Catbalogan Water District

Catbalogan Water District always finds new innovative ways to increase work efficiency to help bring a much better service to its customer. We make it to a point that we are abreast with the new technology and its advantages it offers.

Read and Bill Technology is one of the new technologies that utilities use. This system uses a meter reading device and a portable thermal printer, for CWD we use PSION Workabout and Extech thermal printer.

The Meter Reading Cycle:

The meter reading device is attached to the PC that contains the Billing and Collection system for the uploading process. This process will capture customer information like, customer name, account number, previous reading, due date, sequence number, etc. After the uploading the device is now ready for the actual reading.

During reading, the meter reading device is attached to the thermal printer. The device is equipped with a program that will automatically compute the consumption and bill amount after entering the new actual reading. A print out of the statement of account will be produced on the spot.

The device can also record field findings and remarks for the current status of water meters. Actual time of reading for each household, the number of tries of reading entry, and the number of printed statement of account were also recorded.

After the completion of the meter reading, the device will be connected to the PC that contains the billing and collection system for the downloading process. This process will download/transfer customer's new billing information from the device to the customer's ledger in the billing and collection system.

The advantages:

It eliminates the typing / encoding of readings
Meter readers need not to return to the reading route to distribute the bills
Field findings and remarks were recorded hence making a fast action for maintenance and repair
The device prompts for unusual consumption, limiting misreading and can easily checks if there are leakages