While the Federal Reserve Bank’s latest figures show that electronic payments continue to achieve strong growth, the data also suggests we’re still a long way off from the eagerly-anticipated “checkless” society.
With 28.8 billion checks written in 2010 -- the last year the Federal Reserve researched -- the number of checks written between 2007 and 2010 declined by about 6 percent per year. What’s more, 92 percent of checks are now cleared electronically between U.S. banks, according to the Federal Reserve’s research.
So what should remittance processors make of this data?
“It’s clear that U.S. check volumes continue to decline at a gradual rate,” says Creditron Founder and CEO Wally Vogel, “But checks are not likely to disappear any time soon.” While those might be sobering words from some paper-weary operations managers, they can take heart in the fact that paper deposits – a drag on costs and efficiency – are experiencing a rapid decline as Check 21 emerges as the method of choice for deposits (Vogel points to NACHA figures showing a big drop in Accounts Receivable Check Conversion volumes). “This is bad news for manufacturers of high-volume check encoding equipment, but it’s a great opportunity for providers of Check 21 remote deposit technology. There are many remittance shops that manually process their transactions, or have outdated solutions that don’t support Check 21. With banks continuing to lower their fees for Check 21 deposits, many of these shops will likely look for electronic solutions.”
Vogel notes that Creditron has recently seen strong demand for its Check 21 remote deposit capabilities. “The market is recognizing the value of remittance solutions that offer Check 21 remote deposit, as well as an image-based workflow. Against this backdrop, I think we are well-positioned for success and growth.”
What do you think?
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Press Release - Talquin Electric Cooperative Improves Payments Processing Speed and Accuracy with Creditron Solution
TORONTO, ONTARIO, February 16, 2011 -- Creditron, a leading provider of payments processing and receivables management solutions, today announced that Talquin Electric Cooperative, a long-time user of Creditron's ItemAge image-enabled remittance processing platform, recently upgraded to two SmartSource Professional scanners from Burroughs Payments Systems. By deploying the SmartSource Professional scanners, Talquin improved its payment processing speed and accuracy.
Talquin Electric Cooperative is a member-owned, non-profit electric distribution cooperative based in Quincy, Fla. Talquin provides electricity to 54,000 accounts and provides water and wastewater services from Florida's Gulf Coast, north to the Florida state line, including portions of Tallahassee.
An ItemAge user since 2000, Talquin recently replaced its NCR 7731 check scanners -- which the manufacturer has announced are reaching their end-of-life -- with two SmartSource Professional document scanners. The SmartSource Professional scanners process 120 documents per minute (DPM) -- four times faster than the NCR 7731 devices. What's more, the SmartSource Professional scanners have significantly lower hardware and software maintenance costs compared to the 7731s. And the SmartSource Professional scanners require a much smaller footprint than the 7731s.
"We like the SmartSource scanners 100 percent better than the 7731s," said Christy Wheeler, data entry clerk for Talquin Electric Cooperative. "The SmartSource scanners are faster, quieter and smaller than the 7731 machines. We have a lot more room on our desks now. And we have seen a been a big improvement in our payments processing since upgrading to the SmartSource scanners."
Wheeler added that the process of deploying the SmartSource Professional scanners was smooth. "We were up and running within an hour, and we haven't experienced any real downtime," she said.
The improved performance of the cooperative's document scanning hardware also is improving the ongoing return on investment of its ItemAge solution. The cooperative's solution includes modules for courtesy and legal amount recognition (CAR/LAR) for personal and business checks, hot files to automatically stop processing of flagged accounts, and image and data archive and retrieval.
Additionally, ItemAge automatically uploads payments information to Talquin's OpenOne CIS and billing system from ATS, a subsidiary of Cooperatives Computer Center (CCC) of Tallahassee, Fla. Creditron is an approved provider of image-enabled remittance solutions to CCC customers.
"Our experience with Creditron has been wonderful," Wheeler said. "The software is powerful, but very easy to use." Creditron Founder and CEO Wally Vogel added, "We look forward to building on our long relationship with Talquin Electric Cooperative to achieve even greater business results."
Talquin Electric Cooperative is a member-owned, non-profit electric distribution cooperative based in Quincy, Fla. Talquin provides electricity to 54,000 accounts and provides water and wastewater services from Florida's Gulf Coast, north to the Florida state line, including portions of Tallahassee.
An ItemAge user since 2000, Talquin recently replaced its NCR 7731 check scanners -- which the manufacturer has announced are reaching their end-of-life -- with two SmartSource Professional document scanners. The SmartSource Professional scanners process 120 documents per minute (DPM) -- four times faster than the NCR 7731 devices. What's more, the SmartSource Professional scanners have significantly lower hardware and software maintenance costs compared to the 7731s. And the SmartSource Professional scanners require a much smaller footprint than the 7731s.
"We like the SmartSource scanners 100 percent better than the 7731s," said Christy Wheeler, data entry clerk for Talquin Electric Cooperative. "The SmartSource scanners are faster, quieter and smaller than the 7731 machines. We have a lot more room on our desks now. And we have seen a been a big improvement in our payments processing since upgrading to the SmartSource scanners."
Wheeler added that the process of deploying the SmartSource Professional scanners was smooth. "We were up and running within an hour, and we haven't experienced any real downtime," she said.
The improved performance of the cooperative's document scanning hardware also is improving the ongoing return on investment of its ItemAge solution. The cooperative's solution includes modules for courtesy and legal amount recognition (CAR/LAR) for personal and business checks, hot files to automatically stop processing of flagged accounts, and image and data archive and retrieval.
Additionally, ItemAge automatically uploads payments information to Talquin's OpenOne CIS and billing system from ATS, a subsidiary of Cooperatives Computer Center (CCC) of Tallahassee, Fla. Creditron is an approved provider of image-enabled remittance solutions to CCC customers.
"Our experience with Creditron has been wonderful," Wheeler said. "The software is powerful, but very easy to use." Creditron Founder and CEO Wally Vogel added, "We look forward to building on our long relationship with Talquin Electric Cooperative to achieve even greater business results."
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Press Release - Creditron Awarded Contract from Bossier City Water Department to Deploy Image-Enabled Payments Solution
TORONTO, ON - Creditron, a leading provider of payments processing and receivables management solutions, today announced that the Bossier City Water Department (in Louisiana) implemented Creditron's ItemAge Express platform to automate the processing of the city's water payments. By eliminating manual processes with the Creditron platform, the city is accelerating the processing of paper-based water payments and enhancing its customer service.
Located along the east bank of the Red River across from Shreveport in Northwest Louisiana, Bossier City is a growing metropolitan area with more than 65,000 residents.
Creditron provided Bossier City Water Department with ItemAge Express, the company's flagship image-enabled payments processing solution. Most of the city's water payments include a check and remittance stub with an optical character recognition (OCR) scan-line that includes the resident's account number and amount due. ItemAge Express has greatly enhanced the city's processing of its water payments, resulting in increased staff productivity and improved operations efficiency.
Judy L. Vetkoetter, water billing supervisor, Bossier City Water Department, said the processing efficiency of ItemAge Express particularly appealed to the city. The software's ability to instantly retrieve archived images and data from processed payments also has benefited both the city water department and its customers. "Just the other day we received a call from a customer who was very upset that we were showing a balance from her previous bill. It was very helpful to be able to quickly research the amount of the payment she sent and what we had posted," Vetkoetter said.
The city's solution includes modules for courtesy and legal amount recognition (CAR/LAR) for personal and business checks, the ability to retrieve customer information based on MICR data read from checks, hot or positive files to automatically stop processing of flagged accounts, and image and data archive and retrieval. Additionally, ItemAge Express automatically uploads payments information to the city's HTE customer information system from SunGard Public Sector -- a key reason the city selected Creditron as its payments processing solutions provider. Creditron is SunGard Public Sector's only approved provider of image-based remittance processing solutions. Being an approved SunGard alliance partner not only streamlined the process of uploading data to HTE, it also allowed Bossier City Water Department to avoid having to issue an RFP for the project.
The solution runs on two Smartsource Professional scanners from Burroughs Payment Systems.
"The economic downturn has put tremendous pressure on municipal utilities to improve operations efficiency and accelerate cash flow," said Creditron Founder and CEO Wally Vogel. "By deploying an image-enabled payments solution, Bossier City Water Department not only will achieve these objectives, but it also will have the tools to better serve its customers. It's for these reasons that we are seeing stronger demand from municipalities for automated payments processing solutions."
Located along the east bank of the Red River across from Shreveport in Northwest Louisiana, Bossier City is a growing metropolitan area with more than 65,000 residents.
Creditron provided Bossier City Water Department with ItemAge Express, the company's flagship image-enabled payments processing solution. Most of the city's water payments include a check and remittance stub with an optical character recognition (OCR) scan-line that includes the resident's account number and amount due. ItemAge Express has greatly enhanced the city's processing of its water payments, resulting in increased staff productivity and improved operations efficiency.
Judy L. Vetkoetter, water billing supervisor, Bossier City Water Department, said the processing efficiency of ItemAge Express particularly appealed to the city. The software's ability to instantly retrieve archived images and data from processed payments also has benefited both the city water department and its customers. "Just the other day we received a call from a customer who was very upset that we were showing a balance from her previous bill. It was very helpful to be able to quickly research the amount of the payment she sent and what we had posted," Vetkoetter said.
The city's solution includes modules for courtesy and legal amount recognition (CAR/LAR) for personal and business checks, the ability to retrieve customer information based on MICR data read from checks, hot or positive files to automatically stop processing of flagged accounts, and image and data archive and retrieval. Additionally, ItemAge Express automatically uploads payments information to the city's HTE customer information system from SunGard Public Sector -- a key reason the city selected Creditron as its payments processing solutions provider. Creditron is SunGard Public Sector's only approved provider of image-based remittance processing solutions. Being an approved SunGard alliance partner not only streamlined the process of uploading data to HTE, it also allowed Bossier City Water Department to avoid having to issue an RFP for the project.
The solution runs on two Smartsource Professional scanners from Burroughs Payment Systems.
"The economic downturn has put tremendous pressure on municipal utilities to improve operations efficiency and accelerate cash flow," said Creditron Founder and CEO Wally Vogel. "By deploying an image-enabled payments solution, Bossier City Water Department not only will achieve these objectives, but it also will have the tools to better serve its customers. It's for these reasons that we are seeing stronger demand from municipalities for automated payments processing solutions."
Press Release - The City of Riverside Deploys NCR iTRAN 180 for use with Creditrons ItemAge Remittance Processing Platform
TORONTO, ON – Creditron, Inc., today announced that the City of Riverside (California), a long-time user of Creditron’s ItemAge image-based remittance processing platform, recently upgraded to the NCR iTRAN 180 document sorter. As a result of upgrading to the iTRAN, the city improved throughput, eliminated posting delays, and reduced sorter-related hassles.
Known as the birthplace of the citrus industry, the City of Riverside was founded in 1870 and now is California’s largest inland city, and the 12th largest city in the state. The city serves approximately 150,000 households and businesses, processing payments for water, sewer, electric, trash and other services. The city processes an average of 2,500 transactions per day – and peak volumes of 5,000 transactions per day – including high volumes of check-only transactions, as well as checks and remittance coupons. The City of Riverside has seven employees responsible for payment processing.
An ItemAge user for more than 10 years, the City of Riverside began to experience problems from its obsolete document sorting equipment, resulting in late bank deposits, frustrated staff, and unhappy constituents. To address these challenges, the city recently upgraded to the state-of-the-art iTRAN 180 document scanner from NCR. The iTRAN has paid immediate dividends, including better recognition read rates (which has resulted in less manual keying), faster processing turnaround, less noise, and less equipment downtime – a significant issue with the city’s previous hardware.
The improved performance of the city’s document-sorting hardware also is improving the ongoing return on investment of its ItemAge software. The city’s software includes components for courtesy and legal amount recognition (CAR/LAR), automated uploads to the city’s host system, and check encoding. The city may also deploy additional software functionality, such as Check 21 for electronic deposits, and rubberbanding of areas of a document requiring automated data capture.
“Today’s announcement is further proof of the compelling business value that organizations like the City of Riverside receive from ItemAge,” said Creditron Founder and CEO Wally Vogel. “By upgrading its hardware platform, the City of Riverside will improve processing efficiency and effectiveness, delivering benefits for both internal and external stakeholders. The combination of the iTRAN 180 and ItemAge also will provide the city with a solid platform for its future needs.”
Known as the birthplace of the citrus industry, the City of Riverside was founded in 1870 and now is California’s largest inland city, and the 12th largest city in the state. The city serves approximately 150,000 households and businesses, processing payments for water, sewer, electric, trash and other services. The city processes an average of 2,500 transactions per day – and peak volumes of 5,000 transactions per day – including high volumes of check-only transactions, as well as checks and remittance coupons. The City of Riverside has seven employees responsible for payment processing.
An ItemAge user for more than 10 years, the City of Riverside began to experience problems from its obsolete document sorting equipment, resulting in late bank deposits, frustrated staff, and unhappy constituents. To address these challenges, the city recently upgraded to the state-of-the-art iTRAN 180 document scanner from NCR. The iTRAN has paid immediate dividends, including better recognition read rates (which has resulted in less manual keying), faster processing turnaround, less noise, and less equipment downtime – a significant issue with the city’s previous hardware.
The improved performance of the city’s document-sorting hardware also is improving the ongoing return on investment of its ItemAge software. The city’s software includes components for courtesy and legal amount recognition (CAR/LAR), automated uploads to the city’s host system, and check encoding. The city may also deploy additional software functionality, such as Check 21 for electronic deposits, and rubberbanding of areas of a document requiring automated data capture.
“Today’s announcement is further proof of the compelling business value that organizations like the City of Riverside receive from ItemAge,” said Creditron Founder and CEO Wally Vogel. “By upgrading its hardware platform, the City of Riverside will improve processing efficiency and effectiveness, delivering benefits for both internal and external stakeholders. The combination of the iTRAN 180 and ItemAge also will provide the city with a solid platform for its future needs.”
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Municipalities eager to automate remittance processing
Municipal governments are showing strong interest in purchasing automated remittance solutions, and it appears that the sluggish economy -- and its impact on municipal budgets -- is the primary reason, according to Tony Rapaglia, regional manager for Creditron (trapaglia@creditron.com). Municipalities are looking to automate functions such as tax and utility payment processing, Rapaglia explains, adding that he expects the strong demand to carry over into the new year.
"Especially after the recent elections, municipalities are extremely conscious about the amount of money they are spending on back-office functions such as remittance processing," Rapaglia says. "Many are focused like a laser-bean on cutting costs and improving service to taxpayers. They recognize that they can pass along any savings from more efficient processing to their taxpayers."
So why is remittance processing, in particular, getting so much attention from municipalities?
For starters, Rapaglia notes that automated remittance processing frees up municipal workers to focus on other activities -- which is critical as they look to become more taxpayer-focused and make do with less staff. Automated remittance processing also helps municipalities make deposits much quicker, delivering immediate gains in funds availability. Even greater gains are on tap for those municipalities that deposit items electronically to their banks via Check 21. And municipalities are drawn to the improved security that an automated remittance system provides compared to paper processes. "In an automated environment, less people handle the checks, and there's less opportunity to lose them," Rapaglia explains, noting a recent case where a courier misplaced paper checks.
"Municipal budgets are certainly tight, but more of them are recognizing that they can achieve big savings by spending relatively little money on an automated remittance system," Rapaglia concludes.
"Especially after the recent elections, municipalities are extremely conscious about the amount of money they are spending on back-office functions such as remittance processing," Rapaglia says. "Many are focused like a laser-bean on cutting costs and improving service to taxpayers. They recognize that they can pass along any savings from more efficient processing to their taxpayers."
So why is remittance processing, in particular, getting so much attention from municipalities?
For starters, Rapaglia notes that automated remittance processing frees up municipal workers to focus on other activities -- which is critical as they look to become more taxpayer-focused and make do with less staff. Automated remittance processing also helps municipalities make deposits much quicker, delivering immediate gains in funds availability. Even greater gains are on tap for those municipalities that deposit items electronically to their banks via Check 21. And municipalities are drawn to the improved security that an automated remittance system provides compared to paper processes. "In an automated environment, less people handle the checks, and there's less opportunity to lose them," Rapaglia explains, noting a recent case where a courier misplaced paper checks.
"Municipal budgets are certainly tight, but more of them are recognizing that they can achieve big savings by spending relatively little money on an automated remittance system," Rapaglia concludes.
Press Release - Creditron Wins Contract from Summit County Treasurer's Office to Deploy Image-Enabled Payments Solution
TORONTO, ON - Creditron, a leading provider of payments processing and receivables management solutions, today announced that the Treasurer's Office of Summit County, Utah, implemented Creditron's ItemAge Express platform to automate the processing of the county's tax payments. By eliminating manual processes with the Creditron platform, the county is significantly accelerating the processing of paper-based tax payments and reducing operations costs.
Part of the Salt Lake City Metropolitan Statistical Area, and host of the 2002 Winter Olympics, Summit County is so named because it includes 39 of the highest mountain peaks in Utah. In fact, the county has the second-highest mean elevation above sea level of any county outside of Colorado.
Creditron provided Summit County with ItemAge Express, the company's flagship image-enabled payments processing solution. Most of the county's tax payments include a check and remittance stub with an optical character recognition (OCR) scan-line that includes the taxpayer's account number and amount due. ItemAge Express has greatly enhanced the county's processing of its tax payments, resulting in increased staff productivity and improved operations efficiency, in turn, helping the county reduce employee overtime. The Creditron solution also has enabled the county to make its bank deposits over two-and-a-half hours earlier each day, delivering improvements in float.
"Taxpayers are rightfully concerned about government spending," said Summit County Treasurer Michael Howard. "Deploying the Creditron solution for automating the processing of tax payments is part of the county's ongoing efforts to shrink costs and improve service to our taxpayers."
The county's solution includes modules for courtesy and legal amount recognition (CAR/LAR) for personal and business checks, image and data storage and retrieval, and hot files to automatically stop processing of flagged accounts. The solution also includes Creditron's unique Image Data Completion (IDC) module, which streamlines the handling of exceptions. Howard said the tools in ItemAge Express for identifying and reconciling out-of-balance transactions -- particularly the ability to view images of checks and related stubs side-by-side -- has delivered significant efficiency gains.
Additionally, ItemAge Express automatically uploads payments information to the county's customer information system from Tyler Technologies -- a key reason the county selected Creditron as its payments processing solutions provider. "Creditron was the only payments processing solution that interfaced with our Tyler accounting package," Howard explained. "This was important because we wanted to be able to upload batches without having to do any custom coding or intermediate steps."
The solution runs on a Smartsource Professional scanner from Burroughs Payment Systems.
"The implementation of the Creditron solution was smooth," Howard noted. "We also were very impressed with their on-site rep who took the time to understand our workflows and requirements." In the future, Summit County plans to deploy Creditron's Check 21 solution, which allows for the electronic deposit of payments, eliminating trips to the bank and possibly speeding funds availability.
"The economic downturn has put tremendous pressure on government entities to improve operations efficiency and accelerate cash flow," said Creditron Founder and CEO Wally Vogel. "By deploying an image-enabled payments solution, Summit County not only will achieve these objectives, but it also will have the tools to better serve its constituents. It's for these reasons that we continue to see strong demand from government entities for our image-enables payments processing solutions."
Part of the Salt Lake City Metropolitan Statistical Area, and host of the 2002 Winter Olympics, Summit County is so named because it includes 39 of the highest mountain peaks in Utah. In fact, the county has the second-highest mean elevation above sea level of any county outside of Colorado.
Creditron provided Summit County with ItemAge Express, the company's flagship image-enabled payments processing solution. Most of the county's tax payments include a check and remittance stub with an optical character recognition (OCR) scan-line that includes the taxpayer's account number and amount due. ItemAge Express has greatly enhanced the county's processing of its tax payments, resulting in increased staff productivity and improved operations efficiency, in turn, helping the county reduce employee overtime. The Creditron solution also has enabled the county to make its bank deposits over two-and-a-half hours earlier each day, delivering improvements in float.
"Taxpayers are rightfully concerned about government spending," said Summit County Treasurer Michael Howard. "Deploying the Creditron solution for automating the processing of tax payments is part of the county's ongoing efforts to shrink costs and improve service to our taxpayers."
The county's solution includes modules for courtesy and legal amount recognition (CAR/LAR) for personal and business checks, image and data storage and retrieval, and hot files to automatically stop processing of flagged accounts. The solution also includes Creditron's unique Image Data Completion (IDC) module, which streamlines the handling of exceptions. Howard said the tools in ItemAge Express for identifying and reconciling out-of-balance transactions -- particularly the ability to view images of checks and related stubs side-by-side -- has delivered significant efficiency gains.
Additionally, ItemAge Express automatically uploads payments information to the county's customer information system from Tyler Technologies -- a key reason the county selected Creditron as its payments processing solutions provider. "Creditron was the only payments processing solution that interfaced with our Tyler accounting package," Howard explained. "This was important because we wanted to be able to upload batches without having to do any custom coding or intermediate steps."
The solution runs on a Smartsource Professional scanner from Burroughs Payment Systems.
"The implementation of the Creditron solution was smooth," Howard noted. "We also were very impressed with their on-site rep who took the time to understand our workflows and requirements." In the future, Summit County plans to deploy Creditron's Check 21 solution, which allows for the electronic deposit of payments, eliminating trips to the bank and possibly speeding funds availability.
"The economic downturn has put tremendous pressure on government entities to improve operations efficiency and accelerate cash flow," said Creditron Founder and CEO Wally Vogel. "By deploying an image-enabled payments solution, Summit County not only will achieve these objectives, but it also will have the tools to better serve its constituents. It's for these reasons that we continue to see strong demand from government entities for our image-enables payments processing solutions."
Friday, July 30, 2010
The Evolution of Remote Capture
When remote deposit capture (RDC) first burst onto the scene, it was billed as a way for companies to eliminate daily trips to the bank. Today, reducing the time and costs associated with depositing checks is still a key factor in the adoption of the technology. But application of the technology has also evolved into a compliment to remittance processing, such as a way for far-flung sales agents to capture check images more quickly – helping to drive faster funds availability and enhanced service.
RDC is a product of The Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act (“Check 21”), a federal law enacted in 2004 that allows billers to electronically capture and transmit (via X9.37 file format) images of checks to their financial institution for clearing. Integrated balancing and automated character recognition tools assist billers in building balanced deposits. Once deposits are transmitted, original checks are truncated (retained) and eventually destroyed. Upon receipt of the file, the bank validates the items, performs any necessary corrections, and creates an image cash letter (or ICL) for deposit.
A Compliment to Remittance Processing
It didn’t take long for billers to recognize that RDC could be used to compliment -- and streamline -- remittance processing, which has historically been a back-office task. By capturing payment images and data at the point of presentment, and integrating the images and data with the back-office payments stream -- rather than redirecting the payments to the back-office -- billers can accelerate processing and funds availability; eliminate the costs to ship or transport payments to the back-office; offload some of the work from their back-office staff (and maybe even offload the work from their staff altogether); free back-office staff to perform other functions; and reduce paper handling and the associated costs. What’s more, capturing payments information sooner provides benefits such as faster posting, better visibility into receivables, and faster responses to customer inquiries.
The best part: remote deposit capture accomplishes all of this without requiring much upfront cost.
New RDC technologies are further expanding the applicability of the technology as a compliment to back-office remittance processing. For instance, support for flatbed TWAIN scanners enables consumers or remote employees to capture payments without the requirement for a specialized check scanner. Recognizing that the user in this environment may not be trained in payment processing, software guides the user through the scanning process. Another advancement in RDC is the use of smartphones to capture payment images. This enables field agents to capture payment images without having to transport or ship them to the back-office for processing – greatly speeding posting.
The Bottom Line
By complimenting back-office remittance processing with RDC, funds are available sooner, overall costs are improved, and customer service is enhanced. And because of the low overhead associated with RDC, growth in the biller’s remittance volume can be accommodated without a corresponding growth in the biller’s back-office infrastructure – meaning they can avoid a lot of capital expense.
RDC is a product of The Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act (“Check 21”), a federal law enacted in 2004 that allows billers to electronically capture and transmit (via X9.37 file format) images of checks to their financial institution for clearing. Integrated balancing and automated character recognition tools assist billers in building balanced deposits. Once deposits are transmitted, original checks are truncated (retained) and eventually destroyed. Upon receipt of the file, the bank validates the items, performs any necessary corrections, and creates an image cash letter (or ICL) for deposit.
A Compliment to Remittance Processing
It didn’t take long for billers to recognize that RDC could be used to compliment -- and streamline -- remittance processing, which has historically been a back-office task. By capturing payment images and data at the point of presentment, and integrating the images and data with the back-office payments stream -- rather than redirecting the payments to the back-office -- billers can accelerate processing and funds availability; eliminate the costs to ship or transport payments to the back-office; offload some of the work from their back-office staff (and maybe even offload the work from their staff altogether); free back-office staff to perform other functions; and reduce paper handling and the associated costs. What’s more, capturing payments information sooner provides benefits such as faster posting, better visibility into receivables, and faster responses to customer inquiries.
The best part: remote deposit capture accomplishes all of this without requiring much upfront cost.
New RDC technologies are further expanding the applicability of the technology as a compliment to back-office remittance processing. For instance, support for flatbed TWAIN scanners enables consumers or remote employees to capture payments without the requirement for a specialized check scanner. Recognizing that the user in this environment may not be trained in payment processing, software guides the user through the scanning process. Another advancement in RDC is the use of smartphones to capture payment images. This enables field agents to capture payment images without having to transport or ship them to the back-office for processing – greatly speeding posting.
The Bottom Line
By complimenting back-office remittance processing with RDC, funds are available sooner, overall costs are improved, and customer service is enhanced. And because of the low overhead associated with RDC, growth in the biller’s remittance volume can be accommodated without a corresponding growth in the biller’s back-office infrastructure – meaning they can avoid a lot of capital expense.
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