Every year, the Municipality of Venlo sends out 13,000 invoices and assessments. Since January 2025, the municipality has been using Unit4’s ERPx with PayByLink as its payment solution. Ivo Oudenhoven, Team Coordinator of Administration at the Municipality of Venlo, explains: “Our primary goal was to improve payment convenience, and we’re now seeing that invoices are paid faster and more often online.”
Ivo was involved in the tendering and implementation process: “We saw this as an opportunity to critically review our processes and identify areas for improvement. One of our key opportunities was to enhance payment convenience, which we included in our list of requirements. With our previous accounting system, we could only apply payment links to digital documents. With PayByLink, we can now also offer payment links via QR codes on printed invoices and assessments.”
The Municipality of Venlo applies payment links to all 13,000 annual invoices and assessments: “This includes public-law charges such as fees and permits, and civil-law documents like the rental of (sports) facilities and waste collection. For every product billed to citizens or organizations, we now use PayByLink.”
PayByLink as an extension of Unit4
Wilfried Teunissen, Director Sales Continental Europe – Public Sector at Unit4, explains why Unit4 enjoys working with PayByLink as an addition to ERPx: “Our system is designed to easily integrate with other solutions. For a specific niche like payment link solutions, we prefer to work with a strong partner. PayByLink is a great match in terms of functionality, technical compatibility, and company culture: approachable, hands-on, and professional.”
“An easy opportunity for municipalities to improve payment convenience.”
More convenience, faster payments
The top priority for the municipality was improving payment convenience—and that’s exactly what happened, says Ivo: “Nobody enjoys paying bills, so as a service-oriented organization, we want to make it as easy as possible. And we’ve succeeded. We’re seeing a significant increase in payments via QR codes and payment links. This is compared to the same period last year. This proves that our customers appreciate the ease. Currently, 13% of invoices and assessments are paid using these methods, and payments are coming in faster. On top of that, we also spend less time on debtor management.”
An easy win for municipalities
“We see this solution as an easy win for municipalities to improve payment convenience for residents, businesses, and other institutions,” Ivo continues. “Unit4 and PayByLink are a great fit. They think along with you and prepare thoroughly. The implementation took us just a week.” Wilfried concludes: “This three-way collaboration with the municipality and PayByLink is exactly how we envision our platform being used at Unit4. We’re thrilled to work with forward-thinking clients like the Municipality of Venlo—and with experts like PayByLink who continue to deliver future-proof solutions that meet all standards and requirements.”
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