INTEGRATED

Effective revenue management greatly facilitates financial sustainability in municipalities. As the system is mSCOA compliant, full and seamless integration is provided at the database level.
Traditionally, revenue management systems and valuation systems exist in isolation, even though they share much common data. The system overcomes
this by managing all data that originates from the valuation process as defined by the Municipal Property Rates Act. Surveyor-general cadastral, deeds and all spatial and other valuation related information such as properties, agricultural lands, structures, etc. are maintained by the system. This information includes, but is not limited to:

• Property (cadastral), including Description, Legal extent, Land use, Property category, Rate category, reductions and associated rate tariff;
• Ownership;
• Valuation, including Market value, Adjustment date, Exemptions, Rebates and Exclusions;
• Postal and Physical address;
• Assets;
• Water meters.

After processing deeds transfers or interim valuations, etc. PRIMS™ creates and updates properties and consumer accounts directly in the revenue management module, thus ensuring tight integration. Data quality is greatly enhanced as the system identifies data anomalies and provides exception reports.

SPATIAL ASSET REGISTER

PRIMS™ maintains the spatial asset dataset for all assets that have valid geocodes (latitude, longitude). The three spatial feature classes are supported (points, lines and polygons) and facilitates the visualization of assets in a geographical context. Assets are maintained in the appropriate feature class:

• Point features for meters, valves, signage, etc.;
• Line features for roads, pipelines, etc.;
• Polygon features for land, etc.

PRIMS™ integrates seamlessly (at the database level) with the Asset Register system and shows the location of all fixed assets in a GIS map. As assets are added to the asset register system, they are added to the spatial asset dataset at the click of a button. The spatial integration facilitates spatial analysis and exception reports provide for the reconciliation of investment properties between the asset register and the valuation roll. The Deeds tables provide easy ownership verification.

RATES

Rates revenue accounts for nearly a third of a local municipality’s income. What-if functionality predicts rates revenue for the following year and facilitates the determination of rates policy and rate tariffs. The system provides the facility to interrogate rates and rates history for a single property or for the entire municipality, by rate category or by ward

MUNICIPAL PROPERTY RATES ACT (MPRA)

The system provides for the preparation of general and supplementary valuation rolls, administrative schedules and the establishment and maintenance of the property register (maintained in an integrated geo-database) and calculation and maintenance of valuations, processing of objections and appeals and processing of all property transactions:

• Registrations and transfers;
• Cadastral changes, sub-divisions and consolidations;
• Changes in respect of section 78 and 79 of the MPRA;
• Sales.

Information is maintained in a secure relational database management environment providing for the history and audit requirements. The system records each general/supplementary valuation roll chronologically and provides a full transaction history of each property.

All the necessary statutory reports and letters are provided for including:

• General and Supplementary Valuation rolls;
• Administrative Schedules in terms of section 78 and 79;
• Letters in terms of sections 49, 78, 79, etc.

APPLICATIONS

Applications in terms of SPLUMA (Land Use and Building Control) are captured with the necessary workflow to delegate tasks to the appropriate officials and communicate milestones and approvals, thus facilitating the timely flow of information between the Municipality, Applicants and the Valuer. Approvals of land use applications and development applications are thus communicated to the Valuer, who is able to prepare the necessary interim or supplementary valuations, ensuring that the current consolidated valuation roll is updated and the correct rates are levied.

LAND AUDITS

PRIMS™ provides unique land audit functionality for valuers to ensure a reliable basis for registration and ownership in a spatially enabled environment, thus providing a spatial property register, vital for a valuation roll that is complete and accurate. The registration status reports facilitate research so that the property register can be updated spatially to reflect cadastral transactions. In addition, area balancing ensures that registered extents versus the spatial extents are within acceptable limits.

WATER METER MAINTENANCE

A recent addition, the Water Meter Maintenance functionality, uses the water meter geocodes in the RMM to create a spatial water meter dataset, enabling the following:

• Spatial water meters dataset to provide spatial location and facilitate mapping;
• Automatic updates of spatial meter dataset from recently added meters in the RMM;
• Generation of line dataset from meter walks to trace meter reading routes and facilitate mapping and QA;
• Exception reports to improve spatial location and completeness of water meters;
• Reports/graphs/maps for:
  • Meter consumption vs billing by Local Municipality by Ward;
  • Consumption per property

DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT

All property and valuation related documents are maintained in the database in accordance with the requirements of mSCOA. These include:

• Building plans;
• Planning consents;
• Asset/building Photographs;
• SG diagrams;
• Asset photographs;
• Reference documents such as the MPRA or other acts and regulations;
• Etc.

These documents can be in a variety of formats and provide instant access to users in the municipality.