Altron Group subsidiaries Bytes Technology and Altech are working with municipalities to integrate municipal billing systems, in an effort to speed up the payment process for rate payers and administrators.
Bytes developed the SA Municipal Resource Administration System (SAMRAS) - an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution that has, to date, been implemented at 34 municipalities across the Eastern Cape, Northern Cape, Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo.
The Bytes merger with Altech - which resulted in Altron's Technology Multimedia Telecoms (TMT) division - "has allowed for the rapid development of a highly-efficient and effective financial payment and administration solution for local authorities and municipalities", says the company in a statement.
Altech's NuPay e-payment options will be introduced to municipalities from March and will link directly into existing administration processes by swiftly capturing payment details.
Bytes GM for SAMRAS Brian Brougham-Cook says rate payers will be able to receive municipal statements on their mobile phones and initiate payment processes by following prompts from the NuPay system. "It works as a debit order instruction. When customers click 'pay', the system will wait for their account to have money before making the transaction," he says.
Brougham-Cook notes that municipalities using SAMRAS can lighten their administrative load. "What happened before is that a rate payer would pay with a debit card and the receipt would have to be printed, copied and then put into the admin system. With NuPay, the details go straight into the SAMRAS system."
He says the new system is "an add-on to the existing [SAMRAS] module", which manages income for municipalities.
About time
Larry Symington, CEO of MyWater meter systems, says the timing of the new approach will benefit both municipalities and rate payers. "There is a need for such a system. While municipalities handle most of the administration, it's important to pinpoint how much your consumption is and what that will cost," he says.
MyWater develops meters, which indicate how much water a household uses and the amount owed to the municipality. Symington notes that speed and efficiency is the way forward for municipal billing systems.
Bytes says its new approach "will make the payment of rates, water and electricity bills simpler and faster for consumers, and the collection of these funds integrated and seamless for the institutions concerned".
Brougham-Cook says Polokwane is the most recent municipality to implement SAMRAS, but Bytes will look to expand to more regions.
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