The City of Thomasville is seeking to purchase and implement a Utility Billing Software Package to replace our current billing platform, which will allow us to manage customer accounts and bill utility customers. As we look forward to the future, the City of Thomasville believes we may be better served by partnering with a vendor who can provide billing for current and future services, provide excellent software support, and account for our current and future business rules as our customers’ needs change. The City of Thomasville has the following core objectives in implementing a new utility billing solution: • Provide dual roles as a billing system and a Customer Information System. • Provide billing functions for essential utility services such as electricity (including residential and commercial consumption and demand), gas, water, sewer, stormwater, and refuse, with the capability to accommodate various rate types and structures. • Pull in meter readings from the City of Thomasville’s Meter Data Management provider (Parsons), as well as the ability to pull readings in manual form from a Route Manager solution (Northrop Grumman). • Provide a mobile customer service work order system to manage all services. • Implement and integrate various external payment methods by offering a user-friendly online payment system, mobile applications for both Android and iOS and automated pay-by-phone capabilities. Additionally, utilize Kiosks and Invoice Cloud as our payment processors to ensure secure transactions and seamless user experience across all platforms. • Provide various interfaces to 3rd party vendors via flat files or API based upon predetermined methods and schedules. • Provide a solution to create custom reports as requested by users. Automated reporting is also a requirement. • Provide a means for the collection of bad debt funds for both active and inactive customers. • Selection of a cost-effective solution that is easy to implement and manage. The solution selected will also provide open access to allow City IT services to provide the Utilities department with the customer support it requires. • Selection of a Vendor with a proven solution that will provide the “Primary” base functional requirements within the most cost-effective manner, achieving the best Total Cost of Ownership.
