Florence – Recently while reading through our utility bill we noticed an insert that offered the option of having the monthly bill sent electronically. We went to the Florence Utilities Department website and logged into our existing utility account, and after a bit of searching and rechecking the instructions from the mail out, we found the box to check for the option to receive the e-bill.
A few days ago, we received our first e-bill. It was a .pdf version of the existing paper copy. For those of you not familiar with the Portable Document Format (.pdf), according to Adobe.com “It was invented by Adobe Systems and perfected over 20 years, Portable Document Format (PDF) is now an open standard for electronic document exchange maintained by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). When you convert documents, forms, graphics, and web pages to PDF, they look just like they would if printed. But unlike printed documents, PDF files can contain clickable links and buttons, form fields, video, and audio — as well as logic to help automate routine business processes. When you share a PDF file, virtually anyone can read it using free Adobe Reader® software or the Adobe Reader mobile app.” So what you get on your computer each month is an copy of what you would have received through the mail.
The following is information from the Florence Utility Department (FUD) concerning the Electronic Billing Program.
Florence Utilities Department (FUD) announced that as of January 1, 2013, FUD customers are able to choose to receive their utility bills electronically. This feature is now available, and a customer may edit their online profile, supply their email address in the space provided and then simply click to choose an e‐bill.
When billing is performed for a customer’s account, the method that has been chosen by the customer (either e‐bill or if not then a paper bill mailing is the default) is used for that account. If e‐bill is the choice then the utility bill for that account will be emailed as a .pdf attachment to the email address provided in the online profile and no paper bill will be mailed. The e‐bill will only be sent to one email address per billing and each account marked for e‐bill will receive a separate email. E‐bill is available to both residential and commercial customers.
The option is, of course, available to choose to stop receiving bills electronically and then the account would revert back to receiving a mailed paper bill. Florence Utilities is glad to provide this capability to our customers. This convenient feature brings with it a number of benefits for those who choose it:
- No more searching for lost paper bills
- Easy electronic archiving of utility bills without the necessity of scanning a paper document
- Less environmental impact generated by those customers who choose an electronic payment method thereby making the customer billing process more green‐friendly
- Speedier delivery of utility bills to the customer
- No need to check the mail receptacle for a utility bill
- Customers may print their own bill for payment purposes or for filing.
Florence Utilities, as always, is working to provide our customers with quality service and we are excited to include this option to the package of services available to help our customers. If you should have questions please call 256‐740‐6018.
One of the things not mentioned by Florence Utilities is the cost savings to the City of Florence. By eliminating the printing and mailing costs they are able to hold down rates. To us, it just makes good sense to setup the e-bill service and reduce the amount of paper clutter that comes into our home.
We recommend the e-bill service to all of the Florence Utilities customers.
