License Software
Business License Software For Communities that Care
Whether for business or other licensing needs, we provide a solution that's easy to use and helps you grow a resilient community
Streamline Your Licensing Process With GovPossible
Stay in control of municipal activities and improve your economic development with reliable software that cares for your community as much as you do.
Features
What Make Us Different
Your Community CRM
GovPossible encourages the reuse of addresses, parcels, contacts, and businesses so you can see the rich connections within your business community, like a person’s business history, what one landlord manages the most properties, or to what locations a business has relocated over time.
Rich Calculation Capability
Running complicated multi-tiered calculations is no problem in GovPossible. The system also shows you the math, giving you piece of mind that the calculation is running correctly as well as educating the customer on the calculation process.
Guided Licensing
Use data provided by the customer to help ensure the right license type is selected. For example, if your licensing is driven by NAICS codes, you can search through the code description to choose the correct code and then have the appropriate license types displayed to you, helping make the application process faster, reduce errors, and eliminate the need to send customers revised calculations.
Charge Optional/Up-Front Fees
If you have additional fees for your licensing, GovPossible has you covered Whether your licensing process includes required fees like an application fee in addition for new users, or optional fees like a decal fee per truck, you can tie it all into the license.
Workflow Automation: Track The Approval Process
If the license requires one or more approvals prior to issuance, it’s not a problem. Select the appropriate tasks that need to be performed and GovPossible will alert the necessary staff of a new task assignment and then let the issuer know the result. You can also perform more complex workflows if multiple steps are required.
Customizable Printable Licenses
Your licenses in storefronts and above registers is a reflection of your community and we pride ourselves on making your license look great and include your logo or seal. From half-page printouts to full-page 8.5×14, we can provide the license to fit your current style and delivery methods. And like our renewals, they are formatted for easy insertion into windowed envelopes for mailing, if needed. If you change your logo or need to update a signature, no problem! Those changes are included as part of your annual subscription.
Easy Renewal Processing
Estimator Tool
When someone comes in wondering what it will cost to get a license, there’s no need to create a dummy account. A license estimator is built-in.
Customizable Renewal and Expiration Periods
Whether it’s a fixed annual renewal, a floating one based on application date, a monthly renewal, or something entirely different, we have you covered!
Auto-renewing
For any renewing licenses, GovPossible auto-creates the renewal on the date of your choosing. Wake up the next morning with all your renewals setup so you’re ready to go into action! The renewal form can be tailored to the information needed by your particular jurisdiction. The renewal period is completely custom to you as well.
Easy Renewal Form Delivery
Whether you’re completely in the digital age, still do things by hand, or are somewhere in between, we have your covered. If you mail renewals to your constituents, your renewal form is designed to print easily into batches and print so that you can use a windowed envelope; no need to print and stick on a separate set of labels! If you use a printer to fulfill your delivery needs you can easily export all the necessary data. Of course, if you’re partially or fully digital, you can also choose to email renewals to your licensees.
Online Renewals
GovPossible includes the ability for licensees to pay online as well! After creating their account, they can tie multiple license records to it, so if they have multiple businesses they can pay them all at one time. GovPossible provides online support to your users to assist with any payment or renewal issues, reducing your staff overhead.
Delinquency Management
Customizable Late Fee Structures
No matter the structure, GovPossible can set up the late fee structure you need. Late fees are automatically applied on the correct timeline. You can also easily post a payment as of a specific date to apply the appropriate late fee or waive the fee altogether, if warranted.
Delinquency Letters Built-In
Your delinquency letter can be customized to you. Like all our notices, they are meant for easy insertion to windowed envelopes or can be emailed.
Assessment Process
If your jurisdiction has an assessment process for unreported renewals, you can run it through GovPossible. Have the system auto-assess based on past reporting and adjust that reported amount by a percentage. You can also provide a minimum assessment amount. Assessment letters and a built-in workflow are also included so you can track the process through enforcement.
Streamlined Checkout Process
Whether processing a single new license or multiple renewals, we make Revenue Collections a breeze.
Integrated Credit Card Processing
Accept credit cards as well as Google Android Checkout and Apple pay without having to double-enter the total due into the credit card payment system.
Cart-Based Checkout
Whether it’s another license, a miscellaneous charge, or an item from one of our other modules, you can easily continue to add multiple transactions to a single checkout.
Flexible Adjustment Processes
Ever get that check that’s just a couple of dollars off? With GovPossible, you can adjust one or more line-items as necessary to reconcile discrepancies with mailed in checks. Process a mix of tender types at checkout. If the difference is just too much, we have built-in balance-due letters and check refund requests so you can collect or return the difference.
Receipt Printing & Check Endorsement
Automatically print receipts to a designated printer on checkout. Municipalities with EPSON receipt printers with check endorsement capabilities can also endorse incoming checks to streamline the balancing process.
Reporting Made Easy
Automated Reporting to You (Or Your Boss)
Why waste your time having to build reports yourself each day/week/month to share? GovPossible automates the reporting process by providing:
- Daily Revenue Actvity: Quickly update your finance folks on what was taken in, by GL Account and Tender Type
- Daily & Monthly License Activity: Every morning, see what was collected and which new businesses applied, who renewed, and who closed.
- Weekly New Business Alerts: Leverage your economic development and elected officials to create a welcoming business environment by sharing new business data.
Ad-Hoc Reporting
Additionally, we have a number of reports available on an ad-hoc basis, including:
- Business Listings: Easily export and share business listings based on status and NAICS Codes
- License Activity: Get a breakdown of license activity by license type, and revenue or count.
- Revenue Activity: Report on revenue collections by license type, tender, and/or G/L Account.
All our reports are exportable to csv so you can slice and dice them as you’d like!
Enhance Your Business Community
Part of a robust community development strategy includes a healthy business environment. GovPossible helps you enhance your community’s business-friendliness.
7x24 Availability
Having payment options online for your community allows you to be available to them any time, seven days a week so your constituents can work with you when it’s best for them.
Show You Care
A great way to show a business the community cares and is interested in their success is by making sure your elected officials and economic development staff get involved with them in their opening days. GovPossible has built-in weekly emails sharing which new businesses have received licenses so you can easily spread the word about new businesses and make them feel welcome
Give Local Businesses a Boost
With our built in business listing widget, you can tout your local businesses on a map on your website. Users can filter by category and then link to google maps to quickly get directions.
Security First
Our software integrates with Microsoft Office 365 so you can use your same Windows username and password. Your data is encrypted and systems separated from all other customers. PII data is encrypted at the field level and only visible to those with permissions.
IT Friendly
Many of our small municipalities don’t have any in-house information technology and let’s face it, that stuff can be scary and not in our job description! If you have an information technology department, they’re probably so busy with existing work it’s hard for them to add one more item to their plate.
We’ve been in local government IT for years and understand how difficult it can be. That’s why we try and keep it as easy as possible, doing as much of the work as you and your IT department are comfortable with and reviewing our progress with your IT folks so they feel kept in the loop. So whether you have a full IT team, or that is one of the many hats you have to wear to keep your organization afloat, we’ll work with you to make sure the process is as stress-free as possible.
White-Glove Implementation
Experience a software migration that feels like you’re the customer. Our implementation services are fixed price and include configuration, training, and data migration. If you don’t have IT or web staff (or you outsource and want to minimize charges), we’ll work with you to get GovPossible integrated into your website and with your Office 365 accounts (if desired) at no additional charge.
Integration
GovPossible provides financial transaction exports so revenue collected in your licensing system doesn’t need to be double-entered into the financial system. If our existing formats don’t work with your system, we’ll provide a customized export that does at no additional cost.
Staff Training
Of course the system includes comprehensive help files, but sometimes you just need to talk it through with a person.
Train-the-trainer is a nice idea if you have staff that’s naturally talented at teaching or if you have a training department, but the rest of the time it’s just an excuse for the vendor to spend less time with you.
Staff training is included as part of implementation and we’re always happy to get on with new staff to show them the ropes, or provide refresher training if it’s been a few months and you need help.
Want onsite training? No problem, we’d love to meet you! There’s no additional charge for onsite training, just cover our travel.
Frequently Asked Questions:
Many municipalities have revenue-generating programs for the purposes of registering and managing activities within their jurisdiction. These may include:
- Business Licenses: registration of businesses with revenue calculated by square footage, revenue, or employee headcount
- Fire Contracts: An agreement between the fire department and the property owner to supply protection on a subscription basis, normally instead of paying a larger charge if there’s an occurrence.
- Hospitality Tax: A regular surcharge as a percent of services, often added to sales tax, for establishments that serve food and beverages.
- Accommodations Tax: A regular surcharge as a percent of services, often added to sales tax, for establishments that provide lodging
- Hotel and Motel Licensing: Management of the businesses with commercial facilities purpose-built to provide lodging within the municipality.
- Rental Registration: Registration and management of landlords and property firms to track their activity and ownership within the municipality.
- Short-Term Rentals: Registration and management of homeowners and property management companies that provide properties for rent to short-term rental sites such as VRBO or AirBnb.
- Liquor Licenses: Registration and regulation of businesses granted the right to sell alcoholic beverages.
- Cannabis Licenses: Registration and regulation of businesses granted the right to sell products with THC, if allowed by state law, or of hemp-based products.
- Contractor’s Licenses: Tracking and licensing of various types of construction professionals, either individually, or as a firm.
- Yard Sale Permits: One-time registration of a yard sale tied to a particular parcel within the municipality.
- Parade/Event Permits: One-time registration for an event that may cause impact to municipal property or streets and/or may require an additional public safety response.
Business license software like GovPossible provides the municipalities with a place to track the registration and renewal process for these licenses, whether they renew monthly, annually, or are a one-time license!
Without licensing software, municipalities often resort to spreadsheets to keep track of their licensing. This present several problems:
- It’s easy to duplicate entries
- It’s hard to spot bad actors who report the same information each year
- Reporting is really hard!
- If you make a new copy each period, it’s easy to lose track of folks who haven’t reported in a few years
- The spreadsheet can get accidentally corrupted or deleted.
- Save Time During Renewal Season: Spreadsheets and Word to mail-merge renewals is a tedious and slow process. E-mail your businesses to save on postage and then easily mail the rest using a pre-printed form fit for windowed envelopes, or send all the pertinent information to a printer.
- Reduce Errors: Having credit cards and revenue collections integrated into the licensing system reduces double-entry, which means fewer errors each month for your finance folks to resolve later, and you spend less time tracking them down.
- Increase Revenue & Improve Cashflow: Having online and credit card options for payment improves collections both in terms of overall revenue as well as how quickly you’re able to collect that revenue.
- Improve Economic Development: Using our built-in tools you can notify the economic development and elected officials of new businesses, helping to create a more friendly and supportive community.
On-Premise
On-premise software usually is billed a higher up-front costs as well as an annual maintenance fee. In addition to the fee, the municipality has to purchase one or more servers and pay to have them maintained and kept up-to-date with backups and security patches. If the system allows for online payments, either the system and the municipal network need to be exposed to the internet or an additional annual fee is paid to host that portion in the cloud. Municipalities either need to have IT staff or pay for an IT consultant to help make sure this is managed appropriately in order to maintain PCI compliance. Implementation normally takes longer as there is an extra step where staff or the vendor need to buy equipment and install it onsite.
Cloud Based
Cloud-based software usually is billed with no up-front cost for the software itself (though there may still be a charge for implementation and training) and with a higher monthly or annual fee. In addition to the software costs, the annual fee covers the cost of internet bandwidth, backups, and servers, and maintenance. The systems are usually easier to implement as they can be setup quickly in the cloud. The municipality is also usually more secure as there isn’t a direct link between the online payment site and the town’s network.
One disadvantage to cloud-based software is that the municipality often shares servers with other Towns. This means that if they become a target, your performance and data may also be impacted.
GovPossible’s Approach
GovPossible is cloud-based software that hosts each municipality separately and implements a ‘share nothing’ approach with its payment portal. If hackers attack your payment site, they still don’t have access to your data. We believe this provides you with the best combination of security, resilience, and affordability