For utility companies, a key metric is how quickly a payment for a utility bill is processed. Quick processing of payments eliminates the risk that a customer may make a late payment or a check bounces, and also reduces the number of times a company has to send an employee out to cut off or reconnect service after a missed payment.
One of the ways a utility payment system can help solve the issue of timely payments is by leveraging technology mediums that customers regularly use. For example, by offering online payments using credit or debit cards, utility billing systems can provide more options for their customers to get their bills paid in a way that’s most convenient to them.
A utility payments product is a transaction that you define to process specific kinds of payments made by your bank’s customers in favor of a particular utility provider. When you maintain a utility payments product, you specify accounting details, rates and charges for that particular utility provider.
The utility payments products you create can be used to automatically process recurring payments from a bank’s consumer accounts, or they can be used for one-time transactions. In either case, when you set up a utility payments product, the system creates corresponding ACH and/or EDI banking transactions for each transaction, as well as corresponding MIS entries on the customer’s account or GL that you specify. The resulting transaction records are then cleared and transmitted to the banking institution that processes your bank’s ACH and EDI transactions. utility payment system