Safaricom has introduced a service that will help landlords, schools and other businesses to automate bill payments dubbed – MPESA Bill Manager. The new service will provide a platform for institutions as well as businesses to issue electronic receipts, a single point where they can view bills, receive reminders and automate payment of bills.
Institutions such as schools will be able to customize different types of fees including tuition, school trips, lunch and transport among others. The management can also decide to automate fee reminders to parents or guardians. Management of fees in schools has remained complex even though most institutions have already automated major functions. The MPESA Bill manager will alleviate most problems associated with manual fee management.
On the other hand, landlords and agents can issue rent payment reminders to tenants and reconcile such payments once they’ve been made on the MPESA Bill Manager. Additionally, utility providers such as internet and water will have an opportunity to automatically bill customers when their payments are due, including viewing and managing pending bills.
Speaking on the new service, Safaricom’s CEO Peter Ndegwa said the MPESA Bill Manager will empower may Kenyan businesses such as schools and landlords in digitizing their businesses beyond just payment collections. Ndegwa added the service will enable these businesses to keep records by issuing digital receipts for each payment made. He further acknowledged the telco’s ambition was to empower customers with a means to easily manage and keep track of payments.
Payments received through the service will be reconciled with an option to manually add more payments. When a customer makes a payment, they’ll receive an SMS reminder whenever a new bill is generated or when the next bill is due.
How to access MPESA Bill Manager
MPESA Bill Manager will be available to all businesses using Lipa na MPESA service free of charge. The platform can be accessed by logging into the following link;
Link: https://billmanager.m-pesaforbusiness.co.ke
Additionally, text messages of bills and invoices will be generated and sent by the platform to customers at no additional cost.
MPESA Bill Mnager can also be accessed using a USSD Option by dialing *334#, then selecting Bill Manager Option under Lipa na MPESA. Since the platform will automate every bit of bill payment, customers won’t have to queue physically to make these payments and later be compelled to present paper work confirming the same.