Unlocking the Future: How Cloud Payments Can Transform Governments
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:
Revenue streams: taxes, utilities, courts, permits.
Touchpoints: walk-in counter, IVR, web portal, lockbox service.
Reconciliation path: payment gateway to general ledger
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.