Move More Customers to Digital Payments Before Loose Change Becomes a Liability
A variation of this blog post first appeared in our email newsletter.
If you’re tired of digging through drawers for exact change, or more realistically, watching certain members of your team do mental gymnastics over pennies (you know the ones…), you’re not alone.
With the penny’s retirement, and national coin circulation already inconsistent, many utilities are bracing for more rounding, more delays, and more frustrated customers. There’s a better path forward: shift more of your customers to digital payments.
Digital options (debit/credit card payments, eCheck, and automated drafts) remove the need to count anything. No coins, no cash, no “Did I misplace a nickel or did it roll under the copier?” moments.
Your staff avoids cash-handling risks, and your office stops burning time on manual bank deposits. The savings add up quickly, even if the coins don’t.
Going digital also reduces end-of-year reconciliation chaos. When December rolls around and everyone is racing to close out budgets, finalize reports, and settle outstanding account balances, the last thing anyone needs is manually keying stacks of small cash transactions.
Automated payments improve your audit trail, reduce entry errors, and give your finance team cleaner data to work with.
Utilities already using digital channels see the difference quickly:
- fewer walk-ins
- shorter lines (or none at all)
- fewer errors
Customers appreciate the convenience. Staff appreciate the breathing room. And no one has to explain why the cash drawer is off by exactly one cent.
As you plan for the new year—and brace for whatever currency gets eliminated next—digital payments give you operational stability you can count on (pun intended). You eliminate the churn of small-dollar handling and gain a process that scales smoothly, even during peak billing cycles or unexpected surges.
If you want a billing operation that runs predictably and doesn’t depend on the nation’s nickel supply, now is the time to push digital adoption. And, of course, our UPM customers are already doing just that and reaping the rewards.
A few small changes this winter can spare your team a long list of headaches next year.
More Efficient. More Effective. Greater ROI.
When you have the right tools for the job, everybody wins — especially your customers. Reduce or eliminate pain points, dramatically increase operating efficiency, and provide greater service. Fill out our contact form or call 800.455.3293 to learn more about how United Systems can help!