City Gives 23,000 Utility Accounts a Better Way to Pay

Organization Profile

• Industry: Municipal
• Location: Pharr, Texas
• Number of Employees: 700+
• Population Served: 80,000
• Tyler Client Since: 1987
• Tyler Products Used: ERP Pro, Municipal Justice, Content Manager, My Civic, Notify
• Tyler Excellence Award Category: Civic Interaction & Public Trust

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Challenges

The city of Pharr sits along the Rio Grande in deep southern Texas, serving 23,000 utility accounts across its 80,000 residents. An international bridge connecting Pharr to Reynosa, Mexico, contributes to the city’s strong Mexican-American culture. “This is home,” said Utility Billing Supervisor Luis Cardenas, who has worked for the city for 12 years.

For Pharr’s utility department, managing the large volume of accounts had become a strain. When Cardenas joined the department in 2014, processes were largely manual. Meter recheck reports were recorded on carbon copy receipt paper — customer name, meter number, and readings were all documented by hand. Field crews drove to the office to pick up printed service orders, completed them, and drove back. Before the city had an online portal, residents had limited options to pay their utility bills. “It was just phone payments and in-office payments,” Cardenas said.

With 23,000 accounts and no self-service option, the lobby reflected the workload. “Back in the day, we had maybe five cashiers. Once you came in for the day, it was non-stop,” he said. “Imagine having to wait in a long line just to get a copy of a bill that you could’ve gotten at home.”

Solution

Cardenas progressed through Pharr’s utility department as a billing coordinator, then supervisor, before becoming the manager — he had done the manual work himself. “We needed a modern, digital solution to automate billing, improve accuracy, and enhance customer service for our community,” Cardenas said. When the city modernized their ERP Pro system, the difference was immediate. The new system was intuitive and powerful, with flexible search and filtering that replaced the rigid, case-sensitive lookups of the older software. Training took a day or two. “That was enough for me,” Cardenas said. “I understood it that same day.”

Meter rechecks — the process of identifying and correcting problem reads before billing — had consumed a day and a half under the old system. With their modern ERP Pro system, the same work takes less than an hour. “Everything is spreadsheet-based, where we can just filter and look at the consumptions, delete the ones that really don’t have to be sent out to recheck, and then we just give the field technicians a copy,” he said. Service orders are now paperless. Field technicians receive them on tablets and complete them remotely. “It saves them time and gas from having to travel all the way to the office,” Cardenas said.

The city added Utility Access — a self-service portal that gives residents 24/7 access to view bills, make payments, and sign up for alerts — and promoted it to their customers. “We have it on the bills, we have social media,” Cardenas said. “And as they would come into the office and ask for payment options, a lot of them decided to register for the portal.”

Results

More than 7,000 customers — 30% of all accounts — are now registered on the self-service portal. Residents enrolled for email billing receive statements sooner. “They get them before the paper copies even arrive at home, so they already know what their balance is,” Cardenas said. Delinquent accounts, which spiked when disconnections were suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic, have been coming down as customers gain more ways to stay current.

At the utility office, the non-stop foot traffic has settled. “Sometimes when it does settle down, there might even be a 10- to 15-minute break,” Cardenas said. “On other days we’re like, ‘Wow, nobody’s in here.’” Monthly billing cycles are now completed in half the time, freeing staff to focus on proactive customer engagement.

Reporting that previously required manual archiving can now be pulled on demand — by account type, consumption level, aging balance, or custom criteria. Other city departments request utility data regularly, and it has proven to be more actionable. “The reporting features allow us to identify trends, manage delinquencies more efficiently, and make data-driven decisions for operational improvements,” he said.

Cardenas checks his own water bill through the portal. He said what the system provides — visibility, access, and options — is what the community needs. “Those 7,000 people can just log in and see what they owe,” he said. “Pharr is growing. It’s a great city. This project represents a major step toward our vision of modern, customer-centered service delivery. We’re proud of the positive impact it has made in creating a more efficient, responsive, and digitally connected utility department.”