The meter exchange program fails at the reconciliation stage, not the field stage. The installers do the work. The problem is that the work gets done on verbal confirmation, scratched serial numbers on a work order that lives in the cab of a truck, and a photo taken with a personal phone that may or may not make it to the depot at the end of the shift. When the billing system shows the wrong meter number attached to a property three months later, nobody can reconstruct what happened at the exchange.
The Old/New Meter Record
old_meter_number with old_meter_photo and old_meter_reading creates the before-state documentation. The reading at removal establishes the final billing figure for the old meter — without it, the billing reconciliation for the partial month of the exchange requires an estimate. old_meter_photo is the verification that the number transcribed matches the physical unit removed.
new_meter_no, meter_type, and meter_kl document the replacement unit. meter_kl is the capacity rating — not all meters are identical, and a property that previously had a 20mm residential meter receiving a 25mm agricultural-spec replacement creates a downstream issue when the flow rate profile doesn't match the account type. meter_read_time timestamps the initial zero reading on the new meter, establishing when the billing period on the new unit begins.
change_meter? and change_tag? are the workflow flags that distinguish a meter-only exchange from a full meter-and-tag replacement. When only the tag is being replaced, old_tag_id and new_tag_id are the critical fields — the radio-frequency transponder ID that the AMR system reads needs to be correctly decommissioned and activated in the billing database, and that requires the exact old ID to deactivate and the exact new ID to register.
The Site Record
lat_long is the GPS coordinate capture that ties the exchange record to a specific physical location rather than a street address that may be ambiguous on a street with unnumbered properties or multiple units. For a large-scale exchange program across hundreds of properties, coordinate-based verification is the only way to confirm that the work was done at the correct location when an address record doesn't uniquely identify a meter.
photo1 and photo2 are the installed-state documentation — before and after, or two angles of the completed installation. The photograph of the new meter in situ, with the index number visible, is the evidence that survives a billing dispute or a contractor payment audit. pit or other obstruction documents conditions that prevented a clean exchange or required modified installation — a pit that was flooded, a meter box with a damaged lid that's now the utility's maintenance record.
installer signature closes the accountability chain. The work order is complete and signed by the person who did it, at the location where it was done, at the time it was done. That signature is the record that answers the audit question about who performed each exchange in the program.
complete is the flag that drives the back-office reconciliation workflow. An exchange that's been performed but not flagged as complete creates a discrepancy between the field record and the work order management system. Filtering for incomplete records at end of shift gives the crew supervisor the exceptions list — the addresses where something prevented a finished job — without requiring a verbal debrief from every installer.