Telkom launches an electronic invoice solution

Introduced by Telkom, WebBill will save businesses time and money in paper invoice and postage fees.

WebBill is an electronic bill presentment and payment offering for business-to-consumer and business-to-business organizations which process accounts for their customers.

Bill recipients can view past and present statements to determine spending trends using electronic mediums like email, the web or EDI (Electronic Document Interchange) within a secure environment.

Telkom 's Theo van Zyl said billers can implement either a "push" (email distribution) or "pull" (web collection) strategy or a combination of both.

The "push" model delivers an invoice directly to a customer's email box. Email invoices are protected through encryption.

The "pull" model requires bill recipients to collect their invoices from the biller's website. The website needs to protect the confidentiality of the invoice through a secure login process. Bill recipients will receive an email notification message to encourage them to 'collect' their bills.

"The primary benefit of WebBill is the enhancement of customer relationship management capabilities. WebBill offers the bill recipient a hassle-free tool to receive, scrutinize, download and pay the biller's account with no paperwork involved or standing in a queue," van Zyl said.

WebBill reduces billing inefficiencies, streamlines billing-, distribution-, tracking- and collection processes as well as ensuring secure, error-free online credit card payment processing.

It cuts costs, saves time and improves both the market reach and customer service.

Telkom Business has been developing the electronic bill presentment and payment solution for the past year. The product has gained worldwide awareness as the latest trend in Internet technologies. The company worked closely with Sun MicroSystems Solutions Architects and opted for the Sun Open Network Environment Bill Presentment Communications solution.

Telkom introduced WebBill in phases, with the first two addressing Telkom's internal needs for presenting the Telkom invoices to larger corporate and business accounts as well as Telkom's residential customers.

Today's launch marks the third phase, taking online billing in South Africa a step further by making WebBill available to other billing organizations.

"Most billers now consider electronic bill presentment and payment a strategic application that is a key part of their larger e-commerce and customer-relationship management strategies. It's a value-added service for customers that access the biller's Web site for purchases, customer service, support and so on," Van Zyl said.

"By implementing Telkom's WebBill into your billing organisation will not only improve payment turnaround times, you will also be able to increase your competitive edge and open up new windows of opportunity for your business," he added.

For further information, please visit the Telkom WebBill website www.telkom.co.za/webbill or contact your Telkom sales representative.