Project Background

‍

The City of Miami serves more than 500,000 residents across departments ranging from parking and permits to utilities, code enforcement, and parks and recreation. Every one of those departments collects revenue — and for years, each one collected it differently. Counter staff worked across a patchwork of aging point-of-sale systems, spreadsheets, and standalone payment terminals. Reconciliation happened manually at the end of each day, often stretching into the next morning.

‍

In a category where government technology often lags years behind the consumer experience, Miami's finance leadership saw an opportunity to set a different standard. "We're a city that prides itself on being forward-looking," says Finance Director Cool Guy. "But our internal systems didn't match that ambition. Staff were doing heroic work to make legacy tools function, and residents were paying the price in wait times and confusion."

‍

The City needed a platform that could unify revenue collection across departments, modernize the resident-facing experience, and give finance leadership the real-time reporting they'd been missing for years.

‍

‍

Challenge: Replacing a patchwork of legacy systems with a unified cashiering platform

‍

"We weren't just looking for a new payment system. We were looking for a partner who understood how municipal revenue actually works — and who could meet us where we were."

‍

Miami's previous setup made even basic reporting a multi-day exercise. "We had eight departments running on six different systems," Cool says. "Pulling a citywide revenue report meant exporting from each one, normalizing the data, and hoping nothing got lost in translation."

‍

The move to Teller was driven by a need for a platform purpose-built for government cashiering — not a retail POS adapted to public sector use. The team evaluated several options but found that most solutions either over-engineered the resident experience or under-served the back-office complexity that municipal finance teams actually face.

‍

Teller's platform brought every department onto a shared system without forcing a rip-and-replace across counter operations. Cashiers kept workflows that felt familiar, while finance gained a unified ledger across every revenue stream. "The implementation was the smoothest technology rollout I've been part of in fifteen years of public service," Cool says. "We expected disruption. We got a transition."

‍

The new foundation also opened up cross-departmental visibility that simply hadn't existed before. Finance leadership can now see how revenue is moving across the city in real time, identify bottlenecks at specific counters, and reallocate resources without waiting for a monthly report.

‍

‍

Solution: Modernizing the resident payment experience across every channel

‍

"Residents shouldn't have to think about which department they're paying. They just want to pay their bill, get their receipt, and move on with their day."

‍

Before Teller, paying the City of Miami could mean different login portals, different receipt formats, and different payment methods depending on which department was collecting. Some accepted credit cards, others didn't. Some sent emailed receipts, others printed them on-site only.

‍

Teller unified the resident experience across in-person counters, online portals, and self-service kiosks. Residents now see a consistent interface, consistent payment options, and consistent receipts — whether they're paying a parking citation, renewing a business license, or settling a water bill.

‍

The impact showed up quickly in the numbers. Online payment adoption climbed sharply in the first six months, taking pressure off in-person counters and reducing average wait times during peak periods. Counter staff, freed from manual reconciliation work, were able to spend more time helping residents with complex questions.

‍

"We're seeing fewer escalations and more positive feedback from residents at the counter," Cool says. "That tells me staff have the tools they need to actually serve people instead of fighting with software."

‍

‍

Results: Building a foundation for citywide financial intelligence

‍

"The reporting layer is what surprised us the most. We came for the cashiering platform and stayed for the visibility."

‍

The rebuild also gave Miami a financial reporting foundation it had never had. What started as a cashiering modernization opened the door to citywide revenue intelligence. "We thought we were solving a payments problem," Cool says. "By the time we were live, we realized we'd solved a reporting problem we'd been working around for a decade."

‍

With every department reporting into a single platform, finance can now trend revenue by category, by location, and by time of day. Anomalies surface in hours instead of weeks. Audit prep, which used to consume entire teams for months, is now a continuous background process.

‍

The next step is using that data to inform service delivery. "If we can see that a particular counter is overwhelmed every Tuesday morning, we can do something about it," Jennifer says. "If we can see that residents in a specific neighborhood are paying late on a specific fee, we can ask why and respond."

‍

For Miami, the partnership with Teller reflects a broader commitment to running the city the way residents expect it to be run. "We exist to serve the people of Miami," Jennifer says. "Every dollar we collect more efficiently is a dollar we can put back into the community. Teller didn't just modernize our cashiering — it gave us a foundation to keep getting better."