Hello Grantees,
I wanted to share a few tips on collecting complete and reliable fuel vendor data on households that heat with delivered fuels (Propane and Fuel Oil).
We’ve found that the key for Montana is to reach out to all delivered fuel vendors to get data for each household. Since there will usually be a small number of assisted households from each provider, it’s not a problem to have highly customized procedures. You might have too many vendors to reach out to all of them, but it’s best to try to get data from as many as possible and include data collection requirements in fuel vendor agreements.
Outreach is important when gathering delivered fuel data. We have gathered consumption data from small vendors by accepting handwritten data sent through the US Postal Service. In more typical circumstances a grantee can have vendors complete an Excel Performance Management Data Exchange Spreadsheet or enter consumption data online via a fuel vendor portal.
It’s also important to work with fuel vendors with limited technological capacities. In Montana, we reach out to every delivered fuel vendor both by email and by the US Postal Service. We keep track of the vendors that are hard to reach or are slow to respond and send follow up reminders.
If you have any questions or other tips and suggestions for getting billing data on your delivered fuel clients, please comment below!
Sheri, Montana