Integrated Payment Processing for Your Utility Billing System

Whether it is electricity, water, or gas, we rely on utilities in our daily lives. However, utility billing can be complex for consumers and providers. With increasing reliance on digital platforms, utilities need to find ways to get paid faster and easier.

Integrated payment processing is one way that utility companies can meet consumer expectations and get their bills paid. It can reduce remittance fees, allow customers to pay their bills with a credit card and offer more flexible recurring payments options. It can also help reduce customer friction by allowing a customer to request an instant payment and receive immediate confirmation of the transaction, even if they do not have sufficient funds in their account.

When your bank receives a payment from customers towards a utility charges bill, they must record the transactions in your system. Each such payment transaction is called a bill payment transaction. In the case of bill payments, there are three entities involved – your bank, the institution in whose favor you receive such payments (utility provider) and the customers who make the payments. Each of these institutions may have different accounting details, rates and charges that are levied on payments made to them by your bank. You can maintain all these attributes for each type of a utility payment transaction by creating a product and associating it to the respective type of a bill payment transaction in the ‘Utility Provider Type Maintenance’ screen of ARC. utility payment system