The City of Ripon will look locally before deciding on a vendor to setup credit card payments for handling utilities payments.

Last week, the Ripon City Council gave direction for City Clerk Lisa Roos to contact some of the local vendors.

“There are many vendors, and some (will) need the payments to be manually entered into our records,” she said.

Roos indicated that the companies that she’s looked into must have a program that will integrate with the city’s accounting software.

Thus far, she’s looked into some of the bigger companies such as Official Payments, Billing Document Specialist (BDS), and Express Bill Pay (XBP).

“BDS and SBP both mesh with our system and the payments would have to be entered manually,” said Roos, who had recommended BDS based on cost.

An example of that cost was a one-time fee of $3,450. The monthly fee is $110 while the automated bank bill check is 10 cent each.

As for customers, they would be accountable for 3 percent of the payment or $2, whichever is greater.

Councilman Dean Uecker, however, requested looking locally before making a decision.

“Have you approached any of the local businesses for this service?” he asked.

Roos indicated she had not.

Council agreed to bring back information on local vendors at a future meeting.