Utility billing firms usually bill condos and apartment complexes on behalf of a municipality. Sewer charges may be one part of the bill, and if so it would be a constant factor in the billing (ie: it won't change each month), however, billing for water, if the individual units/apts are each metered, will vary monthly.
Generally there is a meter near where the water enters the unit and the complex will have a dedicated phone line so that these readings can be reported to the billing firm who will generate bills. Normally you get billed for a certain amount of usage (say 2000 gallons) a month whether or not you use it, overages cost more.
The municipality knows how much water it delivered to your complex each month, they also have meters. The billing firm is going to pay the municipality what the charges for water and sewer are.
However, what if the billing firm, AUM, or any billing firm, just makes up numbers? Perhaps they just inflate your bill now and then? If the bill should be $34.55 with the water/sewer and their added on billing cost but they tack on another few dollars, how would you ever know you were paying more than needed? Generally speaking you would NOT know. But if you were seldom on the property and kept getting billings showing you were supposedly using MORE water in those months when you were not there (as happened to me) then this is a pretty good tip off that the billing firm is screwing you. Obviously it is illegal but it isn't something you can easily report to the local PD. Read on for my experience with AUM.
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Misc: This is an old blog site about problems at our condo resulting in AUM getting tossed out. I continue to be amazed that so many people drop by for a look at this site, mostly via a google keyword search. This tells me that AUM continues to be a real pain in the rear to a lot of people and that our problems at Nautilus Cove were not just a one off screwup by AUM. At the time I thought they were just inept bozos but upon reflection I lean more toward 'fraud' as an explination of how they were, and probably still are, doing business.
