Online Payment 24/7 for Billing System

Online payment for billing system in general or utility billing system in specific requires a defined business process to ensure all financial statements are correct and good data integrity.

Online payment could be handled in several ways, namely:
- Online payment through website. This requires coordination for any payment gateways or banks to receive payments using credit card and/or bank transfer.
- Online payment through ATM. A collaboration with banks is needed.
- Online payment through cell phone. A collaboration with mobile service providers are needed.
- Etc.

One of the benefits of online payments methods above is that customers can pay at their convenience and they can do it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. However, All payments mentioned above should be treated “offline” by billing system. What does it mean? Why Online payment should be treated “offline”? What I mean is that outside or third party should NOT be allowed to access and updated the billing system online/directly. This is important to ensure billing system data integrity and security.

All online payments should be stored in a file or separated database for further processing during batch process. Thus, these payments are treated “offline” similar like payments in the offices that do not access/LAN to billing system.