Why do the big boys like Cox/Comcast/Centurylink require autopay?

Well, now that we are approaching 2,000 customers we have learned something.

Paper checks and bank bill pay services Stink from the vendor side of the transaction.

Whenever we get a hand written check, or a check printed by a bank, or an electronic (ACH/aggregator) payment we have to look up the customer and manually credit the account. If you use your banks “Bill Pay” service, your bank does not print your checks. Unless your bank is GESA. All others farm it out to a payment processor. The processor prints and mails us 30 checks in 1 envelope from 10 different banks!. Some processors transmit electronic payment to us for your checks. Many banks use the MARS portal. It looks like a website from 1995 that has never changed. I bet the backend software is written in COBOL.

This is 2024 folks, we are moving to automation. Our new billing platform is rolling out. It gives you the abiltiy to control the payment. We can run a card or an e-check automatically on the 16th of each month, or you can log in to manually push the payment yourself ( like your bank’s website, just from our portal instead). Once we are on the new system for everyone, your paper checks will be turned into e-checks and run through our system instead of being cashed. This is standard practice in the utility industry. By converting your check to an ACH we ensure that we credit your account here at Net253 with the funds from your routing/account number on your check. Check conversion is legal, standard practice, for both efficiency and security.

When you pay via a “recurring payment” from your bank it is up to you to make sure your payments match our invoices. Occasionally KPUD increases their rates. We have never increased our portion even though we have taken on significant expense to improve service reliability. On rare occasion, we need to do a service call to your home. You need to be on top of this and update the payments. I can tell you that most people on “bank autopay” fail to realize that these changes don’t happen “automatically”.

When our system runs the payment, your account automatically gets credited. We wont have to use a cross reference spreadsheet to look up Lucy Jones pays for Debra Johnson. Or “Custom Counters” is actually paying for John Doe’s home internet service. We get checks with the account number labeled “Internet payment” instead of our customer account we assigned you and is on every invioce/statement. Our new system has new account numbers as we are unable to import the old numbers.

We have hired a full time admin to help with payment processing. My trusty bookkeeper wants to winter in Mexico for the sun and tacos (OK, she said sun, I think it is the tacos). Each month we manually credit over 800 checks. Once we are on the new system I really hope you take advantage of the security and automation our new service will offer.