County approves PayIt payments platform, waives integration fee and budgets $7,000 start-up equipment cost
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Summary
Commissioners approved a contract with PayIt to accept card and ACH payments across county departments, with startup equipment cost of $7,000 and standard per-transaction fees passed to payors; integration fee was waived.
McPherson County commissioners on April 21 authorized a contract with PayIt to provide a unified web- and mobile-based payment platform for county departments.
Jeff Butler, county IT coordinator, said the vendor will handle PCI compliance and host services on Amazon Web Services GovCloud; PayIt waived an implementation/integration fee in exchange for collecting per-transaction fees. Butler told the board there would be no recurring integration cost and that PayIt currently serves other Kansas counties.
Under the agreement presented, point-of-sale terminals cost about $500 apiece and departments that need them plan to purchase the devices from their own budgets. Transaction fees proposed to be charged to payors are $2 per card transaction plus 2.5% of the card amount; ACH payments would be $1.25 per transaction. Butler said PayIt will handle chargebacks and charge a $10 processing fee in those cases.
Commissioners authorized the chairman to sign the contract and approved an initial one-time equipment payment of $7,000 to cover terminals and rollout costs; departments will fund terminal purchases from internal budgets. Butler said the rollout will be phased and will initially exclude planning and zoning because of a larger integration requirement.
Why it matters: County offices without card acceptance will be able to accept online and in-person card and ACH payments, which county staff said will reduce customer inconvenience and improve reconciliation processes.
Ending: Butler said department staff had positive feedback on the rollout plan; the contract was approved by voice vote and staff will proceed with implementation steps.
