What is a Remittance Processing System (RPS)?
The word “remittance” refers to a transfer of money. As technology has evolved, an increasing amount of these transfers are done electronically, but the fact remains that some agencies and organizations still are required to process payments that come in the form of paper—checks, stubs, etc.
For many of these organizations, mailed remittance requires a significant amount of manual data entry and reconciliation steps. The sheer amount of paper payments translates to overtime for employees in order to assure the deposits are made on time. To address this, large organizations have implemented a Remittance Processing System (RPS) to speed up processes, improve accuracy and reduce the burden on staff.
Simply put, an RPS is a combination of hardware and software that pairs together to synchronize the deposit process. Rather than having employees perform multiple scans and enter the data, an RPS serves as an end-to-end solution that not only increases efficiency, but can also improve image quality and identify errors and/or bad checks before they are sent to the bank.
Under the Hood
A functional RPS is features hardware in the form of scanners to capture the payment information, along with software to digest and transport that information to the appropriate sources. It’s scalable in the sense that it can accommodate a low volume of payments for small to mid-sized organizations, or a high volume for large organizations like state agencies.
Once a payment has been captured by the check scanner, the data is pushed to the software system where it can be easily retrieved and fully searchable. This reduces the amount of processing time per check from minutes to a matter of seconds. Deposits can be classified by date, processor, program and/or check number.
Why Implement a RPS?
Aside from improving overall efficiency in the remittance process, a RPS can alleviate an organization from relying on overtime to meet payment deadlines. If your organization is still performing multiple scans of a single check, manually entering payment data, or even physically driving checks to the bank—it’s almost inevitable that overtime will be required to keep up with the volume of checks received.
Another notable benefit is the fact that a RPS identifies calculation errors at the batch level, so “bad” checks are caught before submission to the bank. This eliminates the roundabout process of the “bad” check having to be sent to the bank, sent back to the sender and finally corrected and re-submitted to the bank.
Finally, the accuracy of the metadata that a RPS provides will translate to less keystrokes for search and retrieval. This means employees can easily find a check or stub based on a variety of search queries, rather than trying to hunt down information that is hidden in piles of paper.
The Results of an RPS for State Agencies
Western Integrated Systems has witnessed state agencies who implemented a RPS decrease the overall remittance processing time by as much as 75%. Furthermore, overtime hasn’t been needed to keep up with the volume of checks received. In one instance, more than 1,000 checks were processed by noon during the last week of the fiscal year—a process that traditionally translated into long overtime hours to meet deposit deadlines.
On their busiest day, the agency processed more than 2,700 checks with the RPS well in advance of the 2 p.m. deposit deadline. Employees who used to have to work nights and weekends to keep up with the volume have now been freed up to devote their time to more business-critical tasks.
Is that music to your ears? Let’s get the conversation started. Western Integrated Systems has been providing digital transformation solutions for customers for more than 40 years and can tailor a RPS to suit your specific needs. Whether it’s 27 checks a day—or 2,700—we can scale a solution to streamline your remittance processes. Contact us here.
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