Release Notes - Bill Genie ( V1.0 )
- Rupam Baruah (Unlicensed)
- shelarsunita (Unlicensed)
Overview
Bill Genie is an automated bill generation system developed on the DIGIT platform. It enables citizens to pay property tax in a simple, smooth and transparent manner.
It is possible for the ULB employees to set calendar triggers to generate bills for the amount of property tax payable. This allows the ULB to share the bills with citizens in advance. Citizens review their bill and pay it online using the payment link shared in the bill. Citizens get email and SMS notifications for pending property tax dues as reminders on or before the due date. Since the bills are provided in advance, citizens get lead time to plan for the finances to pay their tax.The application also allows the ULB to group, merge and download bills for field distribution.
The Bill Genie application makes it effortless for citizens who do not have any changes in their property records, to pay for the services consumed. This layer of citizens is a significant number, allowing ULBs to increase revenue by moving away from “citizen-initiated” to “ULB-initiated” collection drives.
Highlights
- A batch process executes automatic generation of property tax bills based on a set of calendar triggers
- Option to group, merge and download property tax bills for field distribution
- Provision to send email and SMS reminder alerts to citizens for pending bills on or before the due dates so that they can plan or take action
Application Workflow
The following diagram depicts the application workflow.
Release Features
| Key Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Generate Property Tax Bills Automatically | The Bill Genie application generates property tax bills automatically for properties registered in the property tax system. The application executes this as a batch process from the backend based on financial year and calendar dates as triggers. |
| Grouping of Property Tax Bills | The ULB employees can group property tax bills based on locality and financial year, leading to an improvement in the efficiency of on-ground distribution of bills. |
| Merge, Download and Print Property Tax Bills | After the bills are generated, ULB employees can download and print bills in batches by merging them. |
| Notification to citizens | The Bill Genie application has an option to send SMS and email reminders to the citizens with the due date and tax amount to be paid. These notifications help citizens plan their finances to pay property tax. |
Future Release Features
The following features are planned for the next release of the Bill Genie application :
- The citizen notification will include the link to pay property tax and a link to download the payment receipt after payment of tax
- A user interface for citizens to search and pay property tax
- A user interface for ULB employees to generate property tax bills
- Availability of triggers for custom notifications to citizens