An Avista Corp. subsidiary that manages other businesses bills for utilities and other facility-related services is posting stronger results, working to add to its already imposing market share, and coming closer to making a profit.


The subsidiary, Avista Advantage, which is located in the Rock Pointe Corporate Center, at 1313 N. Atlantic, projects that its revenues will shoot up by 30 percent this year, to more than $22 million, compared with $16.9 million last year. Also, it posted its best-ever sales month in May.


As good as May was, I think well double it in July, says Michael Hyman, the companys new vice president of sales and marketing, who came aboard in February. We have some substantial contracts that we believe will be coming down.


Through 2005, he says, We expect growth rates will be consistent with what weve achieved in the last couple of years. Its revenues rose 28 percent in 2002.


Avista Advantage, which cut its net loss to $1.3 million in 2003 from $4.3 million in 2002, is expected finally to become profitable in the second half of this year, Hyman says.


The company, which examines, pays, and analyzes information from site-related bills for companies with multiple locations, currently is managing such bills for clients at 130,000 locations, up from 109,600 locations at the end of last year, Hyman says.


Since the first of the year, it has added 20 clients, including McDonalds Corp., PETsMART Inc., T-Mobile USA Inc., and the owner of the Carls Jr. fast-food chain and now has a total of about 300 clients, up from 290 at the end of 2003. Hyman says Avista Advantage handles $6.5 billion in billings a year.


The company, which employs 300 people, up about 15 since the start of the year, expects to add as many as 15 more employees this year. It plans to continue adding people at a comparable pace to support its growth. Almost all of its personnel work in Spokane, although it has sales offices in New York City; Atlanta; Austin, Texas; and Charlotte, N.C. Two salesmen based here cover the West Coast.


It occupies 72,000 square feet of floor space at Rock Pointe, up from 58,000 square feet when it moved in four years ago.


Just inside the front door of the companys offices, its wall of fame display of its clients logos includes such big names as FedEx, Time Warner, Saks Inc., Phillips 66, Shell, Con Agra, Marriott, Target, Best Buy, and Wachovia.


Also visible are banks of computers behind an expanse of windows draped with sheets of hologram-spangled plastic that give the place a futuristic feel.


Computers provide much of the communication between Avista Advantage and its clients. Hyman says the system identifies bills that are correct and pays them automatically. Thats how we process 350,000 bills a month, he says. Despite that automation, paid bills can be retrieved by staff members and examined at any time.


If the system sees a problem, a bill is kicked for edit, and an Avista Advantage analyst will go over it. Hyman says the companys analysts find lots of errors and also watch for variables. Changes in a sites usage of electricity, gas, or water might mean that the weather has changedor that something has gone wrong at that location.


In one case, an analyst picked up on drastically higher water use at a home-improvement store that turned out to be caused by badly leaking water heaters. In another instance, an analysts detective work on increased water use helped a client learn that a leaking water line had created a cave-in situation in a parking lot, Hyman says.


In such situations, delay can allow damage to get much worse, and Avista Advantage will telephone the site rather than calling the clients home office, he says.


The company also keeps a real time dedicated Web page for each client that allows the client at any time to check on the processing of its bills and to track its facility-related costs. Yet, well over half of the bills that come to Avista Advantage arrive in the mail, because relatively few utilities use electronic billing, Hyman says. As those bills come in, theyre scanned as images that are put into the network.


The company has 12 teams of account analysts, each of which has six to 10 members. Team members are all cross-trained, and teams go by such colorful names as Team Baja, Team Madrid, and Team Hollywood. In a big room where hundreds of account analysts labor at computer workstations, small electronic reader boards stream messages such as, Current bill processing time: one minute, adding to the techy feel of the place.


In the Team Las Vegas area, a giant pair of fuzzy dice hang from the ceiling and a poker hand of big cards stretch down a post, helping to lighten the mood. Around the room, theres a cardboard Elvis, a big straw hat, and the like.


The company typically charges 0.25 percent to 0.5 percent of a clients total utility costs for its services and shoots for savings of 2 percent to 5 percent in its clients bills. Avista Advantage makes clients aware of potential savings available from their utilities and other facility-service providers and helps clients budget tightly to meet those expenses. Hyman says that helping clients budget for such expenses is a big part of our business that brings in additional revenue. Theres been a lot of volatility in the energy markets, making it hard for companies to budget, and corporate managers welcome any savings these days, even when they come from such a mundane thing as monitoring the garbage bill closely, Hyman says.


What were seeing with clients today is theyre doing more with less, and if they can outsource noncritical functions, theyre happy to do so, he says.


The companys analyst teams are broken down by industry, such as retail, restaurant, and industrial, which gives analysts experience in managing the billings of certain types of clients, Hyman says.


We do a lot of training; its key, Hyman says. That training includes understanding how current trends affect industries that analysts cover.


Also, Avista Advantage has added specialized services.


An open, close, and move department arranges utility and site-related services at clients new locations and closes accounts at locations theyre leaving. Clients asked Avista Advantage to create that department, Hyman says.


A telecommunications department deals with billing and other matters businesses face with their communications providers. It ensures clients are getting the services theyre paying for. It also works to resolve instances of slamming, when a business gets signed up for a service it hasnt ordered, and cramming, when several outlets are enrolled for a service after someone at just one location has talked with a telecommunications salesperson.


A rate-optimization department checks to see whether better utility rates are available to clients.


A utility-liaison department works with utilities on behalf of clients. Were not here to beat up on utilities; were here to work with them, Hyman says.


A supply-management department buys large supplies of electricity in bulk to meet the pooled demand of Avista Advantage clients in deregulated markets. That approach saved clients in Michigan 20 percent on their power bills, although just four states have deregulated markets, he says.


A waste-management department helps clients that have lots of sites and lots of Dumpsters. It looks at optimizing per-pull, or per-dump, charges, by having clients discard the optimum weight of refuse in Dumpsters before theyre emptied. It also helps clients get rebates from waste haulers for recyclables. Some clients were paying different garbage rates for different outlets in the same retail malls, but didnt know it, Hyman says.


Nobody comes close to what we do in bill management and analysis, Hyman claims.


Avista Advantage has more than 50 percent of the market of businesses that have bought bill-management services, but still just 1.5 percent of the potential market, so theres room for it to grow, Hyman says. Its largest competitor, Cass Information Systems Inc., a subsidiary of a St. Louis bank, says it manages bills for 150,000 locations. Hyman adds, Theres a lot of smaller operations out there.


Avista Advantage currently is searching for replacement for former President and CEO Harry Stephens, who left in April. Hyman says the company now operates with much tighter cost controls than it did before Stephens came in January 2002, and its focus is shifting from reining in costs to marketing, sales, and growing the company. A search is under way to find Stephens successor, but the company isnt in a rush because its business plan is set for the next three years and is expected to be carried out by people who already are on board, Hyman says.