COM92001 - Payments: tracing a payment: introduction

Cases may arise where:

• you need to trace a payment
• a company or agent claims to have made a payment that does not appear on the record. These are known as missing / alleged payment cases.

You must give missing / alleged payment cases priority at all stages to avoid complaints and possible claims for compensation.

The different types of payment processed by Banking Operations or a Debt Management Office are described at COM90000 onwards.

All payment types are processed through the Receipts Clearing System (RCS). RCS has a payment store that holds details of each payment received. It also allows users to search for payments made by customers across all Heads of Duty using a trace payment function.

The payment store in RCS only contains payments processed since the system started on 23 September 2002. Payments before this date should be traced using Function TPYT (Trace Payment) in COTAX. You should also note that the store does not contain payments banked locally or by NICO.