The bills list your board already votes on, with the deadline on every line.
A payables and receivables module for local governments. Invoices come in, approvals happen in the order your rules require, payments go out through your own bank, and every claim shows the date the law sets for it to be paid. There is no license fee.
We are a private company. We are not a government agency, and no government has endorsed this platform.
Claims docket
Regular meeting, Dec 1. Five certified claims.
| Claim | Fund | Amount | Pay by |
|---|---|---|---|
| Road salt, 40 tons | Road and bridge | $9,280.00 | Dec 22 |
| Fleet repair | General | $3,150.00 | Dec 19 |
| Engineering services | Capital projects | $27,400.00 | Jan 6 |
| Office supplies | General | $640.00 | Dec 29 |
| Snow removal contract | Road and bridge | $21,460.00 | Dec 5 |
| Total presented | $61,930.00 | ||
- Road salt, 40 tons$9,280.00Road and bridgePay by Dec 22
- Fleet repair$3,150.00GeneralPay by Dec 19
- Engineering services$27,400.00Capital projectsPay by Jan 6
- Office supplies$640.00GeneralPay by Dec 29
- Snow removal contract$21,460.00Road and bridgePay by Dec 5
- Total presented$61,930.00
One claim's pay-by date falls before the next regular meeting, so it is marked to be allowed at this one.
What changes, and what does not
Stays as it is
- Your bank and your bank accounts.
- Your accounting system, which stays the system of record.
- Your approval rules: who approves, in what order, and what the board must allow.
- The terms in your contracts with vendors.
What is new
- One inbox for every invoice, read on arrival and checked by your staff.
- A pay-by date on every claim, from your state's prompt-payment law where one applies.
- A docket built from certified claims, with each signing member's name and the time recorded.
- A vendor account, so a vendor can see where an invoice stands without calling.
The module, in the order an invoice moves
One record from the day an invoice arrives to the day it is paid, for the department, the fiscal officer, the treasurer and the board.
- 1
Intake
Your staff
Invoices arrive by upload or by email. Each is read on arrival, checked against earlier invoices for a duplicate, and reviewed by a person before it moves.
- 2
Statutory clock
The module
The pay-by date is computed from the statute and stored on the claim, with the late interest the law allows. A claim that is not proper goes back to the vendor with the reason, and the clock records it.
- 3
Approval
Department, then the fiscal officer
Department approval, then fiscal certification, in the order your rules require and within the thresholds you set.
- 4
Docket and allowance
The board
Certified claims are placed on a docket for the meeting. Members sign the allowance; your rules set how many signatures a docket needs. A member can hold one claim back to the next docket without stopping the rest.
- 5
Payment run
Two people, never one
One person builds the run and another approves it. A payment that repeats an earlier one is flagged before the run is approved.
- 6
Ledger and public record
The module
Each payment posts to a ledger kept by fund, which can be added to and never edited. An optional public page lists paid claims under your government's name.
How vendors are paid
Your government keeps paying vendors from its own bank.
From your bank, as today
- How it works
- A payment run produces an ACH file and a positive-pay file for your bank. One person builds the run and a second person approves it.
- Who moves the money
- Your bank moves the money from your own account. The platform never holds it.
- Where it stands
- Built and tested with simulated payments. No bank has tested the files yet.
Card payouts: not available
- How it works
- A payout path to a vendor's eligible debit card is built. Visa Direct is the card network's service for sending funds to eligible cards. No government or vendor can use this path today. A card is entered on a page of the payments service, apart from every other screen. The number is not stored: the platform keeps a token and the last four digits.
- Who moves the money
- A registered payment processor would handle these payouts under its own program terms. We have selected Finix, a registered processor of Pathward, N.A., for that role. No money has moved.
- Where it stands
- The path is built in the payments service, tested with simulated payouts only, and switched off. It is not part of a payment run: runs pay by bank transfer or by check. It is not yet connected to the processor's test environment.
Finix and Visa Direct are the names of their owners' services. No partnership with either company is claimed, and neither sponsors or endorses this platform.
Early Pay, if your board chooses
How we are paid
What your auditor will ask
- Separate duties
- The person who builds a payment run cannot approve it. The approval step refuses the builder.
- A record of approvals and payment runs
- Approvals, dockets and payment-run steps are written to a log that cannot be edited or deleted.
- A ledger by fund
- Double-entry, balanced within each fund. Entries are added; none is changed.
- Your records only
- Each government sees its own records. Access is set by role and enforced in the database.
- Masked numbers
- Fields we show hold the last four digits of a vendor's tax ID or bank account; documents you upload appear as sent. The full tax ID is held in a vault the application cannot read back. The signed tax form is kept as a private file that our staff and the vendor's own users can open.
- Vendor checks
- A tax form, a sanctions screen and a confirmed bank account or card are recorded for each vendor. Early Pay is open only to a verified vendor.
A pilot the board can end
One department, ninety days, at no cost to your government. A pilot proceeds only through your own authorization process, and nothing in it commits your government to buy anything.
Days 1 to 30
Set up
Your roles, thresholds and meeting calendar are configured. One department's vendors are invited.
Days 31 to 60
Run one department
That department's claims move through the module beside your current process, with a weekly reconciliation to your finance office.
Days 61 to 90
Report and decide
A report to the board: claims handled, days from receipt to payment, and late-interest exposure. Continue, expand or end.
Questions for your attorney
We bring this list to the first meeting. The answers are your attorney's, not ours.
- Which statute or ordinance sets your payment deadline and late interest, for goods and services and for public works.
- Whether a software agreement with no fee needs a procurement step or an action of the board.
- How an Early Pay rebate is recorded, and whether a resolution is needed to run the program.
- How payments made with federal awards or bond proceeds are treated.
- Records: retention, open-records requests, and your ownership of the approval and payment data.
Where it works
Intake, approvals, the docket, payment runs, the ledger and the vendor portal work for a local government in any state. The statutory clock is written state by state, from the statute.
If your state is not listed, join the list and name it. Until its clock is written, the module counts the approval and payment periods your government sets.
Where things stand
The module is built and tested with simulated payments. A first live payment follows your attorney's review and your bank's test of the payment files. The card payout path has run with simulated payouts only, is switched off and is not part of a payment run. The sanctions screen is built and runs against a test list until a screening provider is connected.
Start with one department
Join the list as a government and tell us your state. We answer with the attorney questions and a proposed pilot for your finance office to consider.