POS in action: bill collection for utilities company

A network of POS terminals can be a good alternative to a complex computer system, as we have said before. This article gives an example of a company using these machines to do house-to house bill collection for water and energy consumption.

Company

The company provides a service to collect the money that is owed for water and electricity use. In Brazil this process works like this: 

• An employee from the water company comes to the house, checks the meters, and takes down the consumption levels
• Then these data are transmitted (traditionally with PDAs) to the central computer system of the money collection company.
• Finally these data are processed an invoice is created and sent to the customer.

POS terminals in action

Consider how a point of sale terminal can simplify this process:

• The employee puts in the consumption on the POS keyboard
• The data get automatically transmitted to the server. 
• These data are communicated back to the terminal. 
• The built-in printer creates a physical invoice at the spot. Which can  be presented and paid on the spot. Or when the customer isn't home, put into the mailbox for later payment.

Advantages

The system using point of sale terminals simplifies the process, cutting labor and administration costs. 

And because the process is easier and the invoice reaches the customer a lot faster, the owed money will be paid quicker, which improves the cash flow.

This program was developed in a language called POSXML on our WALK platform. Maybe WALK can also help you to simplify your POS application development. Let us know!