HOLT, Fla., Nov. 5—Members can now pay their Holt water bills automatically each month.

Although it’s still in the early stages, Holt Water Works Inc members can now link a bank account to their water account that will allow them to pay their bills automatically rather than writing a check and mailing it in or dropping the payment off at the water office each month.

For some bill payers, Holt Water was the only bill that had to be paid in cash or by check, credit card or money order each month.

Holt Water spends more than $400 a month on postage to mail out bills. When customers sign up for auto-draft, that reduces postage costs.

“We figured the math. It only takes seven members for us to save on supplies and postage using automatic payment,” said Donna Ash, manager. “After 21 people sign up, we begin saving money on postage.”

For those customers who have paid in advance and have a credit on their account, the new system will recognize the credit and continue to draw from the prepaid amount until the credit clears. The system will then start pulling from the linked bank account each month.

Auto-draft is different from Pay N Seconds, the service Holt Water uses for online payments. Pay N Seconds is a third-party service that charges a fee to process the payment. Additionally, Holt Water does not have access to customer accounts through Pay N Seconds.

“We cannot access anything in Pay N Seconds,” said Ash. “If someone moves, they have to cancel their Pay N Seconds account. We can’t cancel their accounts for them.”

Unlike Pay N Seconds, there are no fees to the customer to use the new auto-draft service.

To sign up for the auto-draft system, Holt Water members must bring in a cancelled check with the bank account and routing numbers.

The new system does not yet produce an electronic bill, and once a member is set up in the auto-draft system, they will not receive a bill unless they request one. However, the computer service that helps manage Holt Water is developing a program that will produce an e-bill in the very near future, perhaps by the next billing cycle, according to Ash.

“Once we get this all set up, it’ll be very cost efficient,” she said.