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Kostadin Manchev

Product Manager at AMPECO

Kostadin is part of the Product team at AMPECO. His mission is to understand clients’ needs, discover the best solutions, and maximize the value of their EV charging business.

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In brief:

The payments and billing capabilities in your EV charging software are a business-critical component that allows you to monetize your network and gain a competitive advantage. It should allow you to:

  • Integrate with the payment gateway that best addresses your business needs;
  • Easily manage multiple billing plans to support your business models;
  • Differentiate pricing based on customer priority for the same location;
  • Define various EV charging pricing plans and payment methods to improve your customers’ experience;
  • Allow revenue sharing, corporate billing, and settlement reports to streamline partner operations.

Overcome payment challenges with the right EV charging software

Unlike fueling a conventional car which only happens at gas stations, EV drivers charge at home, at work, while shopping, and on the road. This presents various challenges as well as opportunities to increase the monetization of your EV charging network.

To boost customer loyalty, charge point operators want to offer discounted charging fees or the flexibility to bill differently for private and public charging in their network.

Fleet operators want to take advantage of cheaper night electricity rates by offering employees home charging, reimburse them for this expense and invoice it in compliance with local tax requirements.

Property owners, on the other hand, could offer tenants an EV charging subscription and perhaps charge them extra if they go over the pre-defined amount.

Charge point operators managing parking lots need to set different prices for the general public, for employees, or offer discounted charging under certain conditions.

The list of use-cases is vast. The good news is, a robust yet flexible EV charging management platform that tracks energy consumption, bills customers accurately, and allows innovative tariffs and subscription plans can help achieve your goals.

Get paid directly without extra commissions

There are two main ways EV management platforms handle payments. Most systems receive the accrued revenues. The software vendor is then the intermediary that pays you the money owed. This incurs additional transaction costs and your money stays with the intermediary until it is paid out. Hence, you have limited control over your finances which of course is operationally sub-optimal.

Other software vendors like AMPECO let you accept payments either through their out-of-the-box integrations with Stripe and Braintree or through a custom-integrated payment gateway of your choice. The money reaches your merchant account with the payment processor and is then transferred to your bank account. There are no additional transaction fees. Moreover, you have full control over your finances.

Choose your payment processor wisely

A crucial requirement for any charging platform is its ability to charge customers for your service. A payment gateway is what makes this possible. Your EV charging software should allow you to choose the payment processor that best suits your business requirements even if they have existing payment integrations. Transaction costs and additional fees related to accepting payments vary between payment processors so consider these before making your final choice.

illustration how custom tariffs work

Set different prices per user with tariff groups

Once your payment processor has been integrated successfully, you can maximize the monetization of your network by offering different prices to specific users. The AMPECO platform allows you to organize prices by tariff groups which enables different prices based on the type of customer: individual, fleet, public, or private – and location – homes, parking lots, etc. In practice, at the same charging station, you can offer one price that applies to the general public, a reduced price for specific user such as your employees, and even offer incentives such as free charging under certain conditions.

The tariff management module allows you to set prices:

  • Per kWh
  • Per-minute or another time period of charging
  • Per-minute of parking (connected but not charging)
  • Per time of the day or night
  • Per-minute based on the peak or average power during the charging session

The ability to easily change tariffs from your back-end operator’s panel is crucial. AMPECO’s EV charging management platform allows you to make bulk changes in just a couple of clicks, eliminating the need to manually make changes to your tariffs.

Enhance your customers’ experience with innovative payment plans

Maximizing your customers’ experience requires defining various EV charging pricing plans and payment methods. Paying via credit card accrues bank fees; therefore it is beneficial if your software provides alternative payment options so your customers can avoid transaction fees after each charging session, such as balance and top-up packages.

EV drivers can add money to their balance via credit card or top up and use this amount for their charging needs. As a charge point operator, you can also promote your business or cooperate with partners through vouchers and promo codes. This allows you to offer charging incentives and discounts which customers can add to their account by entering a unique code. You control which users have access to these payment options and how long they will be active.

You can also offer your customers subscription plans, an increasingly popular option as they promote longer customer relationships and increase revenue predictability.

illustration ampeco analytics toolkit

Streamline partner revenue management

Your business partners fall into two main categories: businesses with their own charging stations that you operate and location hosts that provide the space for you to install charging stations that will serve EV drivers.

You will have different revenue agreements with your business partners. You can even have separate agreements for specific locations. AMPECO offers you the flexibility to use the best revenue-sharing or business model for each Partner at each of their locations. Moreover, the platform automatically calculates the billable amounts and the end of each month thus, enabling you to streamline your accounting and billing process.

Flexible billing is key to monetizing your network

You can rely on AMPECO’s EV charging management platform to easily manage invoices for the charging sessions performed by your users, as well as manage billing between different sub-operators by:

  • Providing complete transparency between you and your partners with comprehensive revenue reports each month and a historical overview of the charging sessions;
  • Allowing revenue sharing, corporate billing, and settlement reports, among others;
  • Enabling partners to offer different perks with custom tariffs like discounted or free charging for their users or subscribers;
  • Providing reimbursement billing so that employees who charge company EVs at home can be refunded for the associated electricity costs.

A unified approach to ad-hoc payments will simplify EV charging

The European Commission is revising the Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Directive (AFID) to limit differences in the charging experience between EU countries. In terms of payments, operators will be required to allow so-called ad-hoc payment methods. Currently, traveling across Europe is complicated by the absence of harmonized payment systems that allows EV drivers to use different charging networks. Consequently, EV drivers require multiple subscriptions and different payment methods. The Commission wants to enable payment by card as soon as possible for all ad hoc payments requiring existing fast chargers to be retrofitted.

Own the money flow with AMPECO

The payments and billing solution in our EV charging management platform is built so that you can address every aspect of the money flow and manage multiple billing plans depending on your business model. It simplifies your customer’s charging experience, optimizes operations, and boosts your bottom line.

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author picture - kostadin

Author

Kostadin Manchev

Product Manager at AMPECO

About the author

Kostadin is part of the Product team at AMPECO. His mission is to understand clients’ needs, discover the best solutions, and maximize the value of their EV charging business.