FrontDesk Vs Legacy Utility Billing Modules
If you utilize any of the following modules in SimpleCity including: Utility Billing ACH, Utility Billing Internet, and Utility Billing E-bills, the functions that each of these modules served will be replaced with the implementation of FrontDesk. This article will breakdown how FrontDesk differs in comparison to those modules.
FrontDesk ACH
- With FrontDesk, residents have the ability to enroll themselves in AutoPay. Alternatively, the Agency User can enroll a Public user in AutoPay on their behalf.
- The ACH file no longer needs to be created in SimpleCity and sent to the bank. FrontDesk will automatically draft customers enabled with AutoPay according to the withdrawal cadence set in your payment settings.
- Citizens have the additional option of utilizing a credit/debit card to enroll in autopay.
Citizens enrolled in AutoPay may incur an additional fee depending on if the fee for that payment method is being passed along to the citizen, i.e. E-check or credit/debit. Refer to your FrontDesk contract for fee details.
FrontDesk E-billing
- Citizens are automatically enrolled in electronic billing once they create an active login Public User account. No setup is required by the Agency.
- The Public User will receive an email with a link to view their utility bill. This link will direct them to FrontDesk where they can log in and view or download a PDF of their bill. This process is secure and protects any sensitive information that may be on a bill.
- A digital PDF of the utility bill is password protected.
- Attachments can't be included with an electronic bill automatically. Any digital attachments can be sent to FrontDesk users through a public notice.
- When printing bills in SimpleCity Utility Billing, you will need to select the appropriate FrontDesk Bill Format Code on the bill print screen so the PDFs get uploaded to FrontDesk. Refer to the link here on how to determine which code is appropriate for you.
If you have an Antivirus software set up on your computers, be sure to whitelist the program UBPDFEXE.EXE. This will ensure that the digital utility statements are successfully uploaded to their FrontDesk portal.
FrontDesk Digital Payments
- Payments automatically sync to SimpleCity through Receipt Management. There is no need to export/ import payments.
- Payments will appear on Receipt Listing as either FDCC (credit card payments) or FDEC (Echecks), rather than Internet Pay.
- For payments submitted over the weekend, you will need to run a Receipt Listing and if necessary a "Receipt Update" for each day you received payments.
