“Our customers use our reports to do everything from running their own water use studies, without having to hire someone to do it for them, to researching trends in their water usage. “People are always surprised at what they can do with our software,” says Julie Patterson, director of sales and marketing with Durango, CO-based Data West, the publisher of BillMaster utility billing software. Savvy water utility officials recognize this and use these reports to operate their utilities in a more efficient and cost-effective manner. Today’s water billing programs provide a host of reports and functions that stretch far beyond simply sending payment notices to consumers. And they can study these same reports to determine new ways to conserve water use and reduce the water utility’s overall costs of providing this water to its customers. They can analyze the reports created by billing software to hunt for potentially costly leaks. They can spend more time in the utility’s customer service department answering resident questions. Water billing software also allows utility employees to focus their efforts on other tasks. Utilities can train billing department staffers to take on other jobs, whether with the municipal utility or elsewhere in the utility. ![]() And reducing the number of employees in the billing department doesn’t necessarily mean laying off talented workers. They won’t need as many utility employees to tackle billing issues if software is doing this job for them. And in today’s challenging national economy, any way that utilities can find to save dollars is much appreciated.īy employing water billing software, utilities can reduce the size of their labor force, providing immediate savings. This leads to cost savings in the long-term. These utilities have one goal when they make the move to a new billing system: They want to operate more efficiently. A growing number of utilities have signed on to the latest automated billing programs, some choosing to automate their billing functions for the first time, others upgrading from harder-to-use legacy systems. For information and to apply, click here or contact The District is an Equal Opportunity Employer.Ĭooper and the city of Fountain are far from unusual when it comes to discovering a host of benefits from using water billing software. The District is an award-winning wastewater agency which has been a leader in protecting the Chicago area water environment for over a 120 years. The Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago is seeking a visionary Executive Director. They know they will pay a lower rate for their water if they use less, so they try to conserve their water.” But with a certain number of people, the tiered billing system does make a difference. There are always some people who are determined to have that bright green lawn, no matter the costs. “We find, actually, that in many cases it does. “We hope that this helps inspire customers to conserve,” says Cooper. The goal is a simple one: convince customers to be more judicial in how they use water. In all, the city’s automated billing system allows Fountain to charge six different rates to customers, all tied into how much water they use on a regular basis. Under this system, the more water that customers use, the more they pay each month for their water. With the automated billing system, the city of Fountain’s utilities department can bill customers on a tiered system. Helping to conserve it should be an important goal of any municipality. This is a significant benefit, Cooper says. But in Fountain, that’s exactly what the city’s billing software lets it do. Water conservation isn’t exactly a benefit that most people associate with automatic billing software. The software helps the utility find potential leaks in its system, provide customers with far more detailed billing statements, and conserve water. Candy Cooper, a utility analyst for the city of Fountain, CO, doesn’t hesitate when running down a list of the benefits her city’s water utility receives from using automated billing software.
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