Colchester Borough Council has been using direct payment as an alternative to cheques for many years and is a prime example of how electronic solutions can streamline business processes. Colchester has transformed the quality of service offered to residents while significantly reducing its costs.

Working with Voca, the UK's automated clearing house, and Albany Software's ALBACSbureau cs product, Colchester has deployed 11 direct payment applications, including Council Tax, Housing Benefit, Business Rates and Payroll. In fact, some 70% of Council Tax payments, representing £40 million, are now made via Direct Debit (DD), while over 80% of creditors are paid via Direct Credit (DC).

A key component of this strategy has been the provision of a range of options to enable residents to sign up for DD payment. The council already offers residents a broad choice, from filling in a paper form, to signing up via telephone with the contact centre and online registration. Underpinning the provision of this service is ALBANYverify API, a product that has been integrated into the back end applications at Colchester.

Phil Pettit, Corporate ICT Programme Manager, Colchester Borough Council, says, "The banking industry demands excellent bank account validation to facilitate paperless DD and DC sign up and AUDDIS, the automatic transmission of instructions to Bacs. ALBANYverify API underpins Colchester's paperless payment process."

By automatically validating bank account and sort code numbers in real-time, Colchester can immediately flag any incorrect information, avoiding the problems associated with payment delays. Pettit confirms, "It is very important to minimise any delays in the DD process - if instructions are returned for any reason, the customer can be left effectively in arrears through no fault of their own. Using ALBANYverify API ensures no payments are returned due to the wrong bank account details."

Colchester also plans to put benefit claim forms online, enabling claimants to register for Direct Credit (DC) payments via the web. "Using ALBANYverify API we can ensure the supplied bank details are valid, which is critical when making benefit payments in this way," he says.

The speed and effectiveness of the DC process has also been enhanced by the adoption of eCONNECT automated document delivery from Albany Software. As Pettit says, "Having made the decision to actively embrace DCs, and reduce posted cheques, Colchester realised there was a need to automate the delivery of remittance advice to both suppliers and housing benefit recipients to achieve cost savings. The ability to fax or email remittance makes far more sense than printing and posting if we have replaced cheques with direct payment."

Currently over 80% of all payments to creditors, and 70% of housing benefit payments, are managed via DC, with remittance advice either faxed or emailed automatically on the same day. eCONNECT automatically picks up the payment information created in the finance and benefits systems, processes it and sends out the faxes and emails at the appropriate time. "eCONNECT has in-built parameters that ensure if an email failure has occurred a number of times, the remittance is faxed; or if the fax fails it prints out the remittance for posting the next day," he says. "The process is totally automated."

Pettit concludes, "Albany has played a significant role in helping the Council move forward smoothly and confidently along the eBusiness path. Some companies you regret doing business with; some, you just do it with; and with some, you actually enjoy it. We're lucky enough to have several suppliers we positively enjoy doing business with, and Albany is one."