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City bundles monthly bills to wipe out paper checks
Adoption of automated system encourages seamless payment
By Kelly Wilkinson
Utility bills are usually a tedious affair, but Sunnyvale has just made them a bit more palatable with the streamlined option of automatic payment for services ranging from newspaper subscriptions to water bills.
Beginning this month, residents will have the opportunity to enroll in an automated payment program that includes such companies as AT&T, Pacific Gas and Electric and Pacific Bell. The city's water, garbage and sewer services are also piggy-backing on the arrangement so residents can authorize payment of several routine bills automatically and without checks. The program is spearheaded by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
Part of the service's allure--in addition to its being free--is a common form that allows residents to make payments to as many of the participating companies as they want.
"This benefits residents because the idea is that they don't have to write a check and it's always paid on time," said Dolores Meermans, accounting officer with the city. "And for the city, it assures us that the bills are going to be paid on time as well."
Residents may have already seen the application form in their bills this month from PG&E and other companies. Beginning in September and October, the city will send out another round of applications encouraging residents to streamline the payment process for both the city and themselves.
"We have had customers asking for this for a while now and we are very pleased to be able to offer this service," Meermans said.
The first step in bringing this program to fruition was the city's February installation a new Y2K-compliant billing system. Once the city launched that upgrade, Meermans said, they "felt it was then time to develop other enhancements to the system and that's where this capability came in."
Andrew Osenar, the program's project coordinator for the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, said that in the project's three-year life span, it has grown from including four companies to 14, and enrolls 160,000 households.
"One of the fun things with this particular program is that it's one of those rare situations where everybody benefits from this," he said. "From the biller's standpoint, it is a much more efficient process. And for the customers, it saves them stamp money and makes sure that their bills are paid whether they're picking the kids up or [they're] on vacation in Hawaii."
Osenar points to the statistic that Americans use an average of 250 checks per person each year compared to a 50-check average per person in France, which is the second most check-happy country in the world. And the advent of on-line banking and automated payments has yet to entice Americans away from their checkbooks on a large scale--in fact, the use of paper checks is still on the rise.
But that's something Osenar and others hope to change.
"I think the check does have that comfort level, which is almost an automatic procedure," he said. "But I think people are realizing you're able to do that point-click-click-click and be done with paying your bills."
Osenar says people have already gotten used to some of the automated services such as direct deposit, which he hopes will be a precursor to Sunnyvale's program.
"There is more awareness from consumers, and they're very familiar with the money being added to their accounts automatically with direct deposit, but it's the reverse process--when money leaves their account--that people are still lagging in."
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Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
