Monday, September 14, 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.

The move form manual system to an automated system can have positive effects on the company and even the customers. On the side of the customers, they can access their accounts any time of the day and get crucial information whereas for the company their management of consumer accounts is greatly improved.

Companies which have adopted this system are much more efficient in their bills distribution. These companies are able to have electronic billing whereby the bills are sent to the consumers through their emails. Postage costs that used to be incurred before to send bills via post have been eliminated.

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.

Customer management is an important part of a business. Employing an automated system in a utility company ensures that the customer complaints and issues concerning provision are solved. The online portals provided are able to provide the necessary information like payment options and account numbers. Therefore, the volume of calls made to the service centers of the company reduces leading to a improvement in the satisfaction of the customer.

Handling of changes in the accounts of a consumer is made easier by the automated system for billing clients. When the customer changes houses their meter number will also change. The automated system handles these changes and enables the provision of one summary bill of the new and old meter.

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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