High-tech bill payer expands to Southern Nevada

Grace Leong

Wednesday, June 21, 2000 | 11:12 a.m.

Henderson is gaining close to 500 high-tech jobs as CyberBills, a Santa Clara, Calif., online bill management provider, opens its first bill scanning and processing office in Nevada.

CyberBills says licking a stamp to send a bill or opening an envelop to see an invoice may become a thing of the past as billing management goes online.

CyberBills said its customers will be able to maintain total control over their finances, securely review and manage both their paper and electronic bills and sign up for automated bill payment services over the Internet.

Once a consumer or a company signs up for CyberBills' online bill management service, all their bills will be routed to its new 115,000 square-foot office in Henderson, where these will be opened, scanned and transmitted electronically via CyberBills' consumer bill payment website StatusFactory.com within 24 hours.

At capacity, the Henderson plant will be able to electronically scan two to three million paper bills daily. Its grand opening was Tuesday.

"A lot of companies are doing e-billing now. Banks for years have offered bill payment services. But they offer mostly electronic check payments, so you still receive paper bills," said John Simpson, CyberBills' chief executive and co-founder. "With our bill service, however, it's like having an administrative assistant take care of your bills for you."

He said the possibility of mix-ups occurring is minimal because the bills are handled by high-speed automated equipment. "The bills are marked and tracked at all times, so the chances of errors are minor."

Simpson said a growing labor force, favorable weather and low disaster rates are some of the reasons behind the company's move to Henderson.

The new jobs are mainly in bill processing and the rest in data entry, customer support, technical engineering and information technology research, he said, adding most of the workers will be hired locally.

"Henderson is one of the fastest growing cities. We need a large employment pool and quite a number of people are moving to this city on a monthly basis," Simpson said. "Another factor is the year-round weather. Since we receive mail year round, we need to make certain the airport remains open year-round too.

"The company will also be providing electronic bill presentment payment services for small businesses to outsource their accounts payables," Simpson said.

CyberBills' services are available through banks, brokerage firms, technology companies and financial and e-commerce portals.

"AOL (America Online) will be selling several of CyberBills' services in its product offering, including bill presentment payment," he said.

He added several banks are in the midst of signing up for CyberBills' services, but declined to reveal further details.