B50/1991 USING P.I.P.S. CALCULATOR FACILITIES

DATE OF ISSUE:  13 November 1991

USING P.I.P.S. CALCULATOR FACILITIES

PURPOSE

The purpose of this Instruction is to explain how to use two new PIPS calculator facilities, MONEY LOANED CALCULATOR (MC) and FINANCIAL INSTITUTION CALCULATOR (FC) and their relevance to pensions processing and client enquiries.

2 — The calculators will be used primarily where changes to cash, balances of cheque or savings accounts, term deposits, or loans, bonds, debentures or house proceeds are involved in the following situations:

a.overpayments;

b."what if" enquiries from clients; and

c.processing service pension variations with arrears (at the time of a statutory increase or a deemed or actual interest rate change, or when there is a backlog of work).

3.The facilities can be used for either a CURRENT ASSESSMENT (no case number entered) or an ACTION ASSESSMENT (case number needed). Whenever the facility is accessed, that data which is already recorded on the Money Loaned or Financial Institution screen for the current or action assessment will appear on the relevant calculator facility.

MONEY LOANED CALCULATOR

4.The Money Loaned calculator will determine income and asset values of monies loaned, bonds, debentures and house proceeds recorded on the PIPS Money Loaned screen.

5.The new facility uses the following factors to calculate 'Money Loaned' income:

a.the assessment effective date;

b.the exempt indicator;

c.the start date for the bond, loan or debenture;

d.its asset value; and

e.actual and deemed interest rates relative to the assessment effective date.

How To Use The Calculator Facility

6.To ACCESS the facility from outside PIPS, enter PP.MC in the NEXT field;  from within PIPS, enter MC in the NEXT field.

7.Fields which can be accessed on the Money Loaned Calculator screen are Exempt (i.e. from deeming), Date Lent, Asset Amount, Actual % Rate, and Actual Income.  Two other fields are protected and cannot be accessed.  These are Deemed % Rate, and Assessed Income.

House Proceeds

8.To record House Proceeds (type 'HP') on the MC screen, enter data in the EXEMPT, DATE LENT, ASSET AMOUNT and ACTUAL % or ACTUAL INCOME fields.  Note that although House Proceeds is usually an exempt asset it is necessary to enter an asset value at this stage.  Press ENTER.  This will calculate ASSESSED INCOME and update TOTAL ASSETS and TOTAL INCOME.

The asset value of house proceeds can then be deleted from the assessment: type HOUSE in the asset field and press ENTER.  This will result in a correct assessment, which excludes the asset value of the house proceeds in the calculation of the total assets.

FINANCIAL INSTITUTION CALCULATOR

9.The Financial Institution Calculator will determine income and asset values of bank, building society and credit union accounts and cash reserves recorded on the PIPS Financial Institution data collection screen.  It calculates income with regard to the following factors:

a.the assessment effective date;

b.the exempt indicator;

c.the institution;

d.the asset value of the investment or cash amount;

e.actual and deemed interest rates relative to the assessment effective date; and

f.the asset threshold e.g. $2000 single or $4000 married, relative to the assessment effective date.

How To Use The FI Calculator

10.To access the facility from outside PIPS, enter PP.FC in the NEXT field;  from within PIPS, enter FC in the NEXT field.

11 — Fields which can be accessed on the Financial Institution Calculator screen are :  Exempt, Institution (it is not mandatory to record the institution name),  Asset Amount, Actual % Rate, and Actual Income.              As for the MC screen, the Deemed % Rate and Assessed Income fields are protected.

MC AND FC FACILITIES

12.  Unlike for normal processing, the calculator screens do not have an ACTION field.  Data is added or changed simply by typing in the new data; no 'A' or 'C' is required.  Multiple variations can be made on a screen at the one time.  An entry is deleted by recording a 'D' in the exemption field.

13.  The deemed interest rate appropriate to the effective date will be applied automatically.  The actual interest rate however is not automatically applied.  Examiners must enter either the actual % interest rate relevant to the effective date for the calculation or the actual income.  If both the actual interest rate and the actual income are entered and do not match, the actual income is re-calculated by the system.

14.  Like the TRIAL (TR) facility, use of the CALCULATOR facility does not update the database.  The effective date for which a calculation is required can be entered, data recorded can be changed or deleted and new data entered as required.

SCREEN FORMAT

15.  The calculator facilities are multi-page, with 10 items to each page and a maximum of 5 pages.  Press PF20 to page forward and PF19 to page back.  Pressing ENTER will update and calculate for data recorded on a page.  When there is more than one page, press ENTER to update, then PF20 to page forward.

16.  The calculated deemed income TOTAL displayed at the bottom of the page is constantly updated.  If more than one page of calculation is required, the TOTAL is carried forward to the next page.

17.  Initially there will be no PRINT TO facility for the calculator screens but a screen dump of the calculator pages may be obtained.  A PRINT TO facility is scheduled to be introduced for both calculator facilities as soon as possible.

DESIGN LIMITATIONS

18.  Examiners should be aware of the limitations to this version of the calculator facility which has been provided within resource constraints.

a.It does not default calculated income and asset values to the Trial facility; values will need to be manually entered in the required fields on TRIAL.

b.The calculator facilities are unable to retain changed data once another screen has been accessed i.e. changes made on the FC screen will be retained only during movement between pages on that facility.

If, therefore, an examiner goes from the FC screen to TRIAL and returns to FC, any changes previously made on FC will have been lost: data for the current or action assessment will again display.  The same applies of course for the MC facility.

19.  A SCREEN DUMP WILL BE THE ONLY RECORD OF THE DATA ENTERED.  Examiners must be careful to obtain a screen dump before moving from FC or MC to another facility.

20.  While the calculator facilities fall short of the ideal, the format of the Calculators is basic and they are easy to use.  Ithas been verified during testing that the screens are most useful in the processing of arrears and overpayments.

CONTACT OFFICERS

21.  The manager of the project is COLETTE WOODFORD who can be contacted on (06) 289 6684, but enquiries on ADP matters should be directed in the first instance to RAELENE LIHOU on (06) 289 6799.

PETER HAWKER

NATIONAL PROGRAM DIRECTOR

BENEFITS