Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) is mandated to supply potable water to all urban dwellers in Ghana. The company is therefore responsible for the treatment, transport, and distribution of potable water to urban dwellers and the resultant billing and collection of revenues from its consumers. It currently has about 600,000 customers spread across thirteen administrative regions in Ghana.

More than half a million customers are billed monthly with the help of Utility 2000; a customer information management system (software). This billing system is fraught with a number of challenges namely: delays in billing (minimum 28 days), manual and multiple entry points for reading, non-billing, high cost of maintaining staff purely for data entry and bill generation and difficulty in monitoring meter readers. These challenges render the current billing system/process ineffective, increases non-revenue water, and does not give a true and accurate picture of consumption levels and patterns among consumers. Electronic billing was therefore introduced to effectively deal with all of the challenges mentioned.

Advantages of E-billing

• Specifically, the improvements, with time, will:
• drastically reduce the time between customer meter reading and customer billing
• eliminate arm-chair meter reading
• reduce effectively the human errors that are inherent in the current billing system especially data entry
• link customer billing to customer location
• allow for bill payment anywhere in the world 
• enable online service connection application and effectively improve new service connection time

Concept and Approach

The transition to e-bills hinges on the following: 

• Software as a Service (SaaS)
• Cloud based billing System (SMS and Emails)
• Meter reading and monitoring applications
• Call Centre Management
• Customer/user application
• Point of Sale application

Suite of Applications

As stated afore, the transition to e-billing hinges strongly on the use of mobile applications. The mode of reading meters, payments, and monitoring are all done through mobile applications. The following android based applications have been developed and are being improved to suit the changing needs of the company:

Mobile Apps

• Customer registration app (e-register)
• Meter Reading app (e-reader)
• Management app (e-manager)
• Disconnection/Reconnection app (e-disc)
• Customer app

Web based apps

• Web Portal
• New Service Connection app

e-register

The e-register app is available on Google Play store and for use by meter readers, it is used to validate GWCL customers.

e-reader

its primary function is to capture the cumulative consumptions (readings) on customer meters.

e-manager

The e-manager is a monitoring application for monitoring all activities going on in the system. It monitors customer validation, meter reading, billed consumption, collections, disconnection and reconnection. This is used by managers of all levels who are directly or indirectly involved in billing; mainly commercial managers and auditors.

e-disc

The disconnection/reconnection app sweeps through the system and samples all customers who are due for disconnection or reconnection.

Customer app

The customer app is designed to allow communication between customers/non-customers and GWCL. Customers can check their consumption and billing history using the application, they can also report issues regarding billing or their water supply (mainly leakages). Customers can also make payments through the app

New Service Application App

A web based application has been developed where customers will apply online for service, processing the service application will also be done online in a manner that guarantees speed of connection to GWCL’s networks.

Conclusion

The intent of the transition to e-billing is borne out of the desire to tremendously improve the entire billing system of the Ghana Water Company Limited. The major impact will be the increase in cash inflows for the company through flexible payment options to give customers the convenience of paying their bills promptly. Bill generation and delivery is already enhanced and customers have expressed delight at the new ways bills are delivered to them.

For detailed information, visit www.gwcl.com.gh