The Goal: Make It Easy
Fort Bend County's Tax Assessor-Collector's Office serves one of the fastest-growing counties in Texas, ranked eight out of 254 counties, across six locations, processing hundreds of thousands of transactions each year. For Tax Assessor-Collector Carmen P. Turner, keeping pace with that growth means continuously raising the bar on the resident payment experience.
Fort Bend serves taxpayers across six offices: Richmond, Katy, Needville, Missouri City, Sienna Plantation, and Sugar Land, servicing over 1 million residents in the county. Each year, when tax bills are mailed just before Thanksgiving, transaction volumes surge and wait times at the counter can stretch to 90 minutes or more.
Since implementing PaymentExpress in 2019, Fort Bend has taken a deliberate, phased approach to modernizing its payment operations by adding capabilities, expanding channels, and improving the experience for residents and staff alike. The result is a payment operation that looks very different than what it did six years ago. That same framework–practical, incremental, and built around what residents actually need–is one any Texas county can follow.
By the Numbers
Building a Multi-Channel Payment Experience
Tap to Pay: Faster for Residents, Better for Staff
Fort Bend was an early adopter of contactless payments in the Texas TAC market. Since 2021, tap-to-pay has grown from 7.73% to 65.75% of all over-the-counter transactions. Today, nearly two-thirds of in-person payments are completed with a tap.
Faster interactions at the counter mean shorter lines and more residents served each day. For Fort Bend County residents, it reduces time spent in the office. For cashiers managing high transaction volumes during peak season, faster payments at the counter mean the next customer in line gets served that much sooner.
Self-Service Kiosks: A Faster Path to Payment In-Office
To give residents a faster, independent path to payment, the Fort Bend County Tax office deployed self-service kiosks at its Katy and Missouri City offices. Fort Bend County residents can complete payments without cashier assistance, following simple on-screen prompts and finishing the transaction in minutes.
In their first full tax season, the two kiosks processed around 2,400 payments between November and January. That’s 2,400 transactions that cashiers didn’t need to handle at the window during the busiest part of the year. What started as an unfamiliar option quickly became a preferred one for many Fort Bend County residents, as the experience proved fast, simple, and easy to navigate.
Mobile Checkout: Bringing the Counter to the Customer
During the 2025 peak season, Fort Bend County Tax office staff used iPads, wireless PIN pads, and mobile printers to process payments directly in line at the Richmond office. Residents received a printed receipt on the spot, without having to wait to reach a staffed window.
Together, kiosks and mobile checkouts give the Fort Bend County Tax office a flexible, layered approach to in-person service, expanding capacity during peak periods without increasing the office's physical footprint.
Online Payments: Steady, Intentional Growth
Over five tax seasons, the Fort Bend County Tax Office has grown online payments from 63,547 (31.5%) in 2021 to 101,934 (39.0%) in 2025–a 60% increase in volume and an eight-point jump in share of all payments.
Within that online channel, digital wallets are the fastest-growing way to pay. Wallet payments (Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, Venmo) roughly doubled in a single year, from about 1,000 in 2024 to more than 2,000 in 2025.
Scheduled Payments: Flexibility for Residents, Predictability for the County
Fort Bend County Tax office offers residents the ability to save payment methods and schedule quarter-installment or monthly payments, powered by PaymentExpress’ s built‑in integration with ACT. Since 2020, scheduled payment usage has grown by more than 300%, from 2,819 to 11,587 annual transactions.
For Fort Bend County residents, the ability to schedule payments in advance provides flexibility. For the county, it supports a more consistent revenue flow throughout the payment cycle.
Bank Account Validation: Reducing E-Check Returns
E-check returns were a recurring challenge for the Fort Bend County Tax office, often due to simple data errors, such as incorrect account numbers. After implementing PaymentExpress’ s bank account validation feature, the Fort Bend County Tax office has been able to grow e‑check usage without growing problems.
Although the Fort Bend County Tax office has increased its online e‑check volume by nearly 40% since 2022, the number of returned e‑checks has stayed low and is trending down year over year. They are processing far more e‑check payments without creating more exceptions or back‑office work for staff. Most of the returns that do occur now are tied to insufficient funds, not bad account data, which is exactly what bank validation is designed to prevent.
That means less staff time spent on exception handling, fewer follow‑up calls, and a cleaner reconciliation process, even as more residents choose to pay by e‑check.
Payment Links: Secure and Flexible Payment Collection
Fort Bend County Tax office has launched PaymentExpress’ Payment Links capability, which allows staff to generate a secure, one-time payment link and send it directly to a taxpayer by email. Planned use cases include:
Payment Links extends payment acceptance, offering Fort Bend County residents another convenient way to pay while reducing manual tracking and follow-up for county staff.
One Platform Across Six Offices and Dozens of Use Cases
Today, Fort Bend County Tax office's payment operation supports over 50 payment windows across six offices, along with kiosks, mobile checkout, and a robust online channel. All of it runs through PaymentExpress which includes unified reporting, real-time post backs to ACT, and analytics dashboards that staff use daily for balancing and reconciliation. The combination of reliable technology, responsive support, and purpose-built tools has improved day-to-day operations.
A Model for Texas TAC Offices
Fort Bend County Tax office's experience offers a practical framework for other Texas counties working to improve their payment operations:
• Invest in reliable in-person tools. Tap-to-pay and digital wallet acceptance are expected by residents and reduce time at the counter.
• Add self-service options where volume warrants it. Kiosks handle routine transactions without requiring additional staff.
• Bring service to the resident. Mobile checkout reduces wait times without requiring changes to office infrastructure.
• Prioritize online adoption. Each online payment processed reduces in-office demand.
• Build incrementally. Scheduled payments, bank account validation, and Payment Links each address a specific operational challenge, adding value without disrupting existing workflows.
Six years into their partnership with PaymentExpress, Fort Bend County Tax office's story is ultimately about a commitment to making things easier and simple for taxpayers, for staff, and for the county as a whole. It's a goal Carmen P. Turner set from the start, and one that PaymentExpress has helped deliver, one capability at a time.
