DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF AUTOMATED WATER BILLING UTILITY SERVICE

1.1 Introduction

Automated Water Billing Software is a special program designed to store and manages the records of all the billing activities of a water supply company. It helps to save the record of consumers, cashiers and monthly bills. Effective billing and collection systems are a critical component for ensuring the viability of a service provider. Improving billing and collection activities has an immediate impact on the revenue streams of a service provider that can, in turn, help the service provider in improving services. However, while effective billing and collection practices depend on many internal factors(including customer databases, the extent of metered and unmetered service provision, tariff and billing structures, delivery of bills, and facilities for customer payments), the institutional arrangements under which service providers operate and provide services determine whether such practices will remain sustainable in the long term. Efficient billing and collection practices can set incentives for the provider to effectively charge and collect gas bills while also fulfilling a commercial orientation to services (Wikipedia, 2021).

As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.

1.2 Background of Study

Water billing utility service is a system that allows the process of paying and receiving bills online. Bills or invoices are generated digitally by computers and software applications. Water billing is not only the generation of e-bills, but also the system that allows these bills to be paid electronically. Water billing is a fundamental component of modern finance and is leveraged by both accounts payable (AP) and accounts receivable (AR) departments to help automate workflows and reduce reliance on paper-intensive processes. Water billing is a bill payment method in which a customer can pay bills electronically over the Internet to an entity or organization. It is widely accepted by many government entities and other organizations. Due to multiple benefits provided by electronic billing, it is one of the most preferred methods of bill payment. Water billing or electronic bill payment and presentment, is when a seller such as company, organization, or group sends its bills or invoices over the internet, and customers pay the bills electronically. This replaces the traditional method where invoices were sent in paper form and payments were done by manual means such as sending cheques.

This was invented alongside emails, internet banking, and accounting software in the wake of the Information Age; water billing has been in the public sphere for the past few decades. The highly manual process of invoice review was therefore transposed into standards and software that required law firms to deliver billing information to their clients in electronic format using a third-party system. This then gave the in-house lawyer the tools to analyze Water billing information and take appropriate action usually related to saving external costs.

The relevance fact with most of this water boards is that they deal with many of consumers, the notification of consumers on their monthly bills which is very difficult using the paper system of keeping records of billing, where the cashiers has to go round to distribute bills. Monthly report is also very important in order to allow the organization to make further decisions based on the success or failure recorded in a month. Water Board is an organization that deals with several paper works and ledger cards in saving records. These records increase every day as transaction is always going on in the organization. As the record increases, information saving, retrieval and maintenance is becoming tedious every day.

Financial barriers to water billing were common, particularly in smaller corporate and firms. A water billing implementation was time, resource and cost heavy, and this cost continued beyond implementation. Costs of Water billing included set up, licenses, and the resources required to run Water billing from an IT (Information Technology) and administrative perspective. In law firms, they may face billing department reshuffling, overhauling of processes for uploading bills and managing queries and rejections and even investment in additional systems to support Water billing, such as practice management systems that could produce matter and timekeeper lists and time recording.

1.3 Statement of Problem

The following problems were identified to be faced by water billing companies like Akwa Ibom Water Company:

1. The manual approach of billing customers is associated with numerous errors and mistakes.
2. It is difficult to accurately compute water bills.
3. Delay in getting reports that pertain to water bills.
4. It is difficult to get accumulated bills from customers as tracking payments manually is difficult.

1.4 Aim and Objectives of the Study

The aim of the study is to design and implement an Automated Water Billing Utility Service. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows to develop an application software that will:

1. Capture water billing details to database.
2. Compute water bill accurately.
3. Present reports of water billing.

1.5 Significance of Study

The significance of the study is that it will provide a more accurate and reliable approach to the computation of water bills as well as the storage and retrieval of bill records of consumers. The study will also serve as a useful reference material for other researchers seeking related information on water billing.

1.6 Scope of Study

The scope of the research is focused on the design and implementation of automated water billing utility service, a case study of Akwa Ibom state water company.

1.7 Limitations of the Study

During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:

1. Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
2. Establishment Policies: Establishment policies posed a serious limitation as most staffs are not ready to release information needed for this project work. There were lots of information needed from the staffs of this institution to enhance the study which took them time to release or they did not release at all for security purposes, hence the scope was reduced.
3. Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
4. Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
5. Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet).

1.8 Definition of Terms

Billing: This is the process of preparing or sending invoices.

Invoice: An invoice is a document that lists the products and services a business provides to a client and establishes an obligation on the part of the client to pay the business for those products and services.

Customer: A customer is a person or company that receives, consumes or buys a product or service and can choose between different goods and suppliers.

Receipt: It is a document acknowledging that a person has received money or property in payment following a sale or other transfer of goods or provision of a service.

Client: A client of a professional person or organization is a person or company that receives a service from them in return for payment. A client is someone who gets services or advice from a professional person, company, or organization.

Records: These are information created, received, and maintained as evidence and information by an organization or person, in pursuance of legal obligations or in the transaction of business.

Value Added Tax: A value-added tax (VAT) is a consumption tax placed on a product whenever value is added at each stage of the supply chain, from production to the point of sale.

Bill: A written statement of how much money is owed for items purchased or services provided.

Database: A systematically arranged collection of computer data, structured so that it can be automatically retrieved or manipulated.

Budget: A budget is a financial document used to project future income and expenses. A budget is described as a precise statement, representing a financial estimate of income and expenditure of the government for a certain period. In cost accounting, budget means a quantitative statement, prepared before a particular period to serve as an estimate of future receipts and disbursements.