DMBM121045 - Maintain charges (financial) by IT system: Maintain charge (financial) in SAFE: Suspense accounting in SAFE

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Unallocated Payments

The SAFE system introduces a Suspense accounting facility attached to each CustomerAccount. This facility is known as Unallocated Payments.

Payments can be allocated directly to Unallocated Payments by the following processes

  • Payments received from Receipts Clearing System (RCS) that can be matched against a Customer Account but there is no charge to which the payment can be allocated
  • Internal reallocations within SAFE for the same Customer Account. This will be where the Reset Clearing transaction has been activated, which uncouples the payment from the present charge. This includes any excess payment resulting from decreasing any associated interest charge
  • Internal reallocations within SAFE for two different Customer Accounts. This will be where the Reset Clearing transaction has been activated, which uncouples the payment from the present charge. The payment is temporarily held in Unallocated Payments while the reallocation awaits authorisation. This includes any excess payment resulting from decreasing any associated interest charge
  • Internal reallocations within SAFE involving two different Customer Accounts where the second part of the reallocation is rejected by the Authorising officer.
  • For MARD repayments to EU Member States. See DMBM121035.

Items held in Unallocated Payments will be handled as follows

  • Held until new charge is received. An automatic process then reallocates the payment to the charge.
  • Can be allocated to a specific charge within the same Customer Record. For example, a new interest charge in a Clerical Interest case. See DMBM121025
  • Can be allocated to a specific charge for a different Customer Record. See DMBM121030
  • Can be classified as a Permanent Overpayment. See DMBM121055.
  • Can be repaid by transferring the payment to OAS. See DMBM121040.
  • Can be reallocated to another HoD system by transferring the payment to OAS. See DMBM121040
  • Items can be placed on BF for follow up action at a later date.

Clearing Lock

To prevent payments from being automatically allocated against the next charge toarrive the Clearing Lock can be set. This is accessed from function Maintain Account. TheLock can be set with a date in the future when it will be automatically removed. If thepayment position is to be reviewed without the Clearing Lock being removed a manual B/Fwill need to be maintained.

Unallocated Payments Worklist

All items placed in Unallocated Payments will appear on an Unallocated PaymentsWorklist. This is accessed from function Maintain Account.

The SAFE Unit deal with all aspects of the work relating to the Unallocated PaymentsWorklist.