Introduction

This documentation introduces a new feature, which allows for the withholding of a certain amount from a customer's payment based on their days in arrears*. This feature, also known as the "Arrears Withholding" or "Ontime Withholding" feature, is designed to help recover outstanding balances from customers who are behind on their payments.

Arrears are the total unpaid amount a customer owes based on their expected payment schedule.

This can also be used using the formula below:

Arrears = (Daily Rate * Days since Activation) - Total Amount Paid

By definition, the withholding amount is the amount of the customer's payment that is held back or withheld when they make a payment toward their outstanding balance. It is based on the number of days paid.

On the customer's account landing page, the "Withholding Amount" button can be found in the left-hand sidebar, within the Account section.

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Business objectives

The primary objectives of introducing the Arrears Withholding feature are to improve portfolio management, increase operational efficiency, and essentially reduce the flexibility of pay-as-you-go (PAYG) models for customers who are not regularly paying on time.

Roles and Permissions:

An admin/back-office user can select any customer to set their arrears/on-time withholding amount, which determines the percentage of the customer's payment that will be withheld to recover outstanding balances.

Acceptance criteria

If a customer is late/defaulted/normal (behind on payments), the minimum requirement for switch-on must be reached before the withholding amount is applied. This ensures that a portion of the customer's payment is allocated towards the withholding policy.

Suppose there is an amount left over in the customer's cash balance after applying the withholding criteria. In that case, this amount of days will be converted back into money and left on the customer's cash balance for future use.

Bulk withholding amount

A bulk option is also available for users with admin/back-office roles to update the withholding amounts for multiple customers simultaneously.

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Example

A customer with a $2 daily rate, a 2-day minimum for switch-on, a $1 cash balance, and a 30% arrears withholding policy makes a $5 payment. The following steps occur:

• The $5 payment is combined with the customer's existing $1 cash balance, resulting in a total of $6 cash.

• Since the $6 cash balance meets the 2-day minimum for switch-on ($2 per day), the account converts to a 3-day credit status.

• The 30% arrears withholding policy is applied to the 3-day credit, resulting in a remaining credit of 2.1 days (3 days - 30% of 3 days = 2.1 days).

• These remaining 2.1 days (given out as 2 days since we cannot provide decimal days) are sent to the customer's device.

• The 0.1 days remaining are converted back to a cash value and added to the customer's cash balance.

• The customer now has 2 days of service credit on their device and a cash balance, which can be used for future payments or top-ups.

SMS for Withholding Ontime

When the arrears withholding amount has changed, an SMS should be sent to notify the customer.

It notifies the customer that there has been a change from a previous amount value to an updated amount value.

FAQ

1. What SMS configuration is available for customers that have this feature applied?

The customer will get notified with a message that alerts them of changes to their withholding amount such as “Your arrears withholding has been updated from [previous value] to [current value]“. This message will help the customers to stay in the loop concerning their accounts.

2. What happens if a customer pays lower than the minimum switch-on amount set at an OpCo level or specifically to that customer?

Whenever the customer pays an amount lower than the minimum switch-on amount, this amount goes to the cash balance and they don’t receive the on-time until they’ve paid the corresponding amount needed to be switched on.

Sample file

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