Fee Management

Verne includes a flexible fee schedule that manages the collection and processing of fees for registry services.

Verne calculates and allocates fees based on pre-defined business rules and includes support for flat fees, sliding-scale fees and late fees. Verne also manages the generation of invoices and the processing of receipts.

Verne provides for collection and processing of fees in the following methods:

Credit Card Payment – integration with a third party payment allows credit card transactions.
Pre-paid account – an account balance is maintained per user account. This account balance is incremented online by an internal user, based on a payment receipt (transacted either at an authorised office, e.g. Registry Office, Ministry of Finance, or bank branches). There must be sufficient funds in the account to cover filing of a notice.
Billing account – post-paid account where funds are not pre-allocated. Pre-approved users will be automatically invoiced monthly by the Register. Non-payment may result in de-activation of the account.
Cash, Checks, Bank Draft, Other – these payment methods are available to internal users only entering paper applications on behalf of the customer

The Registrar (or an authorised internal user) may waive the partial or full penalty fee. This will be done on a case-by-case basis.

Fees and penalties are configured within the workflow and are charged on submission of a business service. Where the application and related payments are not concluded within the configured timeframe, then compliance routines can trigger the termination, cancellation or revocation of entities.

Verne generates daily revenue summary worksheets used for reconciliation purposes. Sample reports as follows:

Revenue summary by payment type on payments that are collected via the various branch offices, for transactions processed by internal staff.
Revenue summary for external payments that are made by public users.

All transactions within Verne are linked to the original register event to which they relate, and to a customer account, based on the user who initiated the transaction. This is handled by Verne’s payments module.

Billing Accounts

Verne enables clients to have billing (post-paid) and deposit (pre-paid). Within Verne, users can create billing and payment accounts for direct debits and billing accounts. Verne provides the tools to enable the public user, and the registry office, to manage these accounts. For users without accounts, such as those who pay via credit card, Verne allows them to save a payment method for future use.

Verne records financial transactions (e.g. payments, adjustments, top-ups) against the client’s financial account. Each payment is also linked to an applicable business service that generated the financial transaction (e.g. incorporation fee payment).

Verne generates a Financial Account Statement for each deposit and billing account based on a pre-determined schedule (usually monthly), display transaction details (ID, type, date, amount, etc.) and account details (e.g. opening balance, total number of transactions, total amount of fees paid, total amount of adjustments and closing balance).

For pre-paid accounts, an account balance is maintained per user account. This account balance is incremented online by an internal user, based on a payment receipt (transacted either at an authorised office, e.g. Registry Office, Ministry of Finance, or bank branches). There must be sufficient funds in the account to cover filing of a notice. For post-paid, or billing accounts, pre-approved users will be automatically invoiced monthly by the Register. Non-payment may result in de-activation of the account.

Clients may have multiple pre-paid and/or billing accounts which they can view and maintain (limited data only) online.

Verne payments module allows an authorised administrator to manage the accounts, including the ability to suspend and unsuspend (reactivate) customer accounts for a range of reasons.

Verne allows an authorised internal user to manually change an account status, e.g. to On-Hold, Closed, Suspended or Active. There is no automatic facility to close customer accounts based on configurable business rules. Verne provides a function for registry staff to maintain Deposit Accounts for clients, including functions to process deposit payments made towards an account, refunds and adjustments. Customisation will be required for different account types, account limits, min/max transactions, dollar values and other data elements. The Finance Team creates a refund request which is then reviewed by an authorised internal user for approval.

Verne runs a series of scheduled batch jobs to create reminders and correspondence for users. This can be configured to include the creation of statements for accounts and users that meet particular criteria. Verne provides a fee/payment reporting module which allows a user to search and display fee, payment and invoice details. Payment data (search results) can be exported to a CSV file. Customers with accounts can query their accounts and review transactions.

Making Payments

For a payment transaction, Verne records details such as the client account number, associated document (if any), payment type, amount, receipt date, reference number and any comment entered. Depending on the payment type, Verne also records additional data such as credit card type, authorisation code, bank name for a credit card payment or check number, issuer and issue date for a check payment, and other details as applicable.

Verne allows users to fund their transactions, either directly, by loading their pre-paid account, or paying their billing account, using a credit card, debit card or electronic funds transfer. Verne allows external users to record payments received from clients against a pre-paid or billing account, via any of the payment options available in Verne.

The system automatically updates the payment status on a successful completion of a payment, e.g. credit card or debit card payment type. Under certain conditions, an authorised internal user maintains the payment status at the time of processing the payment.

Verne supports the ability for a customer to pay for a transaction at the time of the activity. This payment can be by pre-paid account, billing account, direct debit, cash, check, bank draft or credit card payment.

Internal users may process received paper documents using all forms of payment types.

Fees for transactions performed within Verne can be paid for by external users using pre-paid account, billing account, direct debit, cash, check, bank draft or credit card payment. Payments can then be made against this account on multiple occasions.

Transactions within a session are assembled in a shopping cart, allowing the user to pay for multiple documents or submissions with a single payment. Note that no submissions will be finalised until such time as payment is made. Alternatively, customers with pre-paid or billing accounts can perform multiple transactions and then pay for them with a single payment to their account.

Verne records payment at the point of receipt for online transactions paid for by credit card. Receipt of checks or cash for manually submitted applications can also be handled by Verne.

Verne provides the ability to record a dishonoured check against a payment, capturing details such as amount, issuer, date received and the reason for the check being dishonoured. Verne also captures any repayment made against the dishonoured check, capturing details such as invoice number, repayment amount, waivers (as applicable).

Verne workflow is configured with the fees for all business services processed by the system.

Fees