| FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
23rd August 2005 |
Cheshire County Council Chooses Bottomline Technologies for Its New BACSTEL-IP Software
PayBase Platform Delivers Security and Process Efficiency Gains
READING, ENGLAND – 23rd August 2005 - Bottomline Technologies (NASDAQ: EPAY), a leading provider of payments and invoice automation software and services, today announced that Cheshire County Council has successfully deployed PayBase®, the company's payments and collections platform, to facilitate compliance with the new UK BACS electronic payments standard, BACSTEL-IP.
A public sector entity, Cheshire County Council's finance office is responsible for ensuring that the financial affairs of the County Council and Cheshire Pension Fund are properly administered through a variety of functions including collections, borrowing, lending and paying creditors. With UK-based organisations facing a 31 December 2005 deadline for migrating to BACSTEL-IP, officials at Cheshire County Council selected PayBase for its security, ease of use, ability to seamlessly integrate with Oracle Financials and overall payments processing efficiency.
“Migrating to the new BACSTEL-IP standard in good time was important for Cheshire County Council,” said Mike Jones, Technical and Business Support Manager within County Finance Office. “We also had to consider costs and functionality very carefully. As the recognised market leader for BACSTEL-IP solutions and services, Bottomline offered the expertise, competitive pricing and service capabilities necessary to quickly make this project a success.”
Each year, the Council processes more than 130,000 creditor-related transactions and more than 640,000 transactions relating to salary payments. Since implementing PayBase, Cheshire County Council is now able to send multiple BACS payments files in one transmission, rather than on an individual basis, saving them time and bank file charges. Additionally, the Council is able to leverage Bottomline's Bureau Service as a contingency service to transmit payment files to BACS on its behalf if necessary.
“Cheshire County Council is a great example of the broader business benefits associated with migrating to the new BACS payments standard,” said Peter Fortune, President of Bottomline Technologies Europe. “In selecting Bottomline, Cheshire County Council is able to enjoy new levels of process efficiency and security throughout their finance office. We look forward to continuing to work with the Council in the future to create further cost savings via the process efficiencies our software and services can provide.”
