Case Study
City of Brantford, ON
How a city of 100,000 replaced an unsupported tax system with cloud-native Property Tax™ and a citizen portal residents use.
About Brantford, ON
Brantford is the Telephone City, where Alexander Graham Bell developed the idea for the telephone. It is the hometown of Wayne Gretzky and the tournament capital of Ontario, hosting hundreds of events each year. Behind that busy calendar, the city’s tax team bills roughly 38,000 tax rolls and answers to residents, lawyers, mortgage companies, and council.
That work needs a system with a future. After a decade on software that never changed and two years without vendor support, Brantford chose CentralSquare® and Property Tax™ to bring billing, collection, and citizen service onto one modern platform.
The Problem
“With our previous vendor, enhancements were virtually nonexistent. With over a decade on one software, I didn’t see any improvements over that time period.”
Brantford was one of four Ontario municipalities running property tax on a shared legacy product. The provider was developing an upgrade, then dropped the product entirely. The city was left without vendor support for about two years.
The gaps went beyond support. In more than a decade on the old software, Ryan saw no meaningful enhancements. Residents had no portal, so every account question, address change, and payment enrollment came through staff.
Brantford needed a partner and a platform that could deliver:
Responsive Support
with clear escalation paths and no reliance on one IT colleague
Continuous Improvement
and a voice in the product roadmap
Citizen Self-Service
for account access, documents, e-billing, and pre-authorized payments
Daily Integration
with JD Edwards financials and the city’s in-house point-of-sale system
Online Tax Certificates
that lawyers can buy without staff involvement
“The RFP selection process really only showed one vendor in Ontario who is capable of the implementation to meet Brantford’s needs.”
Ryan Guthrie, Manager of Revenue and Tax Collector
City of Brantford, ON
The Solution
Brantford’s RFP process pointed to CentralSquare as the only vendor in Ontario able to meet the city’s needs, according to the project’s former IT project manager. The city submitted its expression of interest in January 2022 and approached the project in deliberate phases.
| Expression of interest | January 2022 |
|---|---|
| Project team training begins | Early 2023 |
| Property Tax™ and interim billing go live | February 2024 |
| Citizen portal and e-billing launch | 2025 |
| Online tax certificates go live | After the portal launch |
Standard Functionality Over Legacy Habits
“It’s a modern, evolving platform designed to work across multiple municipalities. Using the standard functionality where possible helped us deliver long-term results.”
Brantford adapted its internal processes to the software and used standard functionality wherever possible. That decision kept the project focused on outcomes, reduced testing and training effort, and positioned the city for smooth upgrades.
One Stable Team
CentralSquare introduced its team at the start, and no personnel changed through go-live. The city’s former IT project manager, who spent 20 years leading government software projects, called it the first project he ran with that consistency.
Local Expertise
Consultants understood Ontario tax configuration and explained clearly how the software worked during requirements sessions.
Iterative Conversions and Go-Live Rehearsals
Each data conversion was more accurate than the last. By go-live weekend, the team ran a proven plan with no stress. The CEO first heard the system was live the following Monday.
On Budget
The city never used its contingency funding, and the leftover project funds went toward the new web design site.
Capabilities Behind the Results
Staff find an account from a last name and street, validate identity, and see balances, notices, transactions, contacts, and history in one place.
Teams build task-based lists for collections, tax sales, and returned mail, then export to PDF or CSV.
Online address changes and payment enrollments land in a pending queue for staff to approve or decline, with a response the taxpayer sees in the portal.
Assessment loads, payment imports, and bill calculations show totals and exceptions before anything posts.
Staff edit notice templates, email templates, and reports without development work, and can build dashboards with built-in analytics.
25%
of accounts registered for the citizen portal
1,400
accounts enrolled in pre-authorized payments through the portal
~80
tax certificates delivered in the first month with no staff involvement
Same Day
vendor support response in most cases
The Results
“Lawyers can purchase a tax certificate and receive it within five minutes, and it doesn’t cost us a thing. We still get 100 percent of our revenue.”
Since go-live, Brantford has turned a stalled system into a platform that serves staff and residents every day.
Support that Resolves Issues
The city now sees same-day responses in most cases, with issues resolved quickly or escalated to the right people. That shift reduced operational risk and freed IT and tax staff to focus on the work of the department.
Citizen Self-service that Cuts Staff Workload
Residents now access accounts, retrieve documents, manage pre-authorized payments, and opt into e-billing without calling the office. E-billing launched about a year ago, and 3.5 percent of bills already go out electronically. Online documents are free, and a fee applies when staff must produce them, which steers residents to the portal.
Security and Access Across Departments
Multi-factor authentication and flexible permissions make it quick to add users with the right access. Other departments get read-only views, and the city hides names and financial details from roles that do not need them.
A Product that Keeps Improving
CentralSquare’s ideas portal lets Brantford submit enhancement ideas, vote on them, and watch the roadmap respond. After more than a decade without improvements, the city now receives them regularly.
Integration and Reporting
Property Tax™ imports payments from the city’s in-house point-of-sale system every day and exports general ledger entries to JD Edwards daily. Staff can export data from almost any screen to Excel, so analysis that once took a long time to assemble now takes moments. Special area billing and record keeping are now fully paperless.
Tax Certificates Online in Minutes
Through an API connection to a third-party certificate portal, lawyers now purchase tax certificates online and receive them within about five minutes. Brantford retains 100 percent of the revenue, and staff handle none of the requests.
Advice from Brantford
Ask Questions
Brantford credits CentralSquare’s responsiveness and urges new customers to use it.
Adapt your Processes to the Software
Brantford changed a few processes to fit standard functionality. Some staff resisted, and a clear rationale, role-based training, and visible leadership support moved the team through it.
Dedicate a Full-time Internal Resource
Ryan managed the project alongside daily duties. In hindsight, a full-time internal lead would have made the process more efficient, because implementation demands significant time for configuration, testing, validation, and training.
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