Your bill, term by term

The document a provider issues for a period of service. It gathers the metered consumption, the charges, the taxes and the amount due. In Argentina it is usually a type B or C tax receipt authorized by ARCA (formerly AFIP).

The stretch of time the bill covers, normally a month or two. It does not line up with the calendar month: a bill issued in July may cover 12 May to 11 July. This is the date Factura uses to place the spend in your history.

The deadline to pay without a surcharge. Many bills carry a segundo vencimiento with a higher figure: it is the same debt plus interest for the days late, not a separate instalment.

The sum of everything on the bill: consumption, fixed charges, taxes, carried balances and surcharges. It is the figure Factura records as the period's spend.

What was left owing — or in credit — from earlier bills and carried into this one. A positive previous balance means the amount due includes something you did not consume in this period.

The identifier of the supply with the provider. It identifies the meter and the address, not the person: it changes when you move, even though you are the same account holder.

The person the supply is registered to. They are the one who can file paperwork, request a tariff category change or make a claim. In a rental it is usually still the owner, even when the tenant pays.

The string of digits that identifies the bill to the payment networks (Pago Fácil, Rapipago, home banking). It encodes the amount and the due date, which is why it stops working once the bill expires.

Automatic collection of the total from a card or account on the due date. The bill still arrives: with direct debit it is there to check the amount before it is taken, not to pay it.

The code with which ARCA (formerly AFIP) authorizes an electronic receipt, along with its expiry date. Its presence means the document is a valid tax receipt rather than an informal payment notice.

What you pay for having the service connected, whether or not you use it. It covers network availability, metering and billing. It is why an empty home still gets bills with a figure on them.

The part that does depend on how much you used: kWh for electricity, m³ for gas and water, times the price in the tariff schedule. It is the only line your behaviour affects directly.

The price table approved by the regulator for each class of user. Codes like T1R1 or R2 mark your category: residential or commercial, and the consumption band you fall into. Changing category changes the price of every unit you consume.

The share of an electricity tariff the distributor keeps for carrying the energy to your home and maintaining the network. The rest is the wholesale price of energy plus taxes. It is the component argued over at every tariff review.

The state covers part of the cost of energy according to the household's declared income level: N1 high income (no subsidy), N2 low income and N3 middle income (partial subsidy, capped at a consumption allowance). The bill shows the state's contribution as a discount line.

21% on consumption at a residential address; 27% where the account holder is VAT-registered and the property is not a home. It is calculated on the charges, not on the taxed total.

Advance tax the provider collects on the tax authority's behalf: additional VAT and provincial turnover tax. For an end consumer they are pure cost; for a registered taxpayer they are a creditable payment on account.

A percentage the municipality charges on the electricity or gas bill and the distributor collects for it. It funds street lighting and local services, and varies from one municipality to the next.

A 0.6% surcharge on electricity bills nationwide, earmarked for electrical works in the province of Santa Cruz. It appears as its own line on most electricity bills.

Statutory surcharges that fund sector-wide schemes — rural electrification, infrastructure works, regional compensation. They do not depend on household consumption and are usually listed together at the foot of the bill.

A discount applied to the bill: for paying on time, for going paperless, for an upheld complaint, or through an official programme. It comes off the total and, unlike a subsidy, does not necessarily repeat next month.

What is added for paying after the due date, charged per day late at a regulated rate. It is the difference between the first and second due-date amounts.

The device that records the supply's cumulative consumption. The bill does not report what it reads today, but the difference between two readings: the previous one and the current one.

An actual reading was taken at the address — by a person, or transmitted by the meter. An estimated one is the provider's calculation from your history, made when it could not reach the meter. Estimates are corrected on the next actual bill, which is why an unexpectedly high or low amount sometimes arrives.

The unit of electrical energy: a 1,000 W appliance running for an hour uses 1 kWh. It is what an electricity bill counts; an average Buenos Aires household runs around 200–300 kWh a month.

The unit of volume gas and water are measured in. For gas, the measured volume is adjusted before it is billed — see calorific value — so the meter's m³ and the billed m³ do not always match.

Gas is billed by energy, not by volume. The measured volume is corrected for pressure, temperature and the calorific value of the local gas, and expressed in m³ of 9,300 kcal. It explains why billed consumption differs from what the meter shows.

The period's consumption divided by its days. It is the right way to compare two bills of different length — a winter two-month period against a summer month — and what Factura's consumption charts use.

For water, a good share of users have no meter: billing follows a formula that estimates consumption from the property's floor area, age and zone. That is why a water bill can stay flat no matter how your habits change.

The company that brings the service to your address, meters it and bills you: Edesur and Edenor for electricity in Greater Buenos Aires, Metrogas and Naturgy for gas, AySA for water. It is your counterpart for billing and supply complaints.

The body that regulates electricity distribution in Greater Buenos Aires: it approves tariff schedules, monitors service quality and takes complaints the distributor has not resolved. Outside that area, the provincial regulator plays the role.

The gas equivalent of ENRE, nationwide: it approves distributors' tariffs, sets the billing rules and handles unresolved complaints.

Each province regulates its own distributors: EPRE in Mendoza, ERSeP in Córdoba, OCEBA in Buenos Aires province, among others. They are where a complaint goes when the service is not under a national regulator.

A building's shared costs, split between the units and billed by the consortium's administration. Ordinarias are routine upkeep; extraordinarias are one-off works. Not a utility, but the largest bill many households get.

The framework protecting service users: the right to clear information, to dispute incorrect billing, and to a timely answer from the provider. A complaint starts with the company, moves to the regulator, and can reach the local consumer authority.

The ordered history of all your bills: who issued them, what they cost, and which period they belong to. It is what Factura builds from the PDFs you upload.

The configuration that knows how to read one provider's bills: where the amount sits, how the date is written, what text identifies the issuer. Official parsers are maintained by the project, and you can build your own for a provider that isn't covered yet.

Whoever issues the bill, as far as your ledger is concerned: Edesur, Metrogas, your building's administration. Each vendor has its own colour and groups its own spending and consumption history.

The address the bills belong to. You can have several — your home, the office, your parents' place — and share each with the right people: members of a property see its whole ledger.

The state of a bill the parser could not fully read: the amount or the period is missing. It stays visible and hand-editable rather than being taken as correct, so a doubtful figure doesn't contaminate the totals.

The step from PDF to data: the document's text is read, the vendor identified, and the amount, period, due date and consumption pulled out. You can see the original text of any bill from its detail view.