Water Meter Readings

[mtbe]

This is more of a question as to DB Structure.



I haven't done MSAccess in many years...I'm working in Google AppSheet...I'm looking for DB assistance....

I'm starting to create a database to record water meter readings. I live in a small community in Colombia, S. America and the government recently told the aqueduct that they need to install water meters on all the homes.

I volunteered to help them gather the monthly data, and send the data to their billing app to make it much easier for them.

I have the following tables and Fields:
User: Name, MeterID, Branch (Some users have more than one meter)
Readings: MeterID, Current Reading, Previous Reading, Consumption, Date, Days since last reading

All of this works so far...but I forgot one important item and I don't know where to put it.

Several of the meters we will not be able to read because this is up in the mountains, homes are spread apart and difficult to access (plus, some have gates). I just realized my design doesn't include these meters that will have blank readings when I export the data at the end of each month.

I'm not sure how to capture those in the DB, calculate an estimated value based on previous readings, and include those in the export.

Any help would be appreciated.

[ranman256]

you could put a flag on the homes (MeterID) that are estimated: ReadType : as Meter or Est.
that way the Estimate homes can pull in data from the last reading entered.

Name, MeterID, Branch, ReadType

[Micron]

We have the same sort of distinction around here, but it is "Actual" or "Estimated" and shows up on the bill somewhere.

[moke123]

My town was estimating my water usage for a little over 10 years. A few months ago my meter was replaced and it came out that they were overcharging me by about double.
I now have a credit of about $3,000 which should last me about 10 years.

[Micron]

That could have easily gone the other way! That's cheap water, btw - unless it doesn't include sewer rates as well.

[moke123]

Our minimum bills are $25 for water and $50 for sewer per quarter. I'm usually right around that give or take $10 - $15