not being asked to do the math. You are being asked to know which math to ask for, and to prove that everything going into it is true.

Check yourself

What is the difference between a Level 1 and a Level 2 finding?

Level 1 is about tax — whether the customer should be charged sales tax at all. Level 2 is about the price plan — whether they are buying on the right terms in the first place.

Why is “this rate is cheaper” not yet a finding?

Because cheaper does not mean allowed. Every rate has rules about who may take it. And cheaper in one month may not be cheaper across a year.

Name the four moves, in order.

Read the bill. Find the tariff version behind it. Describe the customer. Test every rate they qualify for.