Friday, December 13, 2002

Serious issues arise concerning utility billing software

By ALISA KING
Special to The Citizen

The city of Fairburn has some serious issues with its present utility billing software that is part of the Fund Balance financial system.

Utility billing software has lost money due to inaccurate billing of residential and commercial customers on a frequent basis, staff said.

Because the present software is unable to calculate commercial, demand-based billing, residential customers often receive bills that are not reflected accurately in the financial system.

It has been estimated by staff that losses from incorrect billing could be at least $25,000 a year, and likely more.

Other concerns include the software not being interfaced with a cable system and having lack of support and development from the fund balance.

Because every customer begins service the first month on a pro-rated basis or changes their programming, staff has to manually input this information into the system.

In a memo, technology consultant Brad Williams said, "The focus of Fund Balance is more on accounting functions like General Ledger with utility billing software being seen as a 'throw-in'."

"There is only one other municipality that uses their utility billing software, and that is to serve fewer than 200 electric customers. It is not their focus and they do not have the necessary knowledge of utility billing," he added.

Staff has been evaluating replacement software that will remedy the problems and be capable of handling future billing needs for all utilities. Any replacement system would also need to integrate into the present financial software seamlessly, staff said.

Three vendors did demonstrations and references were checked on Tailored Business Systems (TBS), Harris Computer Systems and Creative Logic Technologies.

Harris Computer Systems has a product with a few hundred user base that includes local governments like the city of LaGrange, City of Dalton, Crisp County and large clients regionally that include City of Daytona Beach and others.

Brad Williams said, "The referral from several of these governments was very positive. Staff was impressed with the product demonstration given in Fairburn as well as an onsite visit to LaGrange to see exactly how the utility billing is performed through Harris."

City Council agreed to spend $75,000 on the Harris software and software maintenance.