October 11, 2022 |
The Saratoga town clerk’s office will continue to process utility payments the old-fashioned way.
As reported by Bigfoot 99, during the September 5th Saratoga town council meeting, Town Clerk Marie Christen asked the town to adopt a new online payment system called, Invoice Cloud. The payment processor would automatically apply user’s credit card and bank transfers to their account without any human interaction. Christen said this would cut down on errors and wasted time caused by the current system, IntelliPay.
The new system does come with an increased cost. Additionally, a significant portion of the community would have to enroll in automatic payments to cover the price tag.
The governing body, skeptical about both the price and the level of community participation needed, decided to table to matter to allow Christen to collect more information.
The town clerk brought reinforcement to last week’s meeting to help make the case. Two sales representatives from Invoice Cloud attended the meeting remotely.
Thomas Burchard and Jerry Leopold acknowledged the town’s concerns over the added fees, as well as the potential hesitancy of billpayers to use the service. Burchard said Invoice Cloud would not charge for paperless billing.
Pictured above: File photo of Saratoga Town Hall/Police Department. Photo by Cali O’Hare/Bigfoot 99.
Burchard added that Invoice Cloud would help the town save money by cutting down the time the clerk’s office spends on processing payments by hand. Councilwoman D’Ron Campbell said that human error causes a lot of wasted time. She referenced a specific case where a building permit from earlier in the year was accidentally processed twice, once as a building permit, and again as a utility payment. Campbell asked the Invoice Cloud representatives how their program could help fix problems like that.
Burchard said the big selling point of his program is how it integrates directly with Caselle, the software the town is already using to generate bills. Invoice Cloud will, automatically, update a customer’s account, eliminating human error.
Councilman Jon Nelson pointed out that Invoice Cloud will only help if the bill is paid using a credit card. All other payments will still go through the old process, requiring them to be input by hand. Someone from the clerk’s office will still need to create the invoice. Nelson said human error would continue to be an issue.
New Councilwoman Kathy Beck had concerns about how members of the community would handle the new system. She asked Christen for a summary of the proposed changes to the payment process, and how it would work the same or differently that the current process. Christen assured Beck that, for the customers, everything would remain the same.
Even with the waived fees, the town would still need 38 percent of the population to sign up for automatic billing in order for Invoice Cloud to pay for itself. Under the current system, seven percent of the town has signed up for auto-pay.
Mayor Creed James said the time and effort saved by Invoice Cloud would be worth the $250 a month price tag.
Councilman Nelson said if the new system had been brought up while the town was creating its yearly budget, they would still have scrutinized the cost.
Mayor James asked for a motion to approve the purchase of Invoice Cloud. Councilwoman Campbell motioned. There was no second, so the motion died.
The council was not swayed by the idea of saving time in the clerk’s office. There was also confusion over how the new system would operate and how much it would cost.
