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Types of Centrelink debts and how they are generated 107-02020000

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This document outlines information about the types and causes of debts.

Why debts occur

Debts can occur when Services Australia:

  • reassess or adjust a customer's entitlements
  • complete a review (Compliance or Service Update)
  • transfer customers between payment types
  • determine an advance as legally recoverable debt
  • gets a tip-off

Locating debts

View debts:

  • resulting from a reassessment on the Activity List (AL) screen in Customer First or Customer Record
  • coded in the Integrated Review System (IRS) in the Debt Management and Information System (DMIS) on the AL screen
  • in Process Direct on the Debt List located in Debts > Launch Debt Management > Debt List

In all other cases, manually add a debt to DMIS or to Process Direct.

Raise and recover debts in Process Direct

To raise and recover debts in Process Direct see:

The References page has a link to the Accountable Authority instructions (AAIs).

Debt identification

Finalised 'no debt' (FND) or 'zeroing' debts that are not legally recoverable

Debt investigation

Raising Child Care Subsidy (CCS) debts in Process Direct

Raising debts resulting from a failure to report or notify

Raising debts of advance payments

Debts resulting from internal transfers and clearances

Investigating the source and cause of the debt

Explaining and actioning negative adjustments on the Assessment Results (AR) screen

Create a new debt record manually on the Debt Management and Information System (DMIS)

Creating a new organisation debt record on the Debt Management and Information System (DMIS)