Permits with payment attached.
GovtPermits is GovtPortal’s permitting and licensing workflow. Residents submit business licenses and building permits online, staff route approvals, and fees are paid in the same system instead of a separate checkout that finance has to match by hand.
- Online application and document upload
- Staff review and status the resident can see
- Fee payment by card or ACH under the city’s fee model
- Reports for the clerk and building department
Use this with the existing payment stack so permit fees settle the same way as utility and court payments.
How a permit payment should behave
The applicant sees the permit type, the required documents, the fee, and the status without calling the building department to ask whether the check was posted. When GovtPermits is the system of record, the application, the status, and the payment live in one workflow. When the city already has permitting software, GovtPortal’s job is the payment and the posting, not a second permit database. The proposal should say which of those two you are buying.
GovtPermits is offered with the payment relationship. In the common model the city is not billed a separate software subscription for that tool. That is a packaging choice, not a claim that implementation, data conversion, or a custom inspection workflow is free. Ask what is included in the first release.
What to verify
- Permit types, fee table, and who is allowed to change a fee.
- Whether the resident can pay before review, after approval, or both.
- How a revision or a rejected application is refunded.
- What staff see on a phone in the field, if inspections are in scope.
- How contractor accounts differ from a one-time homeowner application.
Timing
A payment link on an existing permit counter can follow the hosted-payment schedule. A full GovtPermits configuration follows the fee table and the application forms the city provides. Data conversion from an old permit system is its own line in the plan.
Checklist
- The current fee schedule, including technology or convenience fees if council already adopted one.
- Three real application types to use as test cases.
- The status words your staff already use, so the public site does not invent new ones.