We are currently reviewing our payment methods for Sundry Debtors on Pathway. We currently offer Bpay, Post BillPay, Online & IVR payments, Direct Debit, Mail, In person at Australia Post and Council offices.
Does anyone allow payment direct into the bank account, and if so how do you handle the identification and receipting of that payment?
You seem to have heaps of options already, more than we have at Randwick.
We have reluctantly allowed EFT direct to our bank over the years but do not offer it as an option. For the ones that we’ve allowed, we’ve stressed the importance of using their account number as the Reference and also that they must also email a remittance to our debtors@randwick email address.
I’d avoid allowing direct deposits this way if you can avoid it Trace. Your bank req person will thank you for it … 1. because lots of debtors don’t do the right thing, and 2. the flow of payments are ad hoc and need to be receipted ad hoc (not like a quick bulk import receipt). Time consuming.
We have exactly the same issue as Cherie and allow it with great reluctance. On many occasions the monies get transferred into trust as we cannot identify who had made the payment. I’ve investigated a lot of private companies and how they do it. Have a look at Telstra they have a system where the customer generates a remittance advice so they have some way of tracking the payment. Still not a perfect solution where the onus is on the customer to advise you they have made a payment.
Hi Tracey,
Being a smaller Council we don’t have the options for sundry debtors to pay by many of the methods that you do (the only option we have for sundry debtors is to send in cheque, pay at Council office or pay by EFT into bank account). Even though we would have a smaller number of sundry debtors, we are very reluctant to provide our bank account details (but we do, simply because of the limited number of other options). We are presently investigating what other options we can utilise (eg. BPay) so that we can eliminate the payments directly into our bank account so that we reduce the ‘manual handling’ and time processing (eg. trying to match payments where reference numbers are ambiguous, etc).
So coming from the other side, we think it might be a step backwards (especially with so many other options you provide) as we are trying to move away from EFT being an option.
Cheers,
Susan
Thanks all that is what I have been thinking but we are being asked for it more and more each day from companies that are doing away with cheque payments and would rather EFT into Council’s bank account and we try not to do that for all the reasons that you all have mentioned.
Wingecarribee currently offers: Bpay, Credit Card, Aust Post, at the Council or via a cheque payment to Council.
We try not to allow payments to be directly deposited into Council’s account as it is a nightmare for bank rec.
If they do pay via direct deposit they must put their invoice number as the reference – if they put their name it gets confusing with company/personal names.
If they have all these other payment methods – that should be enough for them.
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