Billing & Bill Payment Buyers Guide Categories

• Billing Software

  The software that actually calculates, generates and sends to a printer (or other distribution method) the actual bills (printed or electronic) for the amount of a product or service (electricity or gas or other products in this case). Billing software usually refers to a Customer Information System (CIS), but actually is a subset of a full-scale CIS. A full CIS today may include a wide variety of other functions including Customer Relationship Management systems, work management systems, mobile data systems and interfaces to a host of other systems. Billing software is at the heart of a CIS, and thus CIS sometimes is referred to as billing software.

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• Outsourcing

  Outsourcing is when a third party (other than the utility and its customers) is involved in the process. Outsourcing ranges from some utilities that use their own billing software to generate bills, but then sends them to an outside company that actually prints, inserts and mails them to having a third company actually operate the CIS and accompanying customer contact centers, etc. A wide range of outsourcing is practiced in the utility industry today. Some utilities have outsourced all of their information technology; many outsource bill printing, meter reading, tree trimming and a host of other functions.

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• Payment Solutions

  Utilities now offer their customers a wide variety of payment options or solutions. These range from the traditional receive-the-bill, mail-in-the-check method to on-line payments with credit cards or direct debit directly with the utility, to similar systems with third-party companies (aggregators) such as MasterCard RPPS®, to payments made to customers’ banks or other aggregators, to payment in advance, to kiosks and terminals located in public places. Many utilities still offer walk-in locations where customers can pay bills, though not as many as once did, to working with grocery stores and other third-party locations that accept payments on behalf of the utility.

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