Over the past year legislation has been put in place to help ease the burden of utility customers who are experiencing economic hardships. Here at Harris we’ve been keeping up with these changes, and we wanted to provide more information for our customers about how to best handle the regulations that the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) has put in place.
Extended Payment Plans:
Earlier this year the PUC approved a plan that establishes several extended payment plan options to help residential and small business utility customers stay connected to service while paying down past due balances.
In addition to being able to take partial payments in FlexiBill, we also have a Payment Arrangements module that makes it quick and easy to setup and accept extended payment plans for qualifying customers. We’ve created a short video for you to learn more about how FlexiBill can make this process easier for you and your staff.
Utility Reporting:
In addition to reports already required in March of this year, the plan also includes quarterly reports that utilities must submit to the Commission for the remaining three quarters of 2021. The reports must include the following:
- Total number of accounts at risk of termination at the end of the month and for the same month in 2019 and 2020.
- Total aggregate dollars of arrears at the end of the month and for the same month in 2019 and 2020 (both total and by vintage, i.e., 30-60 days, 60-90 days, 90+days).
- The number of accounts disconnected for non-payment with dollar amounts owed.
- The quarterly reports shall be filed by July 15, 2021, for the second quarter of 2021. Following that, reports shall be submitted by the fifteenth of the month following the quarter, for the remainder of 2021.
- The information shall be separated by residential and commercial accounts and should include information about accounts enrolled in Customer Assistance Programs, if appropriate.
We’ve put together a Knowledgebase article to assist our FlexiBill customers with creating their quarterly reports.
