To help both the firms that subscribe to the service and the governments that offer them, ACOL has a highly functional bill and financial-services component known as the Business Office. It's an aspect of electronic commerce that other applications often overlook, said Gary Kelly, Unisys' ACOL business manager. It's what makes the back-office component superior to others. The system's fee collection and disbursement services are a key aspect of this back-end operation. All financial activity, such as charges for searches and fees for transactions, are captured and recorded in an Oracle database.
Clients can review and print their account statements at any time.
For those folks with problems using the service, ACOL's Client Support Centre is only a toll-free phone call away. ACOL's newest service is the Driver Abstract Insurance Service, which allows insurance brokers to check a driver's record when their auto insurance comes up for renewal. Currently operating in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, the service has proven very popular with firms, such as Vaughne Insurance, a brokerage firm based in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. As a result, we have cut the overall processing time for renewing insurance from five days to less than three. But as Frotten points out, his company can determine if there is a problem with the renewal more quickly and can bill faster, resulting in better cash flow.