A Solution for Evolving Trash Billing Needs

June 30, 2008

More and more municipalities are beginning to separate some of their core services that had been included as part of the general tax rate into special billing processes. One of the processes getting a lot of attention lately is billing for trash pickup. In response, a solution was needed to solve this need.

Like most applications Point Software has built, what started as a “what-if” resulted in a product that is now available among the mix of other receivables managed by Point’s Revenue Management system. Having been proven through its second fiscal year of use, Point anticipates a growing number of communities may be interested in knowing more about this offering.

Despite local business rules that can be specifically built to a customer’s needs, the application operates much like a real estate commitment and can generate a single, semi or quarterly bill using standard flagging, interest triggers and user-defined issue and due dates from within the Interest Base File. More important, this application’s design allows the information it manages to be seamlessly included within a municipal lien certificate. Lookups are also possible using parcel-based inquiry.

Just like real estate successive bills detail unpaid balances, additional charges and interest may include bar code scan lines to provide batch posting during the receipting process.

Because there is not a singular way to establish the amounts billed, Point works with the municipality to create a program that tags the billable parcels that are to be included in the commitment.

With full reporting, billing capability, payoff inquiry and municipal lien inclusion, this cost effective solution may well be the answer toward solving a need that many municipalities are considering.