Corporate Bill Pay Module – The need of the hour

Bull's eye: All corporates paying more than 100 Utility Bills every month, subscribe to a ‘Corporate Bill Pay Module’, for payment to any BBPS enabled Biller.

The keyword is BBPS enabled Biller and Payments.

This post is not about ‘Collection’. This post is about ‘Payment’.

Utility Bills are

01) Electricity Bills

02) Water Bills

03) Landline Bills

04) Taxes

Or, any Biller on the BBPS Platform.

The corporate can choose to pay to any Biller on the BBPS as per their internal policies.

Why ‘Corporate Bill Payment Module’?

01) Eliminate the need to manually track the bills across locations spread across geographical boundaries.

02) Efficient management of cash flows. The Bills can be paid just 2 days before the Due Date

03) Visibility of all Utility Bills in a single window

04) Corporates can analyze the bill payments pattern, and take steps to bring down the expenses

05) On successful payment of a few bills, the whole process can be automated with minimal human intervention

06) Alternate sources of data for corporate analysis by Banks or Finance companies

07) As payment is made to BBPS Billers only, no fear of fraudulent payments

 

‘Corporate Bill Payment Module’ can be part of Banks Corporate Net Banking Portal or the specialized Cash Management Services Portal or both.

Features of ‘Corporate Bill Payment Module’

A)     Set Limit for Main Bank Account

B)     To be able to set up Multiple Virtual Accounts

C)     API To ‘Fetch Bills’, from the BBPS Server

D)    Ability to differentiate between ‘Bill Date’, and ‘Bill Due Date’.

E)     Alerts facility in case bills are not settled at Bill Due Date Less 2 Days

F)      Holiday Marking

G)    Analytics  

 

Virtual Accounts

The concept of Virtual Accounts is very common in Cash Management Module. The same concept can be adopted for the bank accounts tagged to CBPM

Virtual accounts are a set of off-balance transaction accounts linked to a physical bank account, used for improved reconciliation.

Virtual accounts reduce the need for multiple bank accounts and associated risks.

Eg: Main Account Nomenclature – Corporate Bill Payment Account

Virtual Accounts can be numerous, such

·         Electricity Bill Payment Account

·         Water Bill Payment

·         Landline Bill Payment Account

·         Municipal Taxes Payment Account

·         Miscellaneous Payment Account

Narration in the Main Bank Account – The narration should be crisp and easy to reconcile.

·         Sample Narration in Main Bank Account – EBPA (stands for Electricity Bill Payment Account / CC (Cost Centre) / Biller Name / Bill Number

·         Sample Narration in the Virtual Account – CC Number / CC Name / Biller Name / Bill Number / Bill Due Date

MIS Reports be configured as per the corporate requirements.

The access to each virtual account be provided on the corporates internal policies.

 

Ease of Implementation: Medium Level

So, corporate out there, please ask your Bank Relationship Manager for ‘Corporate Bill Payment Module’.

 

References:

01) Oracle ® FLEXCUBE Universal Banking Utility Payments User Guide @ https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E86273_01/html/Utility_Payments/UP05-Bill_Payment.htm

02) #EnKashUtilityCard