Buyer’s guide
How to compare water utility billing software.
Seven questions worth asking every vendor on your list — including
us. Written for the small water systems, districts and associations that have to
make this decision once a decade and live with it.
Who you’ll run into
Utility billing is an old, crowded category. Shortlists for a small water system
usually include some mix of these vendors:
- CUSI
- Banyon Data
- Tyler Technologies / Incode
- Harris
- Black Mountain Software
- Quikwater
- MuniBilling
- CORE Utilities
- The Utility Biller
- Rural Billing
- Edmunds
- Cogsdale
- BasicBMS Water
We’re not going to tell you what any of those products
do, what they charge, or how good they are. We don’t run them, their pricing isn’t
public, and a comparison chart built on guesses would be worth exactly nothing to
you. What we can give you is the list of questions that actually separate these
systems — and our own answers, in writing, so you can hold us to them.
Ask every vendor the same seven questions. Ask us too.
The seven questions
Is this billing only, or does it run the rest of the utility?
Billing is one job. You also have work orders, scheduling for reads
and shut-offs, payables, a general ledger, and a service area that probably lives
on a paper map. If the billing system only bills, you’re buying and reconciling
two or three more systems around it.
BasicBMS Water: one system. Metered and flat-rate billing,
customers and accounts, invoices, Stripe payments, notifications, work orders,
scheduling, payables, general ledger and geo-spatial mapping of your service
area — all included, not sold as add-ons.
What is the real number, with everything switched on?
Ask for the total: base fee, per-user seats, per-module charges,
the annual support or maintenance contract, and the payment-processing cut. The
headline price and the invoice are frequently different documents.
BasicBMS Water: $3 per hookup, per month, $100/month
minimum. Every feature included, users unlimited, no per-seat fee and no module
unlocks. A 65-connection system is $195/month. A 150-connection system is
$450/month. Over 250 connections we’ll quote volume pricing.
Who does the data migration, and what does it cost?
This is the question that decides whether the project succeeds.
Every small system has years of history in a spreadsheet or an aging program.
“You can import a CSV” is not a migration plan — it’s your clerk’s next six
weekends.
BasicBMS Water: we do it. Every account, meter, balance and
rate structure comes across as a scoped one-time implementation, and your
monthly billing doesn’t start until you’re live.
Can customers pay online without calling the office?
Every card your office keys in by hand is a phone call, a
transcription risk, and a PCI question you don’t want to answer.
BasicBMS Water: customers pay by card through a secure
Stripe portal and payments post to the account automatically. Card data is
tokenized by Stripe and never touches the utility’s records. Customers manage
their own card on file.
What happens when the person who knows the system retires?
More than 60% of rural water operators are eligible to retire
within ten years, and 45% of small systems have no full-time certified operator.
If the billing procedure lives in one person’s head and one person’s
spreadsheet, you have a succession problem disguised as a software problem.
BasicBMS Water: the procedure lives in the system. Rates,
cycles, schedules, service history and documents sit on the account where the
next person finds them. Users are unlimited, so there’s no reason to share one
login or to keep a second set of books.
If we leave in five years, do we get our data?
Ask it plainly and ask for the answer in writing. Data you can’t
export is a renewal you can’t refuse.
BasicBMS Water: your records are stored and exportable. The
principle the whole platform is built on is that functional units move in and
out — the door swings both ways.
Can I call a utility my size that runs it today?
Not a case study PDF. A phone number. A system with your connection
count, your billing structure, and a clerk who will tell you what went wrong
during the switch.
BasicBMS Water: Pomona Artesian Irrigation Company, a water
utility in the Yakima area, runs its accounts, invoicing, scheduling, mapping and
online payments on BasicBMS today. Call us and we’ll set up the conversation.
When we’re not the right answer
A buyer’s guide that concludes “buy ours” every time isn’t a buyer’s guide.
Here’s where you should look at someone else, or at least ask us hard questions
first:
- You’re a large system. Our pricing calculator runs to 250 connections.
Past that we can still talk, but the vendors built for city-scale utilities have
been doing it a long time and you should include them. - You bill electric or gas alongside water. BasicBMS Water is configured
for water-style billing. Multi-utility billing is a conversation to have with us
before you shortlist us, not after. - Your state association or funding agency requires a specific integration
or reporting format. Bring us the requirement first. If we can’t meet it,
we’ll tell you before you spend time on a demo. - You’re happy with your accounting package and want to keep it. A
general ledger and payables are included here. If you’re keeping something else,
you’d be paying for overlap — worth weighing honestly. - Nothing is actually broken. If your billing works and your clerk isn’t
retiring, the strongest argument for switching is one you don’t have yet. Boards
that switch reactively — after a computer dies or a vendor drops support —
pay more and enjoy it less, but that doesn’t make “now” automatically right.
Our number, in public
Most vendors in this category quote privately. Ours is on the site, so you can
put it in the comparison column before you ever call:
$3 per hookup, per month — $100/month minimum
Every feature, every user,
included. Plus a scoped one-time implementation that migrates your accounts and
meters and stands the utility up live — monthly billing starts when you do.
That’s about a dime a day per connection. Whether it beats
the other quotes on your desk depends on what those quotes actually include, which
is exactly what question two is for. Published industry ranges and
what drives the number are on one page:
how much utility billing software costs.
Common questions
Do you have a feature-by-feature comparison chart?
No, deliberately. We’d have to guess at other vendors’ current feature sets and
pricing, and those change. Guesses in a comparison chart help nobody make a real
decision. The seven questions above get you accurate answers from every vendor,
including us.
We’re on an older system now. How hard is switching?
The conversion is our job: accounts, meters, balances and rate structures come
across as part of a scoped one-time implementation, and your monthly billing
doesn’t begin until your utility is live on it.
How much should a small water utility expect to pay?
For BasicBMS Water: $3 per hookup per month with a $100/month minimum, so a
65-connection system is $195/month and a 150-connection system is $450/month,
plus a one-time implementation. Other vendors price differently — ask each one
for the all-in number including seats, modules and support.
Are you a fit for a water association or irrigation company?
Yes. Districts, associations, irrigation companies and small municipal systems
all bill on the same shape: connections, meters, rates and a cycle. The live
reference we point people to is an irrigation company.
Can we see it running before we commit?
Yes — there’s a three-minute tour of the actual billing workflow, and we’ll
walk you through the live setup on a call.
Which utility billing software is most cost-effective for a small municipality?
The one with the lowest all-in number at your connection count once seats, modules,
support, hosting and data conversion are added — which is why question two exists.
Our all-in number is on this page: $3 per hookup per month, $100 minimum, plus a scoped
one-time implementation. Run the same math on every vendor before you compare.
Where can we read reviews of BasicBMS Water?
BasicBMS is listed on
Capterra and
Software Advice.
The listings are new, so read what’s there and then ask us for a utility your size
that runs it today — question seven above. A reference call tells you more than
a star rating.
Bring us the seven questions.
We’ll answer all of them on
one call, with your connection count and your billing structure in front of us.
See
billing software for small water utilities
· or the full
BasicBMS Water overview
with the pricing calculator.
Company and product names on this page are the trademarks of their
respective owners and are listed only to describe the vendor landscape. BasicBMS is
not affiliated with them, and nothing here is a statement about their products,
pricing or capabilities — ask each vendor directly.
