Billing, Service Irregularity & Payment System – Comprehensive Study Notes

Produce Invoice & Billing Requirements

• Bill-287: Late Payment Charges
  • System must include customer notifications when late payment charges apply.
  • Vendor offers configurable severance/collection workflows (customer notice, penalty, temp disconnection, etc.).

• Bill-288: Detailed Billing Feed to Rating & Charging System
  • CIS transmits meter reads for prepaid/post-paid + value-added services.
  • Rating & Charging subsystem identifies affected bills.
  • Integration points will be baselined per business need.

• Bill-289: “Bill Not Found” Advice
  • If a bill inquiry cannot be served, CIS must alert Rating & Charging.
  • Vendor can supply real-time web-service response.

• Bill-290: Manual True-Up Interface
  • Authorized users can manually resend bills from CIS to Rating & Charging for reconciliation.
  • Interface configuration required.

• Bill-291: Late Payment-Specific Messages
  • Distinct bill messages based on billing scheme (e.g., residential, contestable, RCOA).

• Bill-292: OTC Print-On-Demand
  • Collecting offices may print over-the-counter (OTC) statements that were not originally mailed with the service bill.

• Bill-293 – Bill-297 (Retail Competition & Open Access / RCOA)
  • Separate DWS (Distribution Wheeling Service) bill for contestable customers; prints independently of the Retail Electricity Supplier (RES) invoice.
  • Dual-billing flag to distinguish customers that receive both DWS and RES bills.
  • System must tag/print RES-specific data items (Service Identification No., period, prior OR, etc.).
  • Provide Billing-Process Monitoring Tool (counts by status, aging, non-billing, discrepancies).

• Bill-298: Multi-Metering Scheme
  • Support customers with one-to-many meter relationships; billing rules TBD.

Multi-Metering & Complex Scenarios

• System architecture must map customers ⇄ multiple meters.

• Billing engine configurable for differing aggregation, minimums, demand sharing, etc.

Service Irregularity (SI) Lifecycle

1. Detection & Apprehension

• SI-001: Generate Field Orders (manual/auto) for suspected illegal connections.

• SI-002: Replace suspected tampered meter; store chain-of-custody for lab test.

• SI-003: Tag a service as “Suspect SI” when an investigation order is issued.

• SI-004 – SI-006: Create SI records, capture & retrieve photos/docs; upload evidence.

2. Confirmation & Case Creation

• SI-007: If lab test confirms tamper, create final SI case.

• SI-008: Prevent duplicate SI when both field & lab confirm same event.

• SI-009: SI must apply to all billing programs (Net-Metering, ToU, PRES, etc.).

• SI-010/011: Allow cancellation of SI cases post-bill with multi-level approval workflow.

• SI-012: Authorized roles may edit SI details (Apprehension Date, etc.) with audit trail & officer approval.

• SI-013: System records original trigger (exception, customer report, field detection).

3. SI Bill Computation

• SI-014: Compute consumption & charges for tampering/illegal usage in compliance with regulations.

• SI-015: Charge types include:
  • Line-side taps
  • Unauthorized load-side taps
  • Altered facilities

• SI-016 – SI-021: Multiple unbilled-energy methodologies:
  • Estimated load study
  • Highest monthly kWh in prior $5$ years
  • Pre-drop/ post-drop averages
  • Highest 4-months after discovery
  • Meter accuracy percentage

• SI-022 – SI-025: Determine unauthorized usage period by rules:
  • From last inspection/change
  • From abnormal drop date
  • Max $60$ billing months back from discovery.

• SI-026: Auto-create one-time fees (e.g., lab test cost).

• SI-027/028: Users may encode unbilled kWh and unauthorized period manually.

• SI-029: Post SI bill to customer account; show SI balance in totals.

• SI-031: Price basis may use historical rates aligned with customer’s tariff at apprehension (e.g., ToU).

• SI-032: Compute differential bills over affected period at correct historic rates.

• SI-033/034: Provide “Analysis Worksheet” (auto-populated, editable, printable) to assist computation.

• SI-035/036: Display support data—consumption history (rolling $5$ years), field-order log; interactive chart.

• SI-039: Users can overwrite worksheet with justification.

• SI-041: Generation of SI charges gated by approval levels.

4. Demand Letter (DL) Delivery

• SI-042: Generate/print Demand Letter listing lab result, SI amount, due date, etc.

• SI-043/044: Store receipt date (basis for due date) & allow manual encoding.

5. Settlement & Installments

• SI-045: Accept full or partial settlements.

• SI-046: Create installment plans subject to rules (bill amount, outstanding, approval).

• SI-047/048: Discounts may be granted; require approval workflow.

• SI-049: Financial interface triggered only for paid portion.

• SI-050/051: Manage unpaid SI separately; auto-generate investigation orders post-disconnection to deter repeat pilferage.

6. Surcharge Computation

• SI-052: Notify users to compute surcharge.

• SI-053: Penalty matrix per offense
  • $25\%$ (first)
  • $50\%$ (second)
  • $100\%$ (third+)

• SI-054/055: Authorized users compute surcharge; system issues separate Surcharge Bill.

• SI-056: Skip surcharge if valid waiver exists.

7. Re-Computation & Dropping

• SI-057: Recompute SI bill if affected period or unbilled estimate changes.

• SI-058: Drop SI case (e.g., court decision) with cancellation workflow.

• SI-059: Approvals can be web or mobile.

8. Monitoring, Inquiry, Administration

• SI-060/061: Full case-management with assignment, hand-off across departments, status filters.

• SI-062/063: Display SI tag + offense count; show ERC/court linkage.

• SI-064/065: Online view for all stakeholders; include meter status (stored as evidence).

• SI-067: Record court remarks.

• SI-068 – SI-070: Monitoring tools (counts, aging, dashboards, filterable lists).

• SI-071: Admin maintenance of SI status codes.

Payments & Cashiering

Customer Record Management

• Pay-001: Audit trail on customer/account changes (user, timestamp).

• Pay-002: Store preferred payment method (OTC, APA/EFT, etc.) and bank/CC details.

• Pay-003: Track history of preference changes.

• Pay-004: Manual enroll/cancel Automatic Payment Arrangement by authorized staff.

• Pay-005: Group multiple services under one account.

• Pay-006/007/008: Dual-billing tagging; Authorized Withholding Agent (AWA) flags at partner, account, or service level.

Cashiering & Reconciliation Workflow

• Pay-009: Record multiple bank / card accounts for settlement.

• Pay-010: Create office codes; assign collectors & supervisors (restricted maintenance).

• Pay-011: Personnel-level reconciliation per day.

• Pay-012: Office-level reconciliation closes the office day.

• Pay-013: Transaction permissions by role (e.g., outsource cannot receive Security Deposit, cannot back-date reversals).

• Pay-014: Standard OTC day-cycle steps

  1. Open Office

  2. Open Drawer

  3. Personnel Reconcile

  4. Close Drawer

  5. Office Reconcile

  6. Close Office

• Pay-015: Support real-time OTC payments.

• Pay-016: Provide offline cashier module (dot-net/MS-Access) for network outages; sync to core CIS later.

Payment Processing Features

• Pay-017/018/019: Robust search (acct #, SIN, name, address); accept barcode/QR input; show integrated customer view.

• Pay-020: Auto-maintain bill status codes (collectible overdue, disconnected, under installment, etc.).

• Pay-021: Display payable list with meta-data & tags (complaint, field order, bill type—SI, reconnection, other charges).

• Pay-022/023: Auto compute default tax withholdings for AWA customers:
  • CWT = $2\%$ of non-VAT sales
  • FWV = $5\%$ of VAT sales base
  • Min/Max thresholds configurable by PCT/AA roles.

• Pay-024: Payment posting priority—non-BIR forms first but leave enough for BIR forms.

• Pay-025: Multiple tender types (cash, check, BIR $2306/2307$, credit memo, cards, offset).

• Pay-026: Single payment may settle multiple bills/accounts.

• Pay-027: Collector can choose which bills to pay.

• Pay-028: Partial, over-, or advance payment allowed; user enters amount.

• Pay-029: Configurable allocation hierarchy (exact match, installments, oldest due, by customer/bill type, etc.).

• Pay-030: Overpayment only when all eligible bills selected (excludes bills in complaint status).

• Pay-031: Accept payments for non-regular bills (SI, application fees, reconnection, other non-commodity).

• Pay-032: Payments accepted for inactive accounts (limit: not if status = Closed).

• Pay-033/034: Pre-paid top-ups handled distinctly; minimum denominations configurable; AWA prepaid top-ups allowed.

• Pay-035: Post BIR forms to prepaid AWA accounts.

• Pay-036: Offsetting functionality to net credits/debits.

Security & Audit

• Transaction security by role (add/change rights, drawer limits, tender permissions).

• Full audit of payment edits, reversals, allocation changes.

Offline Payments Flow (per vendor proposal)

1. Cashier scans bill QR or enters Account ID.

2. Record stored in local MS-Access DB.

3. Manager (checker) runs daily reconciliation report.

4. End-of-day extract pushed to common server & uploaded to Oracle C2M.

Operational Dashboards & Analytics

• Billing: counts per status, discrepancy aging, non-billing status.

• SI: running $5$-year consumption chart, offense count, penalty calculation, case aging.

• Payments: drawer/office balance sheets, over/short reports, channel mix.

Real-World / Regulatory Significance

• Aligns with Philippines ERC rules on pilferage recovery (period limits, penalty rates).

• Supports RCOA dual-billing environment (Contestable Customer vs. RES split).

• Ensures BIR withholding tax compliance for AWA customers.

• Provides for evidence preservation (meter storage, photos) critical in court/ERC disputes.

Ethical & Practical Implications

• Transparent computation & audit trails protect customers from over-billing.

• Multi-level approvals mitigate fraud in SI adjustments and discounts.

• Prompt disconnection & follow-up field orders deter energy theft while balancing due-process via demand letters.