OPERATIONAL ADVICE NO. 51
COMPENSE RELEASE 3.00 FORTNIGHTLY RECONCILIATION PROCEDURE
Branch Heads
State Managers
Manager, Operations
Manager, Review
Manager, Rehabilitation
Executive Officer
Systems Administrator
Operational Advice No. 47 detailed two changes to Compense that impacted on error log procedures:
a)Edit checks on section of the Act resulted in increased error logs (special `one‑off' procedures to deal with this problem were outlined in Operational Advice No. 47); and
b)A change to Medical and Travel Account processing that results in a new Date of Determination and a new User ID being recorded on the Compense screen whenever a determined medical or travel account is modified or updated.
The change outlined at (b) above will continue to impact on both the daily and fortnightly reconciliation process. Changes to Daily Batch Reconciliation procedures were outlined in Part B of Operational Advice No. 47. A revised `end‑of‑fortnight' reconciliation procedure, to be conducted by the Corporate Services Administrative Officer in each Comcare State Office is outlined below. Part A of these procedures up‑date the Batching and Reconciliation Procedures outlined in Section 5.4 of the Compense Manual, Part B reviews the procedures for reconciliation of subsequent payments and Part C outline some problem areas of the reconciliation process that need to be improved.
PART A: FORTNIGHTLY RECONCILIATION PROCEDURE
End‑of‑Fortnight Reconciliation is done the morning after the extraction of medical and travel accounts. This is a check to ensure that payment details have not been changed accidentally or fraudulently during the time they have been determined but not selected for payment. This reconciliation is the responsibility of the Corporate Services Administration Officer (CSAO).
1)Currently four reports are produced by the Systems Administrator Officer, namely, Medical Payments Determined and Travel Payments Determined (`Med. Pay and Trav. Pay'), Payment Summary Report and the Error Log.
The Systems Administrator is also now required to run the following procedure from their run screen:
PREVERRl IN COMCARE @ COMPEN 4 ON VOL 401.
This query is looking for any accounts on the previous weeks' error log that have not been corrected and thus have reappeared in the current extraction runs' error log. Two reports will be produced, one each for medical and travel accounts. The reports will contain the date of determination, date of treatment, claim number and $ amount determined. Note: This query will produce nil reports if the previous weeks error log has been rectified and the record has been successfully extracted during the current extraction run.
All reports are then provided to the C.S.A.O.
2)The reports, (Med. Pay and Trav. Pay) give the total of the amounts determined for each day of the extraction period. This report should be compared by the C.S.A.O to the total of the batches for each of those days. As these reports are run after the Pay Extraction, ie after records are locked, they are the ultimate source for reconciliation of daily batch totals.
3)If there are any discrepancies between the report and the batch daily totals they will have to be located and checked. If the discrepancy is due to a legitimate change then the payment can be allowed to go through and the batch should be amended to reflect the change. (This should not happen if changes are done with the approval of the Team Leader as the batch will already be amended).
Note: If a determination has been extracted which isn't legitimate, ie there is a discrepancy, the payment can be stopped in two ways:
i)Request the Benefit Payments HIC Liaison Officer, Erlinda Belin, to extract the cheque from the mailroom at HIC. Full address details of payee, including postcode should then be faxed to the Benefit Payments Team no later than close of business the day after extraction. This information will enable the Liaison Officer to locate the cheque at the HIC before it is mailed. The Liaison Officer will then re‑check with your Office that the payment is to be cancelled.
ii)Raise a stop payment request and fax it (no. (062) 574045) with the Payments Certification Form to the Funds Certification Officer in Central Office. To stop a payment going through ALL details (ie Employee Name and No., Claim No, Dates of Treatment and Determination, Amount Determined, Payee Name and Address etc) need to be provided. Each stop payment request must be signed by the State Manager.
4)Once the daily batch totals match with medical payments and travel payments, the C.S.A.O. then must look at the summary of `extracted medical and travel accounts'. The extraction report should equal the medical and travel accounts, ie what has been extracted (summary report) should equal what has been determined ( medical and travel accounts). If there is a discrepancy, the C.S.A.O. should then refer to the current error log report. The discrepancy between what has been determined and what is extracted should equal the accounts listed on the Error Log.
Note: Since release 3.00, it is no longer necessary to have regard to the previous extraction runs' error log if the accounts listed on the previous error log have been corrected/modified on Compense, as a new date of determination and user ID would have been recorded and they would be included in the appropriate batch daily report and the Medical Payments/Travel Payments report used for end‑of‑fortnight reconciliation.
However, if the error log has not been corrected and thus the account not successfully extracted during the current run, the new reports generated by the Systems Administrator (PREVERR ‑ refer Part A, section 1) will give details of accounts still not extracted. The sum of these accounts (ie the medical and travel accounts) must be inserted into the Payment Certification Form where it says "PLUS THE PREVIOUS ERROR LOG".
5)The Payments Certification Form can now be completed for medical/travel accounts.
Part B: Reconciliation of Subsequent Payments
Before the Payments Certification Form can be completed, details of all subsequent payments determined must be entered. This information is obtained from a subsequent report, produced by the SAO. This report will include: all accounts processed via the subsequent Screen which have an `Accept' status and which do not have a cheque number held against them. The C.S.A.O. will balance this report against details of all subsequent payments determined by the Office and provided by the Team Leaders for reconciliation.
Many subsequent reports are arriving in Central Office for processing with amendments made to the payee, the address, the dollar amount, or simply with a request not to pay the account this fortnight.
In future, these changes will not be accepted unless the following is recorded:
i)each amendment is signed and dated by the officer requesting the amendment;
ii)every request for non‑payment is accompanied by a short explanation as to why payment should not be made, then signed and dated by the amending officer. If the account was wrongly determined and never to be paid, confirmation that the status of the claim will be changed from `Accept' so that it cannot be reported again, must be provided.
If all amendments to the dollar amount payable are correctly authorised, the C.S.A.O. must then summarize these adjustments on the final page of the report, and state the adjusted total amount payable.
The Funds Certification Form can then be completed and provided to the Manager, Operations for certification.
PART C: Cheque Up‑Date Reconciliation
Section 5.4 of the Compense manual also details procedures required for ensuring that after the cheques have been produced, the cheque details are being correctly up‑dated onto Compense.
This procedure is not being followed in some states and is re‑iterated here as a reminder. Central Office Benefit Payments Team will be following‑up non receipt of the certification outlined below:
i)After the payment run (ie cheque production ) is complete, full cheque details are up‑dated onto Compense. This procedure will result in a report being produced detailing the number of accounts up‑dated . The Systems Administrator must provide this report to the C.S.A.O.
ii)The C.S.A.O must reconcile this report against the Payments Certification Form, sign it and fax a copy to the Liaison Officer at Head Office. Any discrepancies should be detailed and faxed with this report.
Note: If this procedure is not performed then any cheque up‑date errors that may be occurring cannot be identified.
Any queries on this Operational Advice should be directed to Maxine Danaro on 750605, or Erlinda Belin on 750608.
SUE HAMILTON
Deputy Chief Executive
28 August 1989
0924P