Are You Offering Online Bill Pay? Gary Sanders, Senior Consultant pay generally rely upon the balance provided in the most recent bill print file.
Does your utility provide a way for your customers to pay online? If not, it’s time to consider it. Many billing system vendors offer online bill pay solutions which integrate directly with your billing software. A good, fully integrated online bill pay system is like a Swiss Army knife - one tool that serves many purposes. Second only to bank drafts, online payments are the easiest and most efficient way to accept payments. Especially if you charge a third-party convenience fee, where your online bill pay provider collects the transaction fee, because your customer pays the full price of processing the credit card transaction. Even if your software vendor doesn’t offer an online bill pay option, there are many third-party options available. If a third-party solution is your only option, I encourage you to consider it. However, if your software vendor does offer a fully integrated online bill pay option, and you’re not taking advantage of it, here are some of the features you might be missing. Third-party online bill pay vendors generally fall into one of two categories - companies whose primary line of business is payment processing and outsource print vendors. In the first case, an updated file with customer balances is usually provided to the third party once a day. Outsource bill print vendors who offer online bill 16
The obvious weakness of either of these options is outof-date information. In the first situation, payments made earlier in the day aren’t reflected in the balance your customer sees online. The classic case is a customer pays the bill in the morning and then, not knowing a payment has already been made, their spouse pays it again later in the day, resulting in an overpayment which they will most likely ask you to refund. The online bill print vendor scenario is even worse – no adjustments or payments made after the bill was mailed are reflected in the balance your customer sees online. A fully integrated online bill pay system solves this dilemma because payments are posted in real time and the customer’s balance is always up to date, eliminating the chance of overpayments on an account. Additionally, some third-party systems require a file of payments to be imported the next day. This isn’t necessary with a fully integrated system because the payments are logged in the system as they happen. Even worse are third party solutions that don’t provide a file for you to import, requiring your staff to enter each payment manually. Third-party providers generally provide little more information online than the customer’s balance and due date. A fully integrated online bill pay system should display billing history, payment history, and usage history. Most third-party systems also require your customer to have their account number available in order to pay online, while fully integrated systems often allow your customer to create a profile. The advantages of creating a profile include using a username and password to access the system, eliminating the need for your customer to have their account number accessible when making a payment. Some integrated systems even allow multiple (continued on page 19)
