EBPP stands for Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment, which is a way for companies to bill and collect payments from customers over the internet. It can be direct or consolidated, with many-to-one transactions conducted through a website. Online bill payment and email reminders are common features, and it’s convenient for financial institutions as it allows for computerized monitoring and assimilation of transaction data.
Like the military, business also loves its acronyms. A popular acronym in the world of e-commerce is EBPP, which stands for Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment. That impressive-sounding title is really just a fancy way of describing how companies bill and collect from customers over the Internet.
As with many things these days, the Internet is the medium of choice when choosing your financial and transaction tracking methods. Ecommerce is popular, responsive, and powerful. So is EBPP.
This method of billing and collecting can take two distinct forms: direct and consolidated. The direct form of EBPP is a one-to-one transaction structure, whereby a company bills itself through its own website or another company’s site. It’s not the website that matters as much as the company that does the billing. The established form of EBPP involves a kind of electronic collection agency, which invoices a group of companies and then presents those invoices to a single customer for payment. The focus is on the many-to-one relationship, with transactions conducted through a website.
A great example of the established form of EBPP is paying bills online. Many of the larger financial institutions offer online bill payment for their customers. A user can, with several mouse clicks and a few keystrokes, pay a large variety of bills, such as telephone bill, electricity bill, car payment, rent, medical bills, and ISP bill.
A good example of the direct form of EBPP is a credit card company website, which offers online payment for debtor accounts. A user can access the website and schedule a credit card payment using the bank information already entered. This is a one to one relationship.
However, if you have two credit cards from the same provider, you can schedule payments for both credit cards at the same time on the same website during the same web session. When this happens, the card company’s web presence credit has moved into the consolidated territory of the EBPP. In this way, a website can use both forms of EBPP: direct and consolidated.
Many websites that offer online bill payments also offer email reminders of payments. This is the presentation part of EBPP. These email reminders can also be used for traditional paper payments.
Many websites that offer online bill payments also offer information download options, so users can keep copies of their online transactions on their PCs. Common download formats include Quicken, Quickbooks, Excel and CSV. EBPP is also convenient for financial institutions as it allows for computerized monitoring and assimilation of transaction data at lightning speed. Electronic invoice management can eliminate the need for paper documents, which saves a financial institution time and money.
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