Working with Suspended Payments

Oracle Billing and Revenue Management automatically suspends payments that cannot be posted immediately to customer accounts due to insufficient information, account closure, or other criteria.

You manage suspended payments in Billing Care by viewing and allocating suspended payments to customer accounts when the payment error is resolved. You also use Billing Care to identify any incorrectly posted payments and move them into suspense for future resolution.

Finding a Suspended Payment

To find a suspended payment:

1. From the landing page, click Payment Suspense.

   The Payment filter appears along with a list of suspended payments that meet the filter criteria. The Payment filter assists you in narrowing the suspended payments shown and helps you find a suspended payment for allocation. Billing Care sets a default 30 day search criteria for suspended payments. See "Payment Filter" for more information on using filters to set search criteria.

2. Click Add Filter to add additional filters to the suspended payments shown.

3. To enable or disable a filter, click the filter button.

4. Click Update.

   The filtered suspended payments are shown.

   Tip:

   • In the Payment filter, click X to remove a filter or click Reset to return to the default filter of less than 30 days.

5. Select a suspended payment to view it.

   Billing Care displays the selected suspended payment details. See "Suspended Payment Details" for more information.

Tip:

Click Close to return to the Billing Care home page.

Payment Filter

Narrow your suspended payment search results by using the filters provided under Payment, Suspense, and Account.

Tips:

• You can sort filtered results by date, amount, reason, and currency code using the Sort menu.

• Scroll down to view additional suspended payments.

• Search for payments using the information from the original suspended payment entry. Search criteria will not filter payments with changes made after the original payment.

Payment Filter	Description
Payment	Contains the following payment attributes used for filtering suspended payments: Amount: The amount of the suspended payment Date: The date the payment was made Method: The payment method (Cash, Check, Wire-Transfer, Inter Bank Payment Order, Postal Order, or Failed) Currency: The payment currency Channel: The payment channel
Suspense	Contains the following suspense reasons for suspended payments: Reason: Unclassified Detailed Reasons: Account No not found Account status is closed Bill not found Invalid Transaction Id Missing Transaction Id Multiple Account Distribution Payment due to recycling MBI Distributed Payment MBI Distribution Required Default Reason Id Handler (see "Assigning Suspended Payments to Billing Care Users" for more information): Assigned to me Unassigned
Account	Contains the following filters for account information: Account Number Bill Number Payment Transaction ID

Suspended Payment Details

The suspended payment detail includes the following information:

Field	Description
Payment ID	Contains the following suspended payment information: Payment ID Suspense reason Suspense Date Payment amount, currency, and method Allocated and Unallocated payment amounts
Account Distribution	Contains the eligible accounts for which a suspended payment can be allocated. See "Allocating a Suspended Payment" for more information.
Details	Contains the following suspended payment information (if available): Bank Code Bank Account Number Effective Date Bill Number Check Number Pay Order Id Postal Order Id Transfer ID
Notes	Contains a text field for adding notes to the suspended payment. See "Adding Notes to a Suspended Payment" for more information.
Audit Trail	Contains the audit trail for the suspended payment. The audit trail records the following activities: Payment Made Allocation Moved Into Suspense

Allocating a Suspended Payment

Billing and Revenue Management stores suspended payments in a system account until allocation to a customer account's open balances and billable items. Use Billing Care to allocate suspended payments to one or more customer accounts after resolving the issues that caused the initial payment suspension.

To allocate a suspended payment to an account:

1. Find the suspended payment to allocate. See "Finding a Suspended Payment" for more information.

2. Click on the suspended payment to allocate to view the payment details. A list of accounts eligible to receive the suspended payment allocation is shown in Account Distribution. Each account contains associated allocation details including the account owner's name.

3. If no distribution accounts are configured for the suspended payment, click Add Account in Account Distribution to add one or more accounts.

4. Use the search dialog to add an account for allocating a suspended payment to. The search dialog supports the following search parameters:

   • Account number

   • First name

   • Last name

   • Company

   Billing Care searches for the account and adds the account to Account Distribution. Billing Care supports allocating a suspended payment to multiple accounts. However, you must complete the initial distribution account's allocation before adding an additional distribution account.

   Note:

   To remove an account from the distribution accounts list, click the account's menu icon, and then click Remove Account. Remove any accounts not receiving a payment distribution before performing allocation.

5. Enter an amount in Add Allocation to allocate to each distribution account. This amount must be less than or equal to the suspended payment amount. Multiple separate allocations to the same distribution account can be made if the payment still contains funds awaiting allocation. Billing Care groups and displays such allocations by account in Account Distribution.

6. Select a required reason from the drop-down menu.

   The Auto Allocate and Allocate buttons are enabled.

7. Do one of the following:

   • Click Auto Allocate for Billing Care to automatically select the account's bill items to which to allocate a suspended payment. If an allocation amount is greater than all of the account's bills, or if allocation amounts are made to accounts with no balance due, the remaining balance is assigned a status of Awaiting Allocation and available when a future payment is due.

   • Click Allocate to perform manual allocation.

   • Click Cancel to reset the allocation amount to zero, remove the reason code, and disable the allocation buttons.

   Note:

   If a selected distribution account contains no open balance or billable items you must either:

   • Click Continue to apply the suspended payment to the distribution account as unallocated.

   • Click Cancel to reset the allocation amount to zero.

   The Allocate Payment dialog is displayed.

8. Do one of the following:

   • To allocate a payment to one or more Bill IDs, click the simple view button ( ) and enter in the amount to allocate for each Bill ID row.

   • To allocate a payment to one or more Bill Units, click the advanced view button ( ) and enter in the amount to allocate for each Bill Unit row.

9. Click Save.

   If a suspended payment has been fully allocated, the payment suspense search screen is shown.

Note:

Fully allocated suspended payments no longer appear in payment suspense search results. Additionally, if more than one payment has been applied to a bill, including any payments allocated from suspended payments, the total payment applied for the bill will include all payments applied.

Related Tasks

Finding a Suspended Payment

Allocating a Suspended Payment across Multiple Accounts

A suspended payment can be allocated across multiple accounts. For example, a customer may make one large payment that they want allocated to multiple accounts.

To allocate a payment across multiple accounts:

1. Make a new payment in Billing Care. See "Manually Creating a Suspended Payment" for more information.

2. Under Account Distribution, click Add Account.

3. Search for and add an account to allocate the payment to.

4. Repeat the search to add additional accounts to the payment.

5. (Optional) Select a new payment administrator from the Assigned to drop-down list.

6. (Optional) Enter notes and click Post for the payment.

7. Do one of the following:

   1. Manually enter the amounts to allocate for each account and click Allocate.

   2. Click Auto Allocate for Billing Care to automatically allocate payment amounts to the selected accounts until the full payment amount is allocated.

Note:

Unallocated payments are placed into a suspense. You can use the payments search filter to find unallocated payments ready for multiple account distribution. Select the suspense reason as Unable to Process, and the detailed reason as Multiple Account Distribution to filter for unallocated payments

Adding Notes to a Suspended Payment

To add a note to a suspended payment:

1. Open the suspended payment details. See "Finding a Suspended Payment" for more information.

2. Enter your notes in Notes.

3. Click Post.

Note:

Additional comments can be made to existing notes in a suspended payment. To add a comment to an existing notes thread, click Comment.

Related Tasks

Finding a Suspended Payment

Assigning Suspended Payments to Billing Care Users

Production Billing Care installations configured securely with Oracle Identity and Access Management (IAM) allow suspended payments to be assigned to users with a suspense payment management role and permissions. See Oracle Communications Billing Care Installation Guide for more information on production installations and securing Billing Care with IAM.

By default, suspended payments are not assigned to any Billing Care user. Users with access to suspended payments functionality can assign an authorized handler to manage the payment.

To assign a suspended payment to an authorized user:

1. Find the suspended payment. See "Finding a Suspended Payment" for more information.

2. From the search results, select and open the suspended payment.

3. In the Assigned to drop-down list, select a Billing Care user with permissions to manage suspended payments.

Reversing a Suspended Payment

Suspended payments that cannot be allocated can be reversed for accounting purposes. See "Reversing a Payment" for more information on reversing a suspended payment.

Withdrawing a Posted Payment into Suspense

Posted payments may contain errors requiring manual resolution. You can withdraw incorrectly posted payments into suspense for resolving errors and correcting payment allocations using Billing Care.

Note:

You can also withdraw posted payments from the Payments Details Dialogue box (see "Payment Details Dialog Box" for more information) or from the Suspended Payments Details dialogue box (See "Suspended Payment Details" for more information).

To withdraw a posted payment into suspense from the Bills tab:

1. Open the account containing the payment to suspend.

2. In the Bills tab, select the bill with the posted payment to suspend using the Switch Bills menu. See "Viewing Payment Details" for more information.

   Note:

   If a bill contains more than one applied payment, click Payments applied to view the All Payments dialogue box to select the payment to move into suspense.

3. Confirm that the correct amount is shown in Payment applied.

4. Click Actions, and then select Move Payment to Suspense.

   The Move to Suspended Payments dialog box is displayed.

5. In the Effective field, enter a date.

6. Select a reason for suspending the payment.

7. Do one of the following:

   • Click Move to move the payment into suspense.

   • Click Move and view into Payment Suspense to move the payment into suspense and return to the suspended payments detail screen.

Payments withdrawn into suspense remain viewable in the customer's account.

Related Tasks

Finding an Account

Viewing Payment Details

Allocating a Suspended Payment

Manually Creating a Suspended Payment

To manually create a suspended payment in the Payment Suspense interface for allocation:

1. From the landing page, click Payment Suspense.

2. In the filters section, click Make Payment.

   The Make payment screen appears.

3. Select a Payment method from the drop-down list.

4. Enter a payment amount and select a currency.

5. Enter the additional payment detail required for the selected payment method.

6. Select a reason for the payment from the drop-down list.

7. (Optional) Enter notes.

8. Click Continue.

   The payment allocation screen is displayed. Use this screen to allocate the new payment to one or more accounts. See "Allocating a Suspended Payment" for more information.