AUTOMATED BILLING CONSOLIDATION SYSTEM AND METHOD

An automated system and method for consolidating a plurality of individual company charges for a customer with different periodic company billing and payment due dates is provided. Under the system, companies and businesses such as utility companies report their periodic billing information to a central processing office or facility. This is completed by electronic or magnetic data transfer. The processing office undergoes minimization processing and holds the billing information data in time suspense until all of the billing information for the customer during a pre-selected time period is received. Then, the central processing facility generates a single customer statement which identifies all individual company charges as well as a statement due date. The statement is sent to the customer and payment for the identified charges is due by the statement due date. After receiving payment from the customer, the centralized billing center processes the payment and then remits payment to all of the companies.