E-billing all the way

Broadband service provider Cbeyond Communications does not deliver paper bills to its small business customers, relying solely on CheckFree i-Solutions' electronic-billing and payment services.

Cbeyond chose CheckFree because its i-Series software has more robust payment capabilities than other online billing services, said Joe Oesterling, Cbeyond vice president of information systems.

“We also felt there was a better starting point with CheckFree relative to the solution that we were trying to put forth from a business perspective,” he said.

The company plans to use CheckFree's Statement Analyzer analytical tool toward the end of summer and the Market Direct service for target marketing early next year, said Minaz Vastani, director of e-commerce for Cbeyond.

Going totally electronic will be a great test for business-to-business electronic bill payment and presentment (EBPP) applications, said Lisa Cebollero, analyst for The Yankee Group.

“For new service providers, this could be a definite trend going forward to say, ‘We're not going to even bother with paper applications,’” she said.

Cbeyond targets Atlanta's small business market, providing integrated local, long-distance and Internet-access services, as well as IP-based applications. The company plans to expand into Dallas, Denver, Chicago and Philadelphia.

In a few years, EBPP will be common for consumers, said Dave Eggers, CheckFree's sales manager for the Southern region.

“There's a direct correlation about how much a biller promotes the service and how fast the adoption is,” he said.