DMBM402040 - Interest: Charging interest - by IT system: Charging interest in SAFE: Create interest charge following manual calculation

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Where either the Interest Exception or Inhibit Interest signals are set at customer orcharge level respectively in SAFE, interest will not be calculated and chargedautomatically. These signals are set by a user for a variety of reasons.

During 2006 any uncleared charges previously dealt with by the Network Units inCumbernauld and Shipley were cutover to SAFE. Only the net amount collectible, includingany stood-over amount, was cutover. Any previous payment history and details of theoriginal charge are archived on paper records held by the SAFE Team (formerly the NetworkUnits). Because not all the charge and payment history is available in SAFE the InhibitInterest signal has been set on every interest bearing charge that was cutover.

When a charge is cleared and either the Interest Exception or Inhibit Interest signal isset, and a payment is present on the charge record the item will appear on the ClericalInterest worklist.

Interest is to be calculated manually, using the established manual calculation functions,for example the IRIS functions SAIN and CALC. For a cutover charge this will involveretrieving data from the archived record. (This content has been withheld because of exemptions in the Freedom of Information Act 2000). The Raise Charge function is used and it is particularlyimportant to link the new interest charge to the existing tax/duty charge. The link isachieved by entering the original charge reference as part of the data on the Raise Chargescreen.

For those interest charges that have been based on information retrieved from the archivedrecord the SAFE team should retain the papers that provide the details of calculation for3 months. This is to avoid having to ask for the archived information again if theinterest charge had to be revised, for example following a returned payment on theoriginal tax duty charge.

Once the interest charge has been created any payments held on the Unallocated Paymentssuspense account will be automatically allocated to the new charge by the auto clearingprocess.

A charge notification will only be issued for the interest charge if interest remainsunpaid.