More than 1,150 utility customers in Camarillo have signed up to pay their water, sewer or trash bills online since the city began offering the service earlier this year, officials say.

The city launched its Click2gov online utility bill-payment and information service in February.

As of March — the most recent figures available — more than 1,200 utility customers logged on for information, and 1,152 of those customers also completed the process to use their credit or debit cards to pay their bills.

"It's not an automatic bill-pay system," said Kris Inloes, the city's customer service supervisor. "Residents have to go onto the site and pay their bills themselves."

The city has more than 22,000 utility customers.

The figures indicate to city officials that the convenience of the service seems to be a welcome change.

The Click2gov system provides the ability to pay utility bills online as well as monitor an account and find out updated information on specific utilities.

The city's water system does not include homes southeast of Lewis Road. The Mission Oaks, Woodside Green and other developments in that area are served by the Camrosa Water District, not the city.

Each utility customer in the city was sent a personal identification number, or PIN, so they could access the secure site.

"Once they go onto the site, they can then change their password to make it more personal for them," Inloes said.

Still, many customers aren't necessarily interested in paying their bills through the credit card service.

"I don't use it, but that's because I do almost everything online through automatic bill pay," said Jonal Beck, a teacher at Puente High School and Camarillo utility customer. "I still have the same box of checks I got in 2000. I just don't write them anymore," she said.

Diane Vandermay, a utility customer and home-schooling mom, echoed the sentiment.

"My bank provides the automatic bill pay service, and I just do all the bills with that," she said.

Camarillo has had an automatic bill-pay service in place for about 10 years. That service bills a resident's bank account automatically. According to Inloes, 14.7 percent of Camarillo utility customers use the automatic bill pay service.

By way of comparison for the new Click2gov program, Inloes pointed out that "in the month of March, we had 505 credit card transactions, whether by mail or walk in or whatever. But during that same month, we had 556 payments over the Click2gov system."

"It's simple to get on and secure," said Robin Humberstone, who works for the city as an information systems analyst and also uses Click2gov.

"I can go on anytime, 24/7, make a payment, check my consumption," he said. "It's really transparent and easy to use."

The Camarillo resident uses the credit card feature and pays his utilities through the system.

Other cities have been experimenting with systems like Click2gov. Thousand Oaks has had its egov system in place since 2004.

"We've made a strong commitment to automation in Thousand Oaks," said Terri Scott, revenue operations manager for the city.

"We average between 650 and 700 payments by credit card per month for utilities over egov, but there is also a function where residents can hit their bank accounts directly instead of using credit cards."