Billing and payments
The TIO is an industry funded not-for-profit organisation. We recover the cost of delivering our service by billing you only for the complaints we receive from your customers. We do not charge membership or joining fees.
Cases are recorded for each level of complaint. There are four levels of complaint classification during the complaint/case resolution process. These levels reflect the potential stages of complaint management.
When we issue an invoice to you, it will contain volume fees and a proportion of operating and capital expenses.
Volume fees
Volume fees reflect costs that directly relate to complaints registered by us about you at each level of complaint.
| Volume fees by classification | *July 2007 to June 2011 | *July 2011 to June 2012 |
|---|---|---|
| Level 1 (referral) | $31 | $32 |
| Level 2 (conciliation) | $260 | $280 |
| Level 3 (investigation) | $475 | $530 |
| Level 4 (investigation) | $2,250 | $2,400 |
| Land Access** | $2,650 | $2,900 |
* excluding GST
** relates to a referral of an objection to land access activity
You may also be charged for any legal, technical or accounting fees incurred in investigating a complaint that are directly attributable to you in relation to that complaint.
Operating and capital expense fees
If a service provider incurs complaint/volume fees, it is also required to contribute a proportion of the TIO’s operating expenses. Operating expenses include approved and budgeted business support and infrastructure costs such as expenses relating to governance, office facilities, general systems and telecommunications costs, promotional and publication costs.
Capital expenses represent finance and capital costs incurred during the past invoice period.
Service providers are charged operating and capital expenses on a proportional basis, using the value of complaints charged to the service provider (i.e. volume fees) as a percentage of the total value of volume fees charged to all. Thus, if a service provider incurs 6% of the total volume fees in a billing period (calendar month or quarter), it pays 6% of the TIO’s total operating and capital expenditure costs for the same billing period.
Complaint charge waivers (i.e. billing discounts)
You are not charged for one referral (Level 1) complaint each month, and up to four conciliation (Level 2) complaints each financial year.
If, in any month, all charges for complaints are waived, we will issue a discount notice.
The discount notice is intended as an additional communication to you about complaints that have been recorded, but for which no charges have been incurred.
Any complaint for which a charge has been waived is dealt with in the same manner as other complaints, and you must follow the TIO’s processes to resolve these complaints.
Payment terms
We require payment of all TIO invoices within 30 days regardless of whether you are awaiting a response to a reclassification request or a review. However, should a reclassification request or review be approved by us, the following invoice will include a credit for the adjusted classification.
