Hornsby Shire Council
Direct to Bank BPAY Refunds
Customer Profile
Hornsby Shire Council is a large local government area in northern Sydney, New South Wales, delivering a broad range of services to residents, including payment processing, bookings, and customer service operations. Hornsby Shire Council streamlined their refund process for BPAY payments, reducing administration, minimising risk, and accelerating turnaround times.
Handling a high volume of transactions across multiple services, the council must ensure that financial processes such as refunds are accurate, efficient, and secure. Managing refunds for BPAY payments in particular can be complex, often requiring manual intervention and additional processing steps.
To maintain service quality and reduce operational strain, the council sought a more efficient and reliable approach to handling these transactions.
Watch the case study
Why Watch This Case Study
This case study is particularly relevant for organisations looking to:
- Streamline financial and refund processes
- Reduce manual handling of payment reversals
- Minimise risk in financial operations
- Improve processing speed and accuracy
- Leverage reporting to drive operational efficiencies
Council's Challenge
Refunding BPAY payments is typically more complex than standard payment methods, often requiring manual processing and additional validation steps.
Key challenges included:
- Manual administration of refund requests
- Increased risk of errors in processing
- Longer turnaround times for customers
- Limited visibility across refund workflows
- Operational inefficiencies for finance and customer service teams
This created delays for customers and added pressure on internal teams.
The Approach
The Approach
Hornsby Shire Council implemented a more efficient refund process using Attekus Bookable’s Standard Reports functionality to identify, manage, and process BPAY transactions more efficiently.
The approach included:
- Leveraging reporting to identify and manage BPAY transactions
- Enabling direct-to-bank refunds via bank reversal processes
- Reducing the need for manual handling and intervention
- Creating a more streamlined and controlled workflow
This allowed the council to handle refunds more efficiently while maintaining accuracy and compliance.
The Results
The improved process delivered clear operational and customer benefits:
- Reduced administrative workload through automated reporting and streamlined refund workflows
- Lower risk in financial processing
- Faster turnaround times for refunds
- Improved efficiency in handling BPAY transactions
- Greater confidence in financial workflows
Key Learnings
Even highly specific operational processes can benefit from targeted optimisation.
Hornsby Shire Council showed that:
- Leveraging existing data and reporting tools can unlock efficiency
- Simplifying financial workflows reduces both risk and effort
- Small process improvements can have a significant impact at scale
What’s Next
With a more streamlined refund process in place, Hornsby Shire Council can:
- Continue optimising financial workflows
- Apply similar approaches to other transaction types
- Further enhance customer experience through faster processing
Talk to the people who care about the experience you deliver.
If you’re looking to:
- Consolidate bookings across teams and venues
- Improve payment flexibility and reduce refund friction
- Strengthen governance and reporting without adding admin
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