City of Raleigh

The Revenue Division at the City of Raleigh, North Carolina is responsible for the City´s revenue systems and the timely receipt and recording of all related payments. They collect revenue from water bills, assessments, inspection fees, parks and recreation fees, animal citations, business licenses and several other sources. The City has used CASHIER for windows for over-the-counter collections since 1996, and it expanded its capabilities with the installation of RevenueCollector 2001. The City´s decision to migrate to RevenueCollector was driven by their customers´ requests to pay via phone and the Internet, plus the desire to streamline many of its revenue collection processes.

Revenue Specialist Kimsu Harrington explained, "We want to provide one-stop shopping for our customers. RevenueCollector is the first step in getting many processes automated and streamlined for the City of Raleigh. The Information Services Department recognized the capabilities of RevenueCollector and how the City could use this product as a ´clearing house´ for all money collected by the City of Raleigh. With RevenueCollector, the customer service representatives can handle all payments. With the inquiries to multiple applications and "just-in-time posting´ of payments, the customer service representatives are not required to know all of the applications."

Greater Cashiering Capabilities

Ms. Harrington described RevenueCollector as "the standard for all revenue system interfaces. In addition to CASHIER for windows, RevenueCollector communicates with our general ledger and water billing systems. We also plan on implementing a new assessment system, a new privilege license system, and a parks and recreation system that will interface with RevenueCollector. Several departments also plan to collect payments over the Internet, and we are in the process of implementing an Interactive Voice Response system. Both of these collection options will utilize RevenueCollector."

The City of Raleigh uses RevenueCollector´s Payment Administrative Module (PAM) and the Query Tool to make corrections and respond to customer service calls. Ms. Harrington explained, "PAM has helped us eliminate a manual correction process. When an account number is entered incorrectly, the update to the host system fails."

Increased Control

"Previously," she said, "resources from two different departments were required to void and then reenter the payments with the correct account number. The customer service representative may now correct the account number in just one place. We also see the benefit of using PAM to correct data entry errors where a cashier selects the wrong general ledger code or they miss-key an amount. Using PAM has eliminated the need to submit a separate journal voucher to correct the error."

Ms. Harrington also uses the Query Tool to verify payment history. "Previously if I needed to verify a customer"s payment, I would have each cashier perform a journal search to identify when the payment was collected. With RevenueCollector, I use the Query Tool to find the payment. This tool saves a lot of time and headaches for us."

Ms. Harrington added, "We have been very paper driven in the past, and all requests for reports were handled by the Finance Department. The Consolidated Reporting Module will allow users from auditing and accounting to generate reports on request."

Back to Case Studies