Transforming Government Payments Through a Unified Platform

Today’s governments need solutions that can streamline the entire payment lifecycle from billing and presentment to payment capture, processing, and reporting. Fortunately, modern technology has paved the way for unified solutions that simplify complex payment processes. Thanks to these technological advancements, city and county leaders no longer have to choose between meeting the rising expectations of their residents and maintaining back-office efficiency across multiple department-level payment solutions.

In a recent International City/County Management Association (ICMA) webinar, Morgan Jines, Tyler’s vice president of payments, discussed ways a unified payment platform can enhance and standardize the resident payment experience while simultaneously streamlining internal processes.

Understanding the Resident Payment Experience

Payments are the most common way residents interact with government. In a recent study, government leaders said their residents desire more ways to pay and expect payment systems that are easy to navigate when paying one or multiple bill types. Both issues of convenience and accessibility can be resolved using a unified payments platform.

Jines gave a compelling example of a family moving to a new city or county. To quickly acclimate to their new city, the family will need to complete a variety of administrative tasks, including obtaining business licenses and permits where appropriate, requesting utility service, enrolling children in school, and updating personal records.

“This complex journey involves a variety of different departments, each with its own requirements and payment systems,” Jines said.

To further complicate matters, residents not only have to go through these steps when first arriving to city, they must also make annual updates and renewals, navigating this complex process once again. According to Jines, this highlights the importance of understanding the resident payment experience and leveraging a unified payment solution that ensures a positive interaction between payers and their local government.

Transforming Government Payments: 2024 Research Insights

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Gaining Insight to the Back-Office Experience

Many government entities operate using disparate payment technology. This is not only hard on the resident, but is also challenging to government agencies and their administrative staff. Oftentimes, individual departments within a city or county utilize their own, unique payment processes, resulting in multiple payment vendors and mismatched settlement and funding timelines, ultimately leading to headaches for finance staff and security risks when trying to adhere to auditing and financial reporting requirements.

“The more systems you have, the more exposure to third-party data.” Jines said. “There are fewer security risks involved when you maintain one singular source of truth, including reduced PCI compliance and SOC 2 requirements, all of which are driven by different mandates from the PCI DSS Council that dictate the use of cardholder data, API usage, and exposure to data across different systems.”

Governments that leverage a unified payment system have a better understanding of how to protect resident data and their community reputation.

Importance of Moving a Unified Payments Platform

While government agencies have offered digital payments for some services for decades, the payments space has changed dramatically in recent years. One of the biggest barriers to meeting rising expectations? Siloed digital payment services. When payment complexity was slowing down digital service expansion and online adoption in Mobile, Alabama, city leaders unearthed a host of challenges that could be addressed using modern technology.

Despite its residents’ desire for digital payment options and the city’s drive to provide them, internal accounting and auditing processes tied to multiple payment platforms simply created too much work for Mobile’s staff. Since moving to Tyler’s unified payment platform in the summer of 2022, the resident and back-office experience have improved immensely by delivering a single pane of glass for both payers and staff.

Total Experience

Governments tend to focus on either the resident experience or the back-office experience. In today’s complex payment landscape, it is critically important to focus on both simultaneously. Focusing on the needs of both payers and back-office staff and developing a detailed transition plan that involves all government leaders and key stakeholders enables governments to improve operational efficiency, increase online adoption, and simplify security and compliance reporting.

“Through the real-time experience of Mobile, Alabama, we've learned that technology can address both the needs of residents and government staff at the same time,“ Jines said. “Understanding this is an attainable goal, engaging in open dialogue with internal stakeholders, and ensuring every department’s viewpoint is represented allows governments to prioritize all the different and equally important needs across the enterprise. There is no longer a need to sacrifice what’s beneficial for the payer for what’s beneficial for government staff.”

Tyler payments platform focuses on the holistic payment experience, making it easy to transition to a streamlined payment process across all departments and services within a government entity.