NextBill

If you’re in the bill processing business, or thinking about it, you might want to consider NextBill, as Southeastern Merchant Systems (SMS) did. SMS has inked an agreement with Brinkman Technologies to become an authorized reseller of NextBill, Brinkman’s EBPP system. SMS chose to offer NextBill to its clients because it “provides (SMS’s) clients with the opportunity to retain their direct connection to their customers, rather than losing that opportunity to a third party bill processor.”

NextBill allows companies to send billing statements and receive payment information via standard e-mail programs without third party processors, such as CheckFree, Intuit, or TransPoint.

The system can be installed on a Web server at a bank’s or billing company’s data center. The system collects billing information from the accounts receivable or billing system and generates billing information in HTML format, which is sent to the customers by e-mail. Company information and advertisements can also be included on the billing statements.

Customers receive their billing statements by e-mail and use their current Internet access services to authorize payments with no requirement for bill payment software. To pay the bill, a customer will click on a “Pay Bill” hyperlink listed on the e-mail statement, linking the customer to a payment screen on the company’s Web site. Brinkman reports that the NextBill system gives consumers greater control over the billing process by allowing them to select the format of their bills, the payment method, and the ability to set the payment amount and effective date.

The payment information is received by the NextBill system and the transaction is either warehoused or processed, depending on the effective date. During processing, the system creates an ACH transaction to debit the customer’s financial institution account and send the payment data to the company’s billing system to credit the account. Transactions for each day are placed into an ACH batch that is processed by the bank through the Federal Reserve System.

For more information about NextBill, visit www.nextbill.com.

Back | Next