Category: Trends

How to Design Modern Government Payment Solutions That Build Public Trust

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Key Takeaways

  • Outdated payment systems create friction that reduces compliance and undermines public trust; modern portals, channels, and UX reverse that trend.
  • Flexible options—partial, recurring, and scheduled payments—help residents stay current while reducing manual collections and exceptions.
  • Government-ready solutions like CSG Forte BillPay let agencies modernize experiences and integrate with existing systems in phases, as the city of Kinston and Lucas County did.

Residents do not wake up thinking about payment processing. They think about keeping their license current, avoiding penalties on their property tax bill, or paying a court fine on time. When those payments are hard to make, the result is more than operational pain for your office—it becomes a public trust issue.

Modern government payment solutions give treasurers, comptrollers, and finance leaders a practical way to close that gap. By making payments reliable, flexible, and secure across channels, agencies can improve compliance, reduce manual work, and increase resident confidence.

This article walks through what that looks like in practice—and how to get there without a risky, multi-year systems overhaul.

 

Why outdated payment systems erode trust and compliance

Legacy payment processes do more than slow collections. They send a message that the government is behind the times and hard to work with. That perception shows up directly in compliance and in the workload landing on your team.

Common pain points include:

  • Limited ways to pay: Many agencies still rely on mailed checks and in-person payments for major obligations like taxes and fees. Lucas County, Ohio, for example, originally accepted tax payments only by mail and in person at the Treasury department, which limited options for residents and slowed processing.
  • Clunky, abandon-prone portals: Residents often start a payment online, get stuck on an unclear step, and abandon the process—then call or show up in person instead. Internal planning work on government portals highlights “common friction points in government portals” and “UX issues that drive residents back to the counter or phone,” along with the need to measure completion and adoption rates, not just traffic.
  • One-size-fits-all, lump-sum payments: Requiring residents to pay the full amount in a single transaction can unintentionally reduce compliance. Internal guidance on recurring and partial government payments notes that one-time, lump-sum obligations create real compliance challenges, especially for households juggling variable income or multiple obligations.
  • Security worries and unclear protections: Public sector payment accounts are prime targets for fraud. A security brief for government payments points out that these systems face distinct threats, and that agencies need hardened login and account management flows, protection for stored payment methods, and effective monitoring and response processes.

If residents are not confident their data is protected, they are less likely to adopt digital channels.

Over time, these issues train residents to expect long lines, long hold times, and confusing online experiences—fueling complaints and making it harder to argue that your office is a good steward of public funds.

What Modern Government Payments Look Like

 

Support residents with flexible, accessible options

Compliance improves when you give people realistic ways to stay current. That means flexibility in both how and when they pay, without compromising policy.

Move beyond “pay in full or fall behind”: One-time, lump-sum payment requirements can create avoidable compliance challenges. In many cases, residents intend to pay but cannot absorb a large bill all at once.

Modern government payment solutions can support:

  • Partial payments within defined thresholds
  • Structured payment plans that spread obligations over time
  • Over-pay options where appropriate (for example, pre-funding certain obligations)

Modern payment platforms allow agencies to configure schedule-pay, autopay, partial pay, and over-pay options in their hosted portals, with rules controlled by the agency.

That combination makes it easier for residents to take action early instead of waiting until they can pay in full.

Make recurring and scheduled payments easy: For obligations like installment taxes, recurring fines, or ongoing program fees, recurring, and scheduled payments reduce missed due dates driven by forgetfulness or poor timing. Recurring and partial payments can be direct levers to boost compliance, especially when combined with clear communication and good reporting.

Residents appreciate the ability to enroll in autopay or set up scheduled payments aligned with their pay cycles, using stored payment methods that are captured via PCI-compliant forms and tokenized for secure storage. This reduces manual collections work while giving residents more control.

Design for accessibility and mobile use by:

  • Fixing UX issues that drive people to complain
  • Making portals accessible and mobile-friendly
  • Measuring completion and adoption rates—not just traffic

Modern government payment portals are designed to be responsive and accessible from modern browsers on phones and tablets, and to support both guest and registered flows for different comfort levels.

When residents can complete a payment on the device in their hand—in a few accessible, well-labeled steps—they are far more likely to finish the transaction instead of abandoning it.

CSG Forte offers a modern, secure platform designed specifically to help the public sector address these challenges and deliver on the promise of flexible, accessible payments. By integrating user-friendly payment options and robust security features, our bill payment and presentment solutions empower agencies to meet residents where they are—without upending existing operations or sacrificing compliance standards.

 

Integrating payments with existing government systems

Finance and IT leaders are understandably wary of any project that sounds like “rip and replace.” Fortunately, payment modernization often succeeds through incremental integration rather than all-or-nothing change. The real-world impact of this approach is evident through the experiences of local governments that have successfully modernized their payment processes with CSG Forte.

City of Kinston: bridging a gap without rebuilding everything

The city of Kinston, North Carolina, needed to expand its electronic payment options. Residents could pay utilities by phone and at a kiosk, but not online, and other departments could not accept electronic payments at all.

Instead of rebuilding its core systems, the city:

  • Used CSG Forte to build programming that bridged its enterprise resource planning (ERP) system and a payment interface.
  • Implemented Secure Web Pay (SWP) Checkout to redirect residents from the city’s site to a secure, hosted payment page.
  • Added IVR and other channels over time.

The results: after integrating more electronic payment options, Kinston saw 41% year-over-year growth in transactions processed and positive feedback from residents who appreciated the ease of use.

Staff now handle less cash and fewer checks, reducing bank fees and saving time.

Lucas County: modernizing tax payments with minimal disruption

Lucas County, Ohio, worked with CSG Forte to solve a paper-heavy process where residents could only pay taxes by mail or in person. A prior processor added electronic options but came with high fees and poor support.

By transitioning to CSG Forte, the county:

  • Expanded card and eCheck options and added phone payments.
  • Streamlined online tax collection with SWP Checkout.
  • Retained its existing infrastructure, with the switch described as “pretty seamless.”

Over the first six years with CSG Forte, the Treasury department saw:

  • More than 280% growth in annual transactions processed.
  • A “vast reduction in posting issues.”
  • Fewer taxpayer complaints about the fee structure.

These examples show that you can upgrade payment experiences and back-office reliability without tearing out core systems—especially when you start with hosted front-end experiences and standard file-based integrations.

A Phased Approach to BillPay for Governments

 

Where CSG Forte fits in

Modernizing government payment solutions is not just a technology decision; it is a strategic choice about how you want residents to experience your agency.

CSG Forte’s government payments platform, anchored by BillPay and complemented by tools like Engage and Authenticate, is designed to help agencies:

  • Offer secure digital payments across channels (web, mobile, phone, IVR, and in person).
  • Provide flexible options like schedule-pay, autopay, partial pay, and over-pay where policy allows.
  • Protect constituent data with PCI-validated P2PE, tokenization, and fraud/risk tools tailored to card and ACH payments.
  • Reduce manual work with daily reporting and ready-to-reconcile files.
  • Improve collections and public experience at the same time, as shown in Kinston and Lucas County’s results.

If your team is exploring government payment solutions that can meet today’s expectations without adding unnecessary complexity, it can help to talk through options with a specialist.

Now is the time to talk to a payments expert. Our team can help you map a practical path from where you are now to a more modern, trusted payment experience for the people you serve.

 

FAQs

What is a government payment solution?

A government payment solution is a set of tools that lets agencies present bills, accept payments (card, ACH/eCheck, and often wallets) across web, mobile, IVR, and in-person channels, and reconcile those payments with existing financial systems. CSG Forte BillPay, for example, is a hosted portal purpose-built for government and other billers.

Do we need to replace our core financial or ERP system to modernize payments?

Not necessarily. Many agencies start with a hosted portal and file-based integrations, then deepen connections over time. Kinston and Lucas County both modernized tax and utility payments by bridging existing systems to CSG Forte’s hosted checkout and reporting tools, rather than rebuilding their ERPs.

How do recurring and partial payments help with compliance?

Internal government content notes that one-time, lump-sum payments can create compliance challenges, especially for residents facing variable income. Recurring and partial options make obligations more manageable, improving on-time payments when paired with clear policies and communication.

How do modern solutions address security for public sector payments?

Security briefs for public sector accounts stress the need for hardened login, account management, and data protection. CSG Forte’s platform is PCI DSS-compliant, supports PCI-validated P2PE for in-person card transactions, and uses tokenization to keep sensitive data out of agency environments.

What results have other governments seen from modernizing payments?

Lucas County increased annual transactions by more than 280% over six years while reducing posting issues and fee complaints.

Kinston saw 41% year-over-year growth in transactions after expanding electronic options, along with positive resident feedback.

Reduce Late Utility Payments with Automatic Reminders and Recurring Autopay

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Key Takeaways

  • Payment plans + recurring autopay can reduce delinquencies without sacrificing fairness: Thoughtful utility payment plans paired with recurring payments help residents stay compliant while improving collections and reducing manual follow-up.
  • Multichannel reminders work best when they’re timely and supportive: Email, text, and automated calls are most effective when sent before due dates and written in a clear, action-oriented tone.
  • Unifying billing, payment channels, and revenue protection reduces workload: Bringing bill presentment, acceptance channels, and tools like account updater and NSF recovery into one platform cuts call volume and manual collections work.

When a resident falls behind on a tax bill or court fine, most government leaders see two bad options: send it to collections or write it off.

But often, the problem isn’t “won’t pay”—it’s “can’t pay all at once.”

Recurring government payments and structured partial-payment options give residents a realistic path to compliance while helping departments collect more of what they’re owed, sooner, and with less manual work. They also fit naturally into broader payment modernization efforts that move agencies off fragmented, legacy tools and onto unified, cloud-based platforms that support digital self-service across channels.

This article walks through why all-or-nothing payments backfire, where flexible options make the most sense, what to decide before rollout, how to communicate changes, and how to track impact on collections and staff workloads.

Why residents fall behind on utility bills

Most delinquencies are about timing, friction, and confusion, not unwillingness. Common drivers include:

  • Mismatched billing and pay cycles: Residents get paid weekly or biweekly, but bills are due on fixed dates that may fall just before payday.
  • Bill shock and seasonality: Weather extremes, usage spikes, or rate changes can push even reliable payers into arrears for a month or two.
  • High-friction payment experiences: If residents must mail a check, stand in line, or navigate a clunky portal, it’s easy to procrastinate. Internal guidance notes that outdated, single-channel portals often drive abandonment, unpaid bills, and more calls instead of self-service.
  • Payment failures residents never see: Expired or reissued cards can silently break existing autopay arrangements, creating “mystery delinquencies” until a shutoff notice or large past-due balance appears.

At the same time, customer expectations have shifted toward digital, low-friction payments. Federal Reserve data from 2024 shows that nearly 70% of consumers prefer paying bills digitally instead of with checks or in-person payments, and more than half of U.S. consumers say they prefer mobile apps for utility payments.

These preferences create an opportunity: make it easier to pay on time, instead of focusing only on penalties when payments are late.

Using reminders wisely (channel, timing, and tone)

Reminders are powerful, but if they’re poorly designed, they can feel intrusive. The goal is to send fewer, more relevant messages at the right time and on the right channel.

Channel: meet residents where they are

The right payer engagement platform should combine email, SMS, and automated calls to reach more diverse populations.

Consider:

  • Email for full bill details, plan confirmations and receipts
  • SMS/text for short nudges—“Your bill of $X is due on [date]. Pay now: [link]”
  • Automated voice/IVR for residents who prefer or rely on phone payments

Timing: intervene before penalties and shutoffs

A typical cadence might include:

  • Upcoming-due reminders 3–5 days before the due date
  • Day-of nudges with a one-click or one-tap path to pay
  • Early past-due notices (1–3 days after) that clearly explain options, including payment plans
  • Installment reminders a few days before scheduled payments so residents can confirm funds

Tone: supportive and action-oriented

Especially in essential services, tone matters:

  • Focus on information and options, not blame
  • Clearly state amount, due date and what to do next
  • When past due, highlight ways to avoid interruption—“Pay now,” “Schedule a payment,” or “Set up a payment plan”

This approach respects residents’ circumstances while still driving action.

Coordinating billing, customer service, and collections

Reducing late payments isn’t just a collections problem; it’s an end-to-end payments problem. Utilities see the best results when billing, customer service, and collections teams share one playbook.

Billing: clear presentment and unified channels

Billing teams can:

  • Move more bill presentment online with EBPP (electronic bill presentment and payment) to send invoices electronically so customers can view bills and pay on their own, which speeds payment and reduces customer service calls.
  • Consolidate payment channels into a single, integrated platform to reduce errors and confusion from fragmented systems.
  • Ensure bills (paper and digital) clearly call out self-service options and how to enroll in autopay or payment plans.

Customer service: resolve issues and close the loop

Frontline agents need tools that let them help residents in a single interaction:

  • Quick access to standardized plan options and eligibility rules
  • The ability to send secure payment links during a call, so residents can complete payments on their device without reading card or bank details aloud (this also reduces PCI scope).
  • Visibility into whether reminder emails, texts or calls were sent, to avoid confusing experiences for residents

Collections: focus on true non-payers

When plans, reminders and autopay are working, collections teams can:

  • Spend more time on genuinely at-risk accounts instead of routine delinquencies
  • Use analytics (e.g., frequent NSFs, chronic non-response) to prioritize outreach
  • Work more closely with billing and CX to refine upstream policies and scripts

Real-world examples from adjacent sectors show what this looks like in practice. WasteWORKS, a solid waste management platform serving utilities and waste facilities, integrated CSG Forte to support online, in-person and card-on-file payments. Facilities now process payments “in seconds,” see fewer manual errors and have a seamless experience at every touchpoint, processing more than 144,000 payments each month through CSG Forte.

That same model—flexible channels with strong back-office integration—translates directly to utilities.

Bringing it all together with modern utility payment solutions

The most effective strategy doesn’t treat payment plans, reminders, and autopay as separate projects. Instead, it weaves them together into a single, modern payment experience:

  • Clear, electronic bill presentment and self-service access
  • Standardized, flexible utility payment plans tuned to resident realities
  • Scheduled and recurring payments that align with pay cycles
  • Automated, multichannel reminders with respectful language
  • A secure, compliant infrastructure that protects both customer data and cash flow

CSG Forte’s utility billing and payment solutions are designed to support exactly this kind of approach, with omnichannel acceptance (online, IVR, in-person), payer engagement capabilities for reminders and flexible payment options, and secure electronic bill presentment.

If your organization is ready to reduce late payments, lower call volume and improve the resident experience, it may be time to revisit your payment strategy.

Talk with CSG Forte’s sales experts to explore how modern utility payment plans, reminders and recurring autopay can work within your existing systems and policies.

Frequently asked questions

  1. What is a utility payment plan?
    A utility payment plan is an agreement that lets a customer pay down a past-due balance over time—often in fixed installments—while keeping current bills paid. Modern plans can be managed online, over the phone, or in person, and may support recurring or scheduled payments.
  2. How do recurring autopay options reduce late utility payments?
    When residents enroll in recurring payments for their monthly bill or plan installments, they no longer rely on remembering due dates. Combined with card updater and ACH validation tools, autopay can significantly reduce missed or declined payments.
  3. What channels should utilities use for payment reminders?
    Best practice is to combine email (for detail), SMS/text (for quick nudges and pay links) and automated phone/IVR for residents who prefer to call. CSG Forte’s payer engagement and utilities solutions highlight this multichannel approach to reduce delinquencies and support diverse customer preferences.
  4. How can utilities keep flexible payment options secure and compliant?
    Utilities should work with providers that support tokenization, PCI-validated encryption, ACH account validation, and Nacha-compliant NSF recovery. CSG Forte emphasizes these controls across its utilities and bill presentment solutions.
  5. What metrics show that payment plans and reminders are working?
    Track past-due rates by aging bucket, autopay, and plan adoption, card/ACH decline rates, billing-related call volume, and complaints about billing or shutoffs. CSG Forte customer success stories, like Hall’s Culligan and WasteWORKS, demonstrate how the right tools improve collections and reduce manual workload.

Fast, Invisible, Secure: 3 Payment Moves ISVs Can’t Ignore in 2026

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Key Takeaways

  • Invisible payments must also be intelligent: In 2026, leading platforms make payments feel native while quietly using data and AI to drive higher conversion, stronger loyalty, and better margins—without adding friction or complexity.
  • Compliance is the baseline; real-time risk is the differentiator: As instant payments accelerate, basic compliance isn’t enough. Winning ISVs embed always-on, AI-driven fraud and compliance controls directly into live payment flows.
  • Shared intelligence beats fighting fraud alone: Fraud moves across platforms, processors, and geographies. ISVs connected to broader risk networks gain earlier detection, fewer false positives, and safer scale.

In 2026, payments are expected to feel as fast and personal as sending a text—but the risk surface around those payments is bigger than ever. As Saurabh Joshi, CSG Forte’s executive vice president, predicts: biometric authentication, instant payment rails, and smarter embedded experiences will move from “interesting roadmap item” to table stakes.

For ISVs and platforms, that tension is the opportunity: payments can finally move from back-office plumbing to a visible growth lever that drives conversion, loyalty, and revenue, without the associated regulatory risk.

Here are three moves that will separate the platforms that win from those that lag.

1. Make payments feel invisible—and intelligent

Your customers don’t wake up wanting a “payment experience.” They want users to pay inside the product they already live in—web, mobile, IVR, even connected devices—without being bounced into a separate portal or clunky hosted page.

In 2026, “embedded” isn’t enough. Embedded insight becomes the differentiator. Leading platforms will:

  • Use AI to rank and recommend the optimal payment method in real time, based on rewards, timing, fees, and affordability.
  • Automatically surface the best card, “pay later,” or account-to-account option when funds are tight or cash flow is critical.
  • Extend this intelligence into physical environments, where cars and connected devices pay automatically at tolls, fuel pumps, and drive-thrus—while the experience still lives inside your product’s UI.

Done right, this unlocks new revenue via:

  • Higher conversion, because paying feels like a natural step in the workflow, not a separate chore.
  • Better margin management, powered by intelligent routing and method steering behind the scenes.
  • Stickier platforms, because you own the end-to-end payment UX instead of handing it off to someone else’s page.

The catch: if you try to assemble this with a different provider for every payment method, geography, and “pay with X” trend, you inherit all the complexity and data sprawl yourself.

That’s why CSG Forte advocates a single payments hub and Payment Facilitation-as-a-Service (PFaaS) model—one orchestration layer for cards, ACH, wallets, BillPay, and omnichannel experiences, plus unified analytics for routing and fee strategy, instead of a patchwork of gateways and point solutions.

2. Upgrade from “check-the-box” compliance to always-on protection

As instant payments move from optional to essential in the U.S., fraud is moving just as fast. Regulatory expectations are shifting from “reasonable controls” to real-time, data-driven protection, and basic compliance increasingly gives a false sense of security.

For platforms, the risk is clear:

  • Fraudsters iterate faster than regulation.
  • Waiting for mandates leaves you exposed to reputational and financial damage if your brand becomes the cautionary headline.
  • Your customers expect you to protect both their information and shared cash flow, not just pass an annual audit.

As Jeanette Mbungo, CSG Forte’s chief operating officer, notes: in the fight against payment fraud, basic compliance is not good enough. Processors and platforms that win will:

  • Embed AI-driven, proactive risk management into live payment flows, using industry-specific fraud signals and predictive analytics to catch issues before they settle.
  • Add real-time compliance checks instead of relying only on batch reviews and manual queues.
  • Tighten controls while reducing false positives, so you stop fraud, not business.

From a product standpoint, that means investing in:

  • P2PE devices and secure edge hardware to harden card-present flows.
  • Tokenization across payment methods to minimize sensitive data in motion.
  • Agentic, AI-assisted compliance that continually learns from new behaviors, instead of bolt-on tools that only react after the fact.

For ISVs and platforms, the practical takeaway is simple: payment flows, fraud controls, and compliance checks must evolve together.

If your fraud logic lives in a different universe from how you route, settle, and report payments, you’ll either lose good customers to over-declines—or get surprised by losses when fraud moves faster than your controls.

 

3. Plug into a risk network instead of fighting fraud alone

Fraud doesn’t care whose logo is on the checkout button. Patterns jump between processors, platforms, and geographies, and isolation makes everyone easier to exploit.

Across the industry, we’re seeing a shift from competitors to collaborators. Payments companies are merging, partnering, and leveraging each other’s technology to build infrastructure, innovate, and scale faster. For ISVs and platforms, that collaboration matters most in risk:

  • Shared fraud pattern intelligence helps you spot emerging scams and synthetic identities before they hit your portfolio.
  • “Co-opetition” lets providers collaborate on risk while still competing on experience and value, so your merchants benefit from the data of the whole network, not just your own corner of it.
  • Broader collaboration translates into wider geographic reach and accelerated growth without a proportional jump in fraud exposure.

CSG Forte’s stance is to:

  • Lower both fraud losses and false positives, so you don’t have to choose between safety and conversion.
  • Offer AI-driven protection with adaptive rules and cross-channel monitoring, pairing SaaS technology with deep payments and risk expertise from leaders like Saurabh and Jeanette.
  • Detect patterns early and share learnings across clients, so no one fights alone.

If you’re building or scaling a platform in 2026, that’s your decision point: do you want to be one more isolated endpoint fraudsters can probe, or part of a network where every attack makes the whole ecosystem smarter?

The bottom line for ISVs and platforms

“Good enough” payments are long gone in 2026. Your customers now expect fast, invisible, secure experiences their users barely notice — but they’ll absolutely notice if something goes wrong.

To stay ahead:

  • Make payments feel native and intelligent inside your product.
  • Treat compliance as a live, AI-powered control system, not a checklist.
  • Join an ecosystem that shares fraud intelligence and embedded insight, turning payments into a growth lever, not a drag.

Platforms that do all three won’t just keep up with the payments space in 2026. They’ll turn it into a durable competitive advantage, backed by the vision of Forte leaders who see where payments are headed next.

Ready to learn more? Contact one of our payments experts today to learn how CSG Forte can help your business stay ahead of what’s next, in 2026 and beyond.

Frequently asked questions

  1. What is the main takeaway from these 2026 payment predictions for ISVs and platforms?
    The big shift is that payments are no longer just “back-office plumbing.” In 2026, your customers will expect payment experiences that are fast, invisible and secure—embedded directly in your product. ISVs that treat payments as a strategic growth lever (with embedded insight, instant rails and stronger fraud controls) will outperform those that treat them as a basic utility.
  2. What does it mean to make payments “invisible” inside my platform?
    “Invisible” payments are deeply embedded into your product so users can pay or get paid without redirects, extra logins or clunky hosted pages. The next step is embedded insight, where your platform also uses AI and data to recommend the best payment method, improve authorization rates and manage fees behind the scenes—without adding friction for users.
  3. Why are instant payments such a big deal, and what risks do they introduce?
    Instant payments improve cash flow, reconciliation and user satisfaction—but they also move risk faster. Fraud, operational errors and disputes can settle before traditional controls catch them. That’s why instant payment strategies must include real-time fraud monitoring, smarter compliance checks and clear operational playbooks for exceptions and disputes.

 How Recurring Rent Payments Improve Collections, Reduce Admin Burden

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Key Takeaways

  • Manual rent collection drives late payments and inefficiency: Paper checks and cash slow cash flow, increase errors, and consume staff time—contributing to higher delinquency rates and tenant frustration.
  • Recurring rent payments significantly reduce delinquencies and late fees: Automated, scheduled payments eliminate forgetfulness and friction, improving on-time payment rates and stabilizing monthly cash flow.
  • Autopay improves tenant satisfaction and operational performance: Recurring payments reduce payment anxiety, minimize rent-chasing, lower turnover, and free property teams to focus on higher-value work.

Rent is one of the largest—and most important—monthly expenses for the 35% of U.S. households that rent their homes. Today’s renters expect the same speed, convenience, and flexibility they get from other online payment platforms.

Despite many tenants’ preference to make rent payments online, many property managers still rely on paper checks and manual processes that frustrate tenants, slow collections, and increase administrative burden. Late and missed payments remain a top operational challenge: 41% of property managers cite late rent payments as a major issue, and 14% of tenants incurred a late fee in 2024.

Recurring rent payments—automated, digital payments scheduled in advance—offer a better way forward, creating a better experience for both renters and property teams. In this blog, we’ll explore how recurring payments overcome the limitations of manual rent collection, reducing delinquencies, stabilizing cash flow, and easing administrative burden.

 

3 drawbacks of manual rent collection

Manual rent collection can often be a factor in:

  • Administrative drain: Many property managers find themselves stuck “in the weeds,” spending hours processing checks, updating spreadsheets and making bank deposits—time that could be better spent maintaining properties and building tenant relationships. Without automated reminders or recurring payments, staff must chase late-paying tenants, increasing stress and workload.
  • Late payments and slow cash flow: With manual payments, you’re often waiting for the money. Checks take time to arrive and clear, delaying payments to mortgage companies, vendors, and staff. If a check bounces, property managers must follow up with the resident and secure another payment.
  • Increased risk of error and fraud: Manual data entry and cash handling increase the likelihood of mistakes. Late fees, security deposits, and payment records are easier to mishandle without automation. Cash payments lack a digital trail, leading to disputes over lost or partial payments. Storing cash or sensitive bank info exposes managers and tenants to theft and identity fraud.

The solution: an online rent collection system with recurring payments.

 

Benefits of recurring rent payments

Recurring rent payments—often called autopay—automatically charge a tenant’s saved bank account or card on a set schedule, typically monthly or biweekly. Once tenants enroll, rent is collected digitally with minimal effort from either party.

Increased on-time rent collection

  • Collecting rent online with recurring payments makes on-time payments the default instead of the exception.
  • Units with tenants on autopay achieve a 99% on-time rent rate, compared with 87% for units without autopay.

At Rentec Direct, a provider of online property management software powered by CSG Forte, renters using recurring payments were late only 1% of the time between April and July 2020, versus 22% overall during that period.

Reduced tenant turnover

  • Recurring payments reduce common pain points that can drive tenants away.
  • Less payment friction via no more paper checks, manual reminders, or rigid office hours.
  • Rent becomes a predictable, “set-it-and-forget-it” expense instead of a monthly stressor.
  • Automated payments limit awkward rent-chasing conversations.

The result is a smoother landlord–tenant relationship and higher lease renewal rates.

Less administrative work

  • Recurring payments turn rent collection from a high-touch process into a low-touch one.
  • Property management software can match payments to units and ledgers automatically.
  • With more on-time payments, staff spend less time on reminders, notices and follow-up.
  • Direct deposit and clearer cash flow: Funds are deposited directly into bank accounts, improving cash flow visibility and predictability.

 

4 best practices for setting up recurring rent payments

To maximize autopay adoption and results, property managers should balance convenience for tenants with operational control by:

1. Requiring card-on-file input during onboarding

  • Make online payment setup part of the onboarding process.
  • Even if tenants opt out of autopay, having a backup payment method on file enables quick recovery if a primary payment fails.

2. Offer flexible, payday-aligned scheduling

  • Align payments with paydays.
  • Reduce non-sufficient funds (NSF) declines and payment stress.

3. Incentivize Automated Clearing House (ACH) payments over credit cards

  • ACH accounts don’t expire like cards, reducing failed payments and late fees.
  • Apply convenience fees to card payments.

4. Use automated dunning before applying late fees

  • Send immediate text or email notifications, asking the tenant to update payment info.
  • Retry payments using intelligent retry logic.
  • If recovery attempts fail by Day 5, send a formal notice of payment failure.

 

How to encourage autopay enrollment without adding pressure

Some tenants hesitate to enroll in autopay due to concerns about losing control of their money. If their rent payment is withdrawn three days before a paycheck arrives, it could trigger an overdraft fee. The key is to highlight the control, flexibility, and peace of mind provided by recurring payments.

  • Late fee prevention: No missed payments due to travel or busy schedules
  • Split payments: Align rent with biweekly paydays
  • Credit building: On-time payments may be reported to credit bureaus, helping tenants build credit

Simple, mobile-friendly autopay enrollment built into resident portals removes friction—making renters far more likely to complete setup. Showing residents how easy it is to cancel or pause autopay boosts adoption.

 

Measuring automatic rent collection success

To evaluate effectiveness, track more than autopay sign-ups. Key metrics include:

  • Autopay adoption rate: The percentage of your total tenant base enrolled in recurring payments vs. those paying manually. Aim for 85% or higher. If the adoption rate is low, the enrollment process may be too difficult, or you’re not highlighting the benefits clearly enough.
  • Delinquency rate: The percentage of rental units for which rent has not been paid by the established due date. Target 2% or less for autopay users.
  • Collection velocity (days to zero): How quickly balances reach zero after the first of the month. Day 1 is the goal.
  • Payment failure rate: The percentage of recurring transactions that fail due to expired cards or NSF. If the failure rate is high, you may need to encourage ACH instead of credit cards or implement an account updater and recovery services with intelligent retry logic.
  • Administrative labor reduction: The number of hours staff save on rent collection tasks. Track how many hours staff spend on manual reconciliation, chasing late payments (e.g., sending emails and making phone calls), and processing checks—before and after implementing autopay. You should reduce “rent week” administrative labor by 50% or more.

 

Streamline rent payments and cut late fees with CSG Forte

Automatic rent collection through recurring payments delivers faster collections, fewer late payments, and a smoother experience for both renters and property teams. For property managers focused on modernizing operations and improving retention, recurring payments are no longer optional—they’re the standard.

CSG Forte’s property management payment solutions make it easy for renters to pay online while automating rent collection to simplify workflows and strengthen cash flow.

Contact us to learn how CSG Forte helps streamline rent payments, reduce delinquencies, and keep renters satisfied.

Modernize the Government Payment Experience for Residents by Adding Online Payments

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Key Takeaways

  • Modern government payment experience drives on-time revenue. When agencies integrate web, mobile, IVR and text-to-pay into a single platform, residents can move from reminder to payment in a few clicks—reducing delinquencies and call volume.
  • Secure, user-friendly portals build public trust. A modern online bill pay experience that’s mobile-first, PCI-compliant and easy to navigate makes residents more likely to pay your bill before less convenient ones.
  • Multi-channel reminders boost engagement and collections. Letting residents choose email, text or automated voice reminders—and pairing those with personalized payment links—helps governments reach more people, increase completion rates and lower staff workload.

Providing a smooth payment experience is key if you want residents to pay taxes, utilities, fees and fines on time. But meeting public expectations is easier said than done.

People increasingly expect payments to be digital, fast and easy—70% of U.S. consumers prefer to receive payments digitally, and 73% prefer to shop and pay using digital methods, according to recent research. At the same time, security and convenience are now the top decision factors in how people choose to pay their bills.

In 2023, more than nine in 10 consumers used at least one form of digital payment over the course of the year. And even though U.S. households received about 9.1 billion bills by mail in 2023, 80% of those bills were ultimately paid electronically. What’s more, for the first time, more than half of all household bill payments were made online. The good news: a few practical changes can dramatically improve your residents’ experience and help your agency collect revenue more reliably. Follow these four best practices to deliver a secure, convenient digital payment experience that reduces friction and supports on-time payments.

 

4 best practices to improve the government payment experience

Modernizing the government payment experience doesn’t have to be overwhelming. By focusing on practical, resident-centered improvements, agencies can make paying bills simpler and more secure—encouraging on-time payments and reducing frustration for both residents and staff. Here are four actionable strategies to help your organization deliver a modern digital payment journey.

1. Seamlessly integrate your payment channels

  • Aim for a flow where a resident gets a text or email with a secure link, taps once and lands on a mobile-friendly page where they can pay in just a few clicks.
  • When you integrate web, mobile, IVR, text-to-pay and agent-assisted payments into a single platform, staff see one source of truth, residents move directly from reminder to payment, and your agency fields fewer “how do I pay this?” calls.

The payoff: more completed payments, fewer delinquencies and less time spent chasing balances.

2. Treat the payment portal like a critical service touchpoint

For residents, your payment portal is one of the most visible ways they experience their city, county or state.

  • Security and convenience are two top factors consumers often cite when choosing how to pay their bills.
  • If your portal is slow, cluttered or not optimized for mobile, many residents will delay paying or prioritize “easier” bills first.
  • Accessibility issues—language, readability, mobile responsiveness—can hit lower-income and older residents hardest.

A modern, mobile-friendly portal with clear steps, plain language and saved payment methods makes it more likely your bill moves to the top of the stack instead of the bottom.

3. Earn public trust with a secure payment platform

Agencies handle sensitive resident data every day. If people don’t trust your payment system, they’ll avoid it and fall back on more manual, expensive channels.

  • Card-not-present fraud (online and phone payments) now accounts for roughly 71% of all card fraud losses, or about $10 billion in 2024, and is expected to remain about three-quarters of total card-payment fraud.
  • Security has become the single most important feature for many bill payers.

Look for a platform that:

  • Uses IVR and self-service to protect card data.
    • Inbound IVR: residents enter card or bank details via keypad instead of reading them aloud.
    • Outbound IVR: residents receive an automated balance reminder and can pay securely in the same call.
  • Keeps agent-assisted payments secure by letting staff send one-time, secure payment links via text or email so residents enter card data directly—staff never see or handle it.
  • Leans on built-in PCI compliance and tokenization, so sensitive data is secured by a specialist provider, your compliance scope shrinks and staff can focus on serving residents, not managing security configs.

4. Reach residents on the channels they actually use

If you’re only sending reminders through a channel residents rarely check, you’re increasing the odds of late payments.

  • Text messages have open rates around 90–99%, compared to roughly 20–33% for email.
  • About 79% of consumers are opted in to receive texts from businesses, signaling a strong preference for text-based communication.

For governments, that means:

  • Residents are far more likely to see a text about a tax deadline, court date or utility bill than a single email or mailed notice.
  • Multi-channel outreach—text, email and automated voice—dramatically improves the chances reminders arrive before the due date.
  • Let residents choose their preferred channel and use it consistently for reminders, confirmations and past-due notices.

 

How CSG Forte helps public agencies modernize the payment experience

CSG Forte’s payment platform is designed to meet residents where they are—whether they’re paying property taxes, utility bills, permitting fees or court fines.
With one secure, low-code platform, your agency can:

  • Enable any-time, any-way payments: online, mobile, IVR, text-to-pay and agent-assisted.
  • Manage invoice creation, payment processing and notifications across channels from a single interface.
  • Reduce your exposure to sensitive card data with PCI-compliant processing and tokenization.

Give residents a consistent, user-friendly experience whether they’re on a phone, laptop or at the counter.

You can invite residents to opt in to reminders, confirmations and late notices on their preferred channels, then use calendar-aware workflows to send personalized payment links when you know they’re most likely to see—and act on—them.

If your city, county or state agency is looking to simplify bill payments, improve the resident experience, reduce fraud exposure and encourage on-time payments, CSG Forte can help. Check out our eBook focused on improving government payment services.

Contact us to learn how CSG Forte can support your team and your community.

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A new bill from U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz proposes giving artificial intelligence (AI) firms greater flexibility to test and develop new technologies by temporarily easing certain regulatory requirements.

It’s Time to Overhaul Your Government Payment System, But It’s Not as Taxing as You Think

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Does your local or state government agency offer digital payments? If not, now is the time to follow the federal government’s lead. As of September 30, 2025, all federal disbursements and receipts are slated to be transitioned to digital disbursement, which means the end of paper checks for IRS refunds, Social Security payments and payroll disbursements. It also means where legally permissible, all payments to the federal government must be processed electronically starting October 1.

Why is Uncle Sam modernizing federal payments? According to the order, “The continued use of paper-based payments by the Federal Government … imposes unnecessary costs; delays; and risks of fraud, lost payments, theft, and inefficiencies. Mail theft complaints have increased substantially since the COVID-19 pandemic. Historically, Department of the Treasury checks are 16 times more likely to be reported lost or stolen, returned undeliverable, or altered than an electronic funds transfer (EFT).”

Digital payments have become the norm—92% of U.S. consumers used a website, app or digital wallet to make a payment in the past year. Despite the popularity of online payments, government agencies have been slow to adopt them. As of 2024, only 4.9% of local governments had implemented digital payments. When government agencies do accept online payments, they often rely on outdated, clunky payment systems that redirect users to third-party portals.

Modernizing your government payment system promotes operational efficiency, boosts convenience for payers and staff and increases collections. Flexible digital payment options make it easier for constituents to pay on time.

 

Outdated Payment Systems: Silent Saboteur of Timely Payments, Customer Trust and Back-Office Efficiency

Many government agencies still rely on checks, in-person cash payments or outdated systems, creating friction for payers and back-office staff.

The harder it is to pay a bill, the more likely people are to put it off. When the payment process takes too long, is difficult to navigate on a mobile device and/or requires too many resubmissions (due to system glitches), people may postpone paying their utilities, taxes, fees or other government bills. Millennials report they are more likely to prioritize paying bills that are easy to pay before taking care of those that are inconvenient.

Almost half (45%) of Americans have paid a bill late in the past year, according to a 2024 Lending Tree survey. Which bills were late? Utility bills (44%), cable/internet (34%) and rent/mortgage (31%) payments were most often paid late. Why? More than a quarter of the late payers (28%) mixed up the due date, and 28% forgot about the bill. Almost one third (32%) of consumers said that utilities are the most challenging type of bill to remember to pay on time (the most common response).

Clunky third-party payment portals damage customer experience and erode trust. When a portal is slow, glitchy or hard to navigate, payers may doubt the reliability of both the system and the government agency behind it. A jarring transition from your government website to the payment site—like completely different branding or layout—can seem unprofessional and raise concerns about legitimacy of the payment site. If the portal looks outdated, generates pop-ups or lacks clear security cues, users may even suspect phishing or data breaches.

Checks are costlier and labor intensive. “Checks probably have the highest labor cost associated with them,” Nacha reports. The cost of receiving paper checks ($1 – $2 per check) is higher than receiving Automated Clearing House (ACH or eCheck) payments ($.26 – $.50 per transaction). Back-office staff spend hours mailing paper bills and processing paper checks manually. It takes several steps to process paper checks, including:

  • Sort the mail
  • Match checks to accounts/invoices
  • Endorse each check
  • Complete a deposit slip
  • Take the checks to the bank

Enter the payment information into the accounting or billing software

Billing staff must also field phone calls (to explain confusing bills) and chase late payments. All of these labor-intensive tasks claim valuable staff time that could be spent on more meaningful tasks that require a human touch.

 

The Solution: Offer Flexible Payment Options Residents Will Use

Flexible digital payment options are the key to improving payment efficiency, on-time collections and payer trust and satisfaction. Many consumers prefer to pay online. A 2024 Experian survey found that 58% of respondents pay bills online, while just 17% visit a location to pay a bill and a mere 15% mail their payments.

To satisfy diverse payer preferences, government agencies should offer a variety of flexible payment options, including:

Multiple payment methods. Government agencies should allow constituents to pay using their preferred payment method. Some of the most popular include:

  • Credit/debit cards: According to the 2025 Diary of Consumer Payment Choice report, 88% of survey respondents used a credit card within 30 days of completing the survey; 74% had paid with a debit card.
  • ACH: More than two thirds (70%) of survey respondents used this payment method. In addition to being less expensive than checks to process, ACH processing is faster. ACH payments can be settled within a few hours on the same business day, compared to paper checks that can take a week or longer to clear.
  • Digital wallets: While consumers often reach for digital wallets to make online and—to a lesser extent—in-store purchases, they also use these convenient apps for bill payment. Recent PYMNTS research found that 40% of consumers had used a digital wallet to pay bills within the past year. Digital wallet payments are processed electronically (eliminating manual labor associated with paper checks), can be reconciled quickly, and typically clear within one to three days.
  • Automatic payments (aka autopay or recurring payments): Automatic payments refer to automatically deducting payments from a specified bank account or credit/debit card on a scheduled basis. A PYMNTS survey of U.S. consumers found that 41% of consumers use automatic bill payments, with most (63%) using them for discretionary purchases. Fewer people (33%) use autopay for utilities like electricity, delinquencies, and time spent chasing late payments; and improved customer satisfaction.
  • Partial payments: A partial payment option allows constituents to pay less than the full balance for utilities, taxes or other fees. People can make an initial payment and settle the remaining balance later. A payer who’s short on funds pays what they can to demonstrate good faith, stay in good standing and avoid late fees and service disconnection.

 

Modern Government Payment Processing Systems Benefit Payers and Governments

Government agencies need an electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP) solution like CSG Forte BillPay to increase efficiency, on-time payments and payer satisfaction. EBPP lets you send invoices electronically and securely. Constituents can log in to the platform and pay using a credit/debit card, ACH transfer or digital wallet. To maximize these benefits, agencies should focus on implementing systems and features that streamline the payment process for both payers and staff, such as:

Offer seamless, unified payment experiences. Embedding the government payment processing system into your agency’s website and integrating it with your billing and accounting software can:

  • Reduce friction and confusion
  • Eliminate administrative errors
  • Build payer trust
  • Encourage on-time payments

Increase self-service capabilities. Customers can access and update their account information and make payments at their convenience—and connect with a human agent when they need more support.

Realize efficiency gains and cost savings. Automating the billing and payment processes and providing flexible payment options can:

  • Save staff time: Your back-office staff won’t have to print and mail bills, process as many checks or manually reconcile payments. Clear billing statements and flexible payment options mean fewer billing-related phone calls.
  • Reduce costs: Electronic invoices reduce printing and mailing expenses, and processing payments electronically saves money.

 

Go Digital: Do Less, Collect More with CSG Forte BillPay

Flexible digital payments are no longer a perk—they’re the expectation. Going digital leads to happier citizens, lighter staff workloads, and more on-time payments.

CSG Forte makes it easy to modernize your government payment system without starting from scratch. CSG Forte BillPay is an EBPP solution that lets you accept payments anytime, from any connected device, using flexible payment methods like credit/debit cards, ACH and digital wallets. It supports one-time, scheduled, recurring and partial payments and automatically sends custom reminders and confirmations.

BillPay delivers a transparent, mobile-friendly payment experience through a single-page checkout form that complies with all requirements for web and mobile accessibility. It plugs into your existing accounting software, so there’s no need to overhaul your current systems.

A leading utility service provider saw a 65% drop in failed payments after implementing BillPay’s recurring billing and Account Updater tool, which automatically keeps credit card data current. Intech Apex Court Solutions increased credit card collections by 230% by implementing Forte’s Text to Pay solution.

CSG Forte can help your government agency achieve similar results. See how:

Unlocking the Future: How Cloud Payments Can Transform Governments

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Remember the last time your finance team had to chase a missing payment across three different systems? That patchwork of mainframe screens, desktop terminals and bolt-on gateways once felt “good enough,” but it’s now a budget-draining anchor. Siloed accounting, recording and payments tools drive up transaction costs, lengthen close-out cycles and frustrate constituents who expect mobile-first self-service.

A unified, cloud-based platform lets cities migrate on their own schedule and add modern channels like text-to-pay—all while keeping day-to-day operations humming.

But before you can modernize, you have to understand exactly where you stand. Many local governments operate on a tangle of legacy tools that have been patched together over decades—each department managing its own vendor, system and reconciliation process. The result is complexity that costs more than it saves. The first step toward a streamlined, cloud-based solution is a clear-eyed audit of your current workflows, systems and costs. That’s where transformation really begins.

 

Step 1: Audit Your Current Workflows and Fees

Before moving a single byte, catalog every point where money enters, moves or exits your systems:

  1. Revenue streams: taxes, utilities, courts, permits.
  2. Touchpoints: walk-in counter, IVR, web portal, lockbox service.
  3. Reconciliation path: payment gateway to general ledger
  4. Hidden fees: PCI non-compliance, chargebacks, paper checks.

Quick win: use Forte’s Payment-Processing FAQs to translate technical gateway language into finance-team speak, then attach dollar figures to every manual step (e.g., staff minutes per payment, cost per paper bill). These numbers will become ammunition for your business-case presentation.

 

Step 2: Build the Business Case

Upgrading core infrastructure competes with roads, parks and public safety, so your pitch must balance risk reduction, cost savings and constituent experience.

  • Compliance risk: EY flags “policy and regulatory complexity” as a top-10 public-sector risk for 2025; failure to meet new PCI or NACHA rules can trigger fines and erode public trust.
  • Direct savings: a consolidated platform eliminates duplicate licensing, reduces payment card interchange with least-cost routing and cuts paper/postage.
  • Revenue acceleration: self-service portals and automated reminders make your revenue collections more efficient and predictable.

Pair these benefits with the gaps you uncovered in Step 1. Use Forte BillPay screenshots to show executives how a resident would see all obligations—utilities, parking tickets, pet licenses—in one cart. Finish with a three-year ROI table and a “soft costs” line for staff hours returned to strategic work.

 

Step 3: Implement Best Practices

Moving off a mainframe doesn’t require a “big-bang” weekend cutover. Follow a phased approach instead:

  1. Choose a pilot department: Courts or utilities often have clear revenue cycles and motivated stakeholders.
  2. Stand up parallel processing: Keep legacy billing live while routing a subset of payments through Forte’s Online Payments APIs.
  3. Automate reconciliation first: Real-time ledger sync lets finance validate totals daily, building confidence before you add new channels.
  4. Add resident touchpoints: Enable emailed invoices, text-to-pay and mobile wallet options.
  5. Train & Communicate: Publish how-tos, hold staff Q&A sessions and post banners on the city website explaining the new portal.
  6. Deactivate legacy screens—slowly: After two full billing cycles with near-zero variance, sunset the old cashiering module and reassign staff.

Throughout, lean on Forte’s Complete Payments Solution for tokenization, point-to-point encryption and convenience-fee handling—so finance, IT and legal can check their boxes without separate vendors.

 

Step 4: Measure Success and Iterate

Modernization is a journey, not a finish line. Slalom’s 2025 Government Outlook urges agencies to adopt continuous-improvement loops that marry operational data with resident feedback.

Track these KPIs quarterly:

Share of e-payments

  • Pre-Modernization: 42%
  • Target After Phase 1: 65%
  • Target After Phase 2: 85%

Days-to-close books

  • Pre-Modernization: 10
  • Target After Phase 1: 5
  • Target After Phase 2: 2

Chargeback rate

  • Pre-Modernization: 0.35%
  • Target After Phase 1: 0.25%
  • Target After Phase 2: 0.20%

Average call time (billing)

  • Pre-Modernization: 6 min
  • Target After Phase 1: 4 min
  • Target After Phase 2: 2 min

Use Forte dashboards to export metrics directly to your ERP or BI tool. Survey residents on ease-of-use after each phase, then feed insights into the product backlog—perhaps a Spanish-language chatbot or pay-by-QR kiosk at city hall.

 

Book a Modernization Workshop with CSG Forte

Hundreds of local governments appear on the annual GovTech 100 list, proving that digital transformation is now the rule, not the exception.

Ready to join them? Schedule a no-cost payment modernization workshop with our government payments team. We’ll:

  • Map your current payment flow end-to-end
  • Quantify hidden fees and manual costs
  • Draft a phased migration timeline tailored to your staffing levels
  • Deliver an executive-ready ROI deck you can present at the next council meeting

Talk to a Forte payment strategist and start turning that legacy mainframe into a modern, cloud-native engine for resident satisfaction and fiscal resilience.