A Case Study in Point’s Lockbox Posting Services

July 29, 2008

About five months ago, Maureen Dwinnell of Hopkinton, Massachusetts faced a challenge shared by many of her fellow treasurer/collectors: how to continue operating at the same capacity while staying at current funding levels. She knew to do this she needed to eliminate portions of her office’s workload, so she began exploring alternative ways to get the job done.

Maureen opened a dialog with Point Software and presented a few different scenarios to make this happen. After some discussion, it was determined that the best solution was for Hopkinton to contract Point to provide Service Bureau printing services combined with a newly conceived service for lockbox posting. With Point already serving as Hopkinton’s deputy collector, those changes effectively eliminated all third party dependencies for billing management.

Appointing Point to render its lockbox posting service afforded the Town of Hopkinton a number of advantages. For starters, Hopkinton was free to select the bank of its choice to do business with. On a related note, the removal of the bank dependency also improved turnaround time on deposits. With Point’s service, there is no “second round processing.” Hopkinton no longer had to wait for the bank’s information, which in traditional lockbox is typically a day behind posting. In addition, Point eliminated the need for specialized OCR code by using its own scanning methods.

Employing Point’s lockbox posting services has proven to be a successful venture for Hopkinton. By presenting Point with her challenges and ideas, Maureen was able to reduce the number of steps in a core process and thereby make her office run more efficiently. After satisfactorily testing the waters, Hopkinton has expanded its use of Point lockbox to include posting for real estate, personal property, motor vehicle and soon water/sewer.