Minggu, 13 September 2015

Features Of Utility Bill Software

By Daphne Bowen


Utility bills are the amounts spent by the public on the basic products and services which include water, natural gas and electricity. The amounts to be paid vary largely with the usage of some consumers, the higher the usage of such products and services the higher the fees to be charged. However, due to the sensitivity of such services being offered and their necessity to human life, most of these products are regulated by the national governments. Utility bill software is used by companies which provide utilities to help in the management of their customer and to charge them fees for usage of their products. Automating the systems of operations has led to higher efficiencies and significant reduction in the costs incurred.

The first step to adoption of an automated system is the installation of automated meter readers in the households and premises. Manual reading of meters has taken place for a long time especially in the rural areas. Automated systems allow for the meter reading to be done remotely without sending employees to physically go and read the meters. An automatic meter can be read from hundreds of meters away from a control station.

Customer satisfaction is an important aspect in any business that aspires to do well. Whenever the customer is not satisfied about something in the provision of a service, the probability is that they will lodge a complaint to the company. Adopting an automated system means that there will be less complaints concerning the amounts to be billed to the customers. The readings will be done automatically from the centers hence they are more accurate and with eliminated human observational errors.

Automation has made it possible for customers to access their bills instantly and hence more time to prepare for the payment. They are able to access all these through specialized online portals. Good automated systems may even have links for websites where the customer can make the payments.

Automated systems have led to the automation of tasks that are done repeatedly. This has led to less demand for labor and hence more savings for the companies. Employees are left with fewer tasks which they can put more effort into. In addition, data entry errors which are associate with humans are minimized.

An automated system is perfect for summary billing of an account. In the case where a single user is in charge of several other accounts the bills of those accounts can be merged into one. This improves the efficiency in payments. In most cases, installation of an automated system may not require heavy investment in hardware. The software can be installed into the existing hardware in the company therefore no additional costs.

When determining the type of automated system to adopt in the operations of the company, the amount of cash flows should be considered. Most of these companies bill their customers monthly or quarterly.

Automatic meter readers are justified because of location of some of the meters. Some manual meters are located in dangerous areas which is an increased risk to the employees of that company. Other areas are even hard to access located in harsh terrains. This increases the cost to the company and even consumes more time in reading of those meters.




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