Water Utility Billing

Part of the worlds-biggest-software-project initiative.

An open-source, AI-native billing platform that automates the meter-to-cash cycle for water utilities of every size.

Water Utility Billing is a complete billing and customer information system for water utilities -- from small rural water districts to mid-sized municipalities. It handles meter reading ingestion, tiered rate calculation, invoice generation, payment processing, and delinquency management in a single platform, replacing the patchwork of paper routes, spreadsheets, and legacy COBOL systems that many utilities still depend on.

Why Water Utility Billing?

No open-source alternative exists. Every water utility billing product on the market is proprietary commercial software. Rural districts and small municipalities have no budget-friendly, community-driven option and are locked into vendor pricing with limited negotiating power.
Legacy systems drive high operational costs. Many utilities still rely on manual meter-reading routes, hand-calculated bills, and mailed statements, leading to billing errors, delayed revenue, and unnecessary labour costs.
Incumbent pricing excludes small utilities. Enterprise CIS platforms like Oracle CC&B require 12-36 month implementations and enterprise-level budgets. Even mid-market SaaS products start at ~$999/month, which is prohibitive for districts with fewer than 500 connections.
AMI interoperability is fragmented. Each AMI vendor uses proprietary data formats with no universal open API standard for water meter data, forcing utilities to pay for vendor-specific integrations.
AI capabilities are emerging but not standard. Only one surveyed vendor (Bynry) offers AI-driven anomaly detection and generative AI for reporting. The rest of the market has not yet adopted these capabilities, leaving an opportunity for an AI-native platform built from the ground up.

Key Features

Meter Reading & Data Ingestion

Mobile meter-reading app for field staff with route sequencing and exception flagging
AMI/AMR integration for automated ingestion of smart meter reads via API or file import
Meter data validation with estimated reads, rejected reads, and auditable override history
Support for multiple AMI head-end vendors (Sensus, Itron, Neptune, Badger, Landis+Gyr, Mueller, Master Meter)

Billing & Rate Engine

Configurable tiered, flat-rate, inclining-block, seasonal, and budget-billing rate structures
Multi-service billing -- water, sewer, and stormwater on a single invoice
Base charges, consumption charges, taxes, and sewer add-ons calculated automatically per account class
Sub-meter assignment and deduction for complex service configurations

Customer & Account Management

Customer profiles with service-point linkage, deposits, ownership transfers, and correspondence history
Customer self-service portal for viewing bills, usage history, making payments, and enrolling in autopay
Online payment via credit card, ACH, and e-check through a hosted payment page (PCI-DSS compliant)
Electronic bill presentment and delivery via email, SMS, and portal

Delinquency & Collections

Automated penalty calculation on overdue balances
Delinquency notice generation with configurable notice periods
Disconnect-order scheduling with regulatory compliance rules (medical-hardship exemptions, seasonal moratoriums)
Reconnect fee processing and lien management

Reporting & Integration

Core reports: aged receivables, revenue summaries, consumption by account, and regulatory submissions
GL posting of billing transactions and accounts-receivable sync
GIS linkage for service-point mapping and work-order generation
Data export in standard formats for auditing and regulatory compliance

AI-Native Advantage

Water Utility Billing is designed from the ground up to leverage AI where incumbents cannot. Usage-anomaly detection analyses interval meter data to identify leaks, meter faults, and potential tampering before bills are sent -- automatically notifying customers of suspected issues. Predictive delinquency scoring prioritises collection outreach by identifying at-risk accounts before balances become unrecoverable. Generative AI drafts regulatory reports from billing data and produces customer communications for high-bill alerts, disconnect notices, and conservation tips, reducing administrative burden across the organisation.

Tech Stack & Deployment

The platform targets self-hosted and cloud deployment models, making it accessible to utilities with varying IT capabilities. The billing engine supports configurable rate structures without code changes via a rules engine or rate-builder UI. AMI integration uses adapter-based architecture to support multiple meter vendor formats. Payment processing relies on tokenisation and hosted payment pages to minimise PCI-DSS compliance scope. Time-series data strategies address the high-volume interval data generated by smart meters (reads as frequent as every 15 minutes across thousands of meters).

Market Context

The water utility billing software market in 2026 includes more than 50 products listed on Capterra and GetApp, ranging from hosted solutions for rural co-ops to enterprise CIS platforms for large municipal authorities. Pricing spans from month-to-month subscriptions (WUBS for rural districts) through mid-market SaaS at ~$999/month (AMCS) to enterprise-only contracts (Oracle, VertexOne). Primary buyers are municipal water departments, rural water districts, and regional water authorities seeking to modernise aging billing infrastructure.

Project Status

This project is in the research and specification phase.
Contributions, feedback, and domain expertise are welcome.

Contributing

We welcome contributions from developers, domain experts, and potential users. See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.

Important: All contributions must be your own original work or clearly attributed open-source material with a compatible licence. Copyright infringement and licence violations will not be tolerated and will result in immediate removal of the offending contribution. If you are unsure whether a piece of code, text, or other material is safe to contribute, open an issue and ask before submitting.

Licence

Licence to be determined. See discussion for context.