An annual procurement plan is a coordination document. It connects account facts, operating plans, budget decisions, and the people who must act. It should help an owner understand what is due, which exposures remain, and how evidence will be reviewed. It should not present a prediction of future prices or an invented savings goal.
Print the plan at the beginning of the owner’s planning cycle and update its version as decisions change. Use the procurement hub to support individual account decisions. A portfolio can share objectives and reporting while maintaining separate supplier agreements, eligibility, and effective dates. The worksheet should preserve those differences rather than hiding them inside one portfolio average.
What should the annual planning sheet record?
| Account group and objective | Required decision and date evidence | Budget or operating assumption | Owner, approval, exception |
|---|---|---|---|
Add the plan year, covered entities, property register version, financial approver, operations reviewer, procurement coordinator, and review cadence. For each group, identify the executed agreement, utility rate schedule, data owner, and relevant property projects. A required date should point to a contract, utility instruction, or approved internal milestone, making those different sources visible.
Which decisions and assignments belong in the plan?
- Set objectives that the owner can evaluate.
State the financial and operating objectives in terms the team can document: budget predictability, defined retained exposure, complete account records, timely renewal decisions, or verified invoice review. Explain which objective takes priority when offers differ. Avoid inventing a percentage reduction before the evidence supports it. Identify constraints such as ownership plans, approved projects, credit requirements, or operating limits. Have the owner approve the objectives and decision authority so a future offer is evaluated against the same purpose rather than whichever number appears most attractive.
Status: □ Pending □ Complete □ Exception. Objective owner: __________. Approval reference: __________. Priority or constraint decision: __________.
- Reconcile and segment the account portfolio.
List utilities, commodities, contracting entities, meters, suppliers, terms, rate schedules, and shopping eligibility. Group accounts only where their facts and requested products support coordination. Identify properties with separate owners, start windows, or operational risks. Ask the relevant utility or authority to resolve eligibility questions before assuming a competitive request is available. Keep the register linked to original records. A group assembled for reporting does not automatically form one supplier obligation; state how the proposed procurement grouping differs from the accounting portfolio.
Status: □ Pending □ Complete □ Exception. Register owner: __________. Evidence version: __________. Grouping or eligibility exception: __________.
- Build the obligation and decision calendar.
Record agreement end dates, actual notice requirements, supplier decision windows, utility enrollment steps, budget approvals, and internal review stages. Include projects or ownership events that can change those decisions. The 180-day renewal checklist provides a detailed account-group calendar. Assign a primary and backup owner to each event. Distinguish an internal planning target from a binding deadline, and specify the evidence required to close the task. Review the calendar when a contract or accepted account date changes.
Status: □ Pending □ Complete □ Exception. Calendar owner: __________. Deadline sources: __________. Dependency and escalation: __________.
- Approve a documented load forecast.
Use reviewed historical consumption and available interval data as the starting evidence. Add approved changes in rooms, facilities, equipment, operating schedules, laundry, kitchens, or electrification. State quantities, units, dates, sources, and uncertainty for each change. Separate observed records from management assumptions, and do not assign false precision to an unapproved project. Give operations responsibility for updates when implementation differs from the plan. Suppliers should receive the same relevant forecast version when the owner requests comparable bids for a defined account group.
Status: □ Pending □ Complete □ Exception. Forecast approver: __________. Data and project sources: __________. Assumption needing update: __________.
- Build component-level budget scenarios.
Identify fixed supply components, indexed or other variable exposure, utility delivery, demand treatment, taxes, and relevant service fees from actual documents. Record broker compensation payer, amount or formula, units, and embedded or separate status. Count embedded costs once and show a separately payable charge independently. Use clearly assumed inputs for open-price scenarios and preserve excluded components. The budget reviewer should see which portion is supported by current terms and which portion depends on future quantities, rates, or operational outcomes.
Status: □ Pending □ Complete □ Exception. Budget owner: __________. Calculation reference: __________. Scenario and exclusion approval: __________.
- Define the procurement method and vendor work.
Decide which groups need a request for offers, an incumbent review, a tariff question, or additional data before procurement can proceed. Specify the desired product structures, term alternatives, comparison fields, response conditions, and approval rules. Identify the broker or adviser’s deliverables, data permissions, compensation, and ongoing support. The offer comparison worksheet provides the decision record once proposals arrive. Do not equate a larger invitation list with better offers if the account scope or decision criteria remain unclear.
Status: □ Pending □ Complete □ Exception. Method approver: __________. Vendor scope evidence: __________. Unresolved input or service decision: __________.
- Assign ongoing account and operating reviews.
Schedule invoice checks, consumption updates, project forecast revisions, and peak-season readiness where applicable. Identify the people who can resolve utility, supplier, accounting, and equipment questions. Record the review frequency and evidence expected from each task without assuming every property has the same staffing or controls. The peak-season demand checklist supports an applicable operating runbook. Define how an unresolved bill or changed equipment schedule reaches the plan owner instead of remaining isolated in a property email chain.
Status: □ Pending □ Complete □ Exception. Ongoing review owner: __________. Task evidence: __________. Escalation condition and contact: __________.
- Review results and approve the next version.
Compare actual accepted service, reviewed quantities, bills, and completed tasks with the plan’s objectives. Distinguish a selected offer from successful enrollment and a modeled budget effect from an observed result. Explain material variances using supported records and state remaining uncertainty. Review the exception register, assign next actions, and retain superseded versions. Use the lessons to improve data access, calendar ownership, product criteria, and operational coordination. The annual review should produce specific decisions for the next cycle rather than an unsupported claim of success.
Status: □ Pending □ Complete □ Exception. Annual reviewer: __________. Results evidence: __________. Next-version decision and owner: __________.
How should market context influence the plan?
EIA’s electricity price explanation identifies fuel, generation, networks, weather, and other influences. It supports scenario thinking, not a forecast of the best signing date. Keep the owner’s decision window flexible within actual obligations and state the criteria for accepting a price or retaining an exposure.
The Pennsylvania commission’s business shopping guidance demonstrates why utility and account details matter in commercial choice. Verify those facts for each actual territory. Do not assume that a portfolio’s presence in several states creates one procurement rule or that every account can use the same supplier product.
Which procurement examples need a scope warning?
GSA’s available utility procurement options describe federal services and methods, including organized procurement approaches. They can illustrate the value of clear scope and coordinated decisions. They do not establish private-hotel access to federal programs, federal pricing conditions, or federal service charges. Keep the hotel’s own approved method and commercial terms in this plan.
As a limited assumed calculation, 800,000 kWh multiplied by an assumed supply component of $0.08 per kWh gives $64,000 for that component. It is not a quote or a complete energy budget. Delivery, demand, taxes, variable additions, and separately payable services remain outside unless their evidence is added. Record the calculation version and reviewer before using any scenario for approval.