Online service helps Irish consumers analyse utility bills

9 Mar 2010

Former senior executives from Accenture and RTE have rolled out a new, free online service in Ireland called GetitKeepit.com that allows users to gather all their utility bills in one place and help to analyse, organise and retain them securely.

The free service aims to revolutionise the way people gain control over their utility bills and other important documents.

Alan Coleman and Jim Hannon established the company in 2007, after leaving senior roles in Accenture and Irish State broadcaster RTE, respectively. They have spent the last three years developing their patent-pending platform.

“The idea for GetitKeepit grew from a personal frustration of dealing with piles of paperwork every month,” said Coleman, GetitKeepit CEO.

“I wanted to develop a free service that would bring me the sort of convenience and control that I get from my online bank.”

About GetitKeepit

Using GetitKeepit’s service, consumers can now sign up with 10 of the largest service providers in the State and have all their current and historical bills available and analysed in one secure online environment.

No longer is there any need to remember multiple user names and passwords. GetitKeepit automatically analyses all of your bills and gives you useful analysis using clear and simple graphs.

GetitKeepit can even remind you when new bills arrive, when they are due for payment and allow you to make a payment if you want.

The key advantages to using the service are: one location to organise and analyse bills and less of the clutter through your letterbox, it reduces the threat of identity theft using bank-standard encryption to protect documents, it significantly reduces your carbon footprint and all old bills or documents can be accessed 24/7 and year-round from anywhere online.

“The vision for the business is that GetitKeepit is a smart post box which will help people manage and control all their home administration, starting with utility bills,” Coleman explained.

“Our site offers this service free to consumers and we are paid by service providers who save money by interacting with their customers online and turning off paper bills.

“We have already agreed to an active partnership with one of the leading mobile operators and we will be announcing a number of additional relationships in the coming weeks,” he said.

GetitKeepit were a winner of Eircom’s Web Innovation Fund in 2009.

The business is engaged in funding with support from Enterprise Ireland and some private investors.

It has already attracted a high-profile advisory board including senior executives such as Colm Long, online operations director EMEA, Facebook, Ian Rosarius, CIO British Telecom Wholesale and a senior investment banker at Merrill Lynch responsible for Telecoms Media and Technology.

By John Kennedy

Photo: The GetitKeepit website

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com