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.
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