Paying Your JBWD Water Bill

When mailing your payment, please make your check payable to: 

JUNIPER BEACH WATER DISTRICT 

and be sure to address it to:  

Water Bill Processing, JBWD

King Water Services

PO Box 915

Coupeville  WA  98239

PLEASE NOTE DUE DATE AND LATE PAYMENT INFORMATION ON FRONT OF BILL. 

Don't forget to sign up for EyeOnWater. 

With our smart meter technology and easy-to-use online portal, you can monitor your water use, detect unusual spikes that may indicate a leak, and avoid costly surprises.  Sign up now: visit the EyeOnWater submenu under Customer Resources on our website.

Effective October 25, 2024, the online payment system was decommissioned.

In our continued efforts to enhance the services we provide to you, Juniper Beach Water District initially implemented online bill payments as an additional convenience.  Due to unforeseen complexities and the time-intensive process of reconciling reports, we regret to inform you that we discontinued the online payment option for credit/debit cards and ACH (electronic checks).

The complexity of utilizing an online payment system led to reconciliation difficulties. This process involved multiple entities that don't inherently work together: El Dorado software for billing, CreativeTech for software support, Intuity for the payment website, Elavon for payment processing, and Heritage Bank for deposits.

Reconciliation requires generating and comparing reports from Intuity, Elavon, El Dorado, QuickBooks, and the Island County Treasurer’s Office. This is time-consuming, as evidenced by the six hours it took to reconcile only fifteen payments in September 2024. The main issue is the mismatched dates of charges, payment processing, payouts, and bank settlements across these reports.

Despite only 9% of customers using online payments, the reconciliation process is already arduous. If online payment adoption increased, the current system would be unsustainable due to the additional time and effort required for reconciliation.

As  special purpose water district, all JBWD funds are received and disbursed by Island County, as mandated by state law. We apologize for any inconvenience caused by these necessary changes and appreciate your understanding as we work to provide efficient and cost-effective services.

Online Payments vs. Restaurant Orders

Essentially, the online payment system is like a restaurant kitchen with a disorganized staff. Everyone's working hard, but the lack of coordination and clear communication makes it difficult to get things done efficiently.  Imagine a bustling restaurant kitchen where everyone's busy but nobody's in charge. That's kind of what's happening with online payments. Let's break it down:

• You pay your water bill online: You go to a website (pay.waterbill.com) powered by Intuity to make a payment. Think of Intuity as the waiter taking your order.

• Intuity sends your payment to be processed: Elavon is like the cook – they take your payment and process it. But they don't prepare each order individually; they bundle them together every few days.

• Elavon sends the bundled payments to the bank: Elavon sends the bundled payments to Heritage Bank, where Island County keeps its money. It's like the cook sending a tray of food to the kitchen counter, but without saying which order is which.

• The money arrives, but nobody knows where it came from: Heritage Bank receives the money, but all they see is a bunch of payments with no names attached, just a JBWD account number. Imagine a tray of food with no names on the orders!  The tray has a label, but not the orders!

• Island County tries to figure out who paid what: The Island County Treasurer's Office is like the restaurant manager. They get a report of all the money that came in, but they need to figure out which customer paid what and to whose account to credit.

• JBWD needs to match payments with customers: To do this, JBWD needs to look at reports from Intuity (the waiter), Elavon (the cook), the billing software El Dorado (the order pad), and JBWD’s accounting software QuickBooks (the cash register). Then a comparison is done of all of this to the Treasurer's report. Imagine the manager, waiter, cook, and cashier all comparing notes to figure out who paid for what!Subsequently, a comprehensive comparison is conducted between all aforementioned financial records and the Treasurer's report.  Envision a collaborative effort among the manager, waiter, cook, and cashier, as they meticulously compare their respective notes to ascertain the precise allocation of payments.

The problem: Each step in this process happens at a different time. You might pay your bill on the 1st, but Elavon might not process it until the 3rd, and Heritage Bank might not record it until the 5th. AND, Island County only sends reports once a month!  This makes it very difficult to match payments with customers, especially when all these different systems don't talk to each other directly.

Why it matters: This complicated process takes a lot of time and effort. In September, it took six hours to reconcile just fifteen payments! This is a big problem because it wastes time and resources that could be used for other things.