Advance payments for pension customers 103-05040070

This procedure applies to customers who receive the following pensions:

• Age Pension
• Carer Payment (CP), and
• Disability Support Pension (DSP)

For non-pension Social Security Entitlement payment customers including those in receipt of Parenting Payment Single and ABSTUDY, see Centrelink digital support products.

Customers applying for an advance, wishing to check their eligibility, current balance or next available advance date should be referred to digital channels unless they:

• receive weekly payments
• have a nominee
• are under 18 years of age
• are 'at risk'
• have physical or intellectual barriers to using digital channels
• are enquiring about an advance payment of a Home Equity Access Scheme loan, or they are a loan-only customer, see Advance payments for Home Equity Access Scheme (HEAS) loans

While customers are strongly encouraged to use digital options and this preferred method, some customers may have other barriers that prevent this and should be helped to claim an advance payment.

Is the customer unable to use digital channels for these reasons?

• Yes, go to Step 4
• No, go to Step 3

• Advance Payment online - see Advance payment options online. Note: Services Australia website has an online tutorial for customers wishing to apply for an advance payment using their Centrelink online account
• Express Plus mobile app - see Accessing and using Centrelink self service
• Phone self service options - see Accessing and using Centrelink self service

The Resources page contains online tutorials to assist customers with claiming an Advance using digital channels, including Online services and Express Plus mobile apps.

Procedure ends here.

Note: a partner or third party (who is not a correspondence nominee), although they may have permission to enquire, is not able to claim an advance payment on behalf of the customer.

Does the customer have a nominee/third party arrangement?

• Yes, go to Step 5
• No, go to Step 6

Who has applied for the advance?

• If a correspondence nominee or involuntary nominee has applied, process the claim. Annotate the DOC to indicate that the applicant was the nominee including the name of the person and the organisation if an involuntary nominee. Go to Step 6
• If a voluntary payment nominee only or a third party who only has Person Permitted to Enquire (PPE) has applied, tell them that only correspondence nominees can apply on behalf of the customer. See Obligations of nominees for more details. Procedure ends here
• If the person applying on the customer's behalf is both a voluntary correspondence and payment nominee treat them as a correspondence nominee. Go to Step 6

If the customer has applied and they have a:

• Voluntary correspondence or voluntary correspondence and payment nominee arrangement, if the Service Officer has concerns regarding the customer's capacity to understand what an advance payment is and their ability to make regular fortnightly repayments at the set rate, contact the nominee before processing the advance payment request. Where contact is made, details of the contact must be recorded in a DOC
• Voluntary payment nominee only arrangement - contact with the nominee is not required
• Involuntary arrangement (usually will be with a State Trustee organisation) - contact must be made with the organisation. The advance payment can only be approved with the nominee's permission. Details of the organisation and also person contacted must be recorded in the DOC. In most cases, the Trustee organisation will not approve an advance payment for the customer

Go to Step 6.

Weekly payment customers require a thorough investigation of their circumstances and ability to repay without placing themselves in financial hardship. If a recipient has a gambling, alcohol, other addiction or financial issues, consider other options such as:

• referring the customer to a social worker
• suggesting the customer apply for a smaller advance

Note: weekly payment customers can make requests by face to face or phone but cannot use self service channels.

Go to Step 7.

Regular payments (and any immediate payments) can only be issued to the institution nominated on Entitlement Period End Day (EPED) B. Care must be taken to ensure when reissuing a payment, or granting an Advance Payment or urgent payment for customers who are on a group payment arrangement, as a payment issued on any other EPED will fail to deliver. See

• Reissuing a rejected payment and
• Group payments to organisations

If the customer chooses to have the advance payment paid by instalments:

• The repayments will be calculated on the full amount of the advance and not just the instalment that is being paid first
• When coding the date for the second instalment, for pension customers, the date coded needs to be 2 working days before the date the customer requires the funds. The payment is issued as per normal payment delivery timeframes
• The second instalment must be paid within 6 months of the original grant
• A future activity will be created on the FAL screen for the issuing of the second instalment. This activity must not be cancelled as it is required to ensure the payment is issued

When an income managed customer applies for an advance payment, the following message will show.

'This customer's payment is subject to Income Management (IM).'

Tell the customer:

• any advance payment is 100% income managed (except for Special Employment Advance which is not subject to IM)
• the total amount of the advance will be paid to their Income Management account and not their nominated bank account
• payment of expenses or transfers to BasicsCard can be made once the advance payment has been credited to the customer’s Income Management account
• their fortnightly income managed funds will be reduced due to the compulsory advance repayments. This may cause an over allocation of funds resulting in undelivered expenses

Advance repayments reduce the amount of funds credited into a customer's Income Management account. Service Officers are to check there are sufficient funds available to meet ongoing regular expenses.

Go to the Expense Management Summary screen and view the percentage of the fortnightly unallocated funds available. If more than 100% is allocated, regular expenses will need to be reviewed and updated. For more details see Determining a person's priority needs for Income Management.

Note: when running the Advance Payments service for Income Managed customers, check the advance payment on the Payment Summary (PS) screen before finalising the activity. The Advance is identified as being income managed by the $0.00 amount in the $Net payment column.

Funds will be credited with the nightly payment strip and available in the Income Management account the next day. This means customers who are granted an advance on a Friday can access these funds on the weekend using self service options to transfer to their BasicsCard. For further information see, Coding Income Management expenses and Transfer of funds between Income Management Account and BasicsCard online.

• Yes, see Table 2
• No, tell the customer the outcome. Procedure ends here

Tell the customer how often they can be paid an advance, so they have a chance to change the amount before any advance being finalised.

Note: customers who are paid in 'Env I' due to permanently living overseas, are eligible to apply for an advance payment when visiting Australia. These customers cannot use self service options, so staff will need to process the request for them. Claims for advance payment can be processed in 'Env I' but may take extra days to be received by the customer due to processing arrangements for international customers. These requests should be processed by International Services staff only.

In Process Direct:

• Key START into the Super Key
• Select the Advance Payments workflow from the Task Selector
• In the Advance Payments overview table:
• Select Standard Advance Payment as the advance type
• Select Next
• Standard Advance Payment will show

Does a warning show?

• Yes, and the warning message shows:
• income managed, go to Step 2
• automatic rejection, go to Step 3
• nominee, go to Step 4
• No, go to Step 8

When an income managed customer applies for an advance payment, the following message will show:

'This customer’s payment is subject to Income Management (IM).'

Tell the customer:

• any advance payment is 100% income managed (except for Special Employment Advance which is not subject to IM)
• the total amount of the advance will be paid to their Income Management account and not their nominated bank account
• payment of expenses or transfers to BasicsCard can be made once the advance payment has been credited to the customer’s Income Management account
• their fortnightly income managed funds will be reduced due to the compulsory advance repayments. This may cause an over allocation of funds resulting in undelivered expenses

If the customer wants to:

• continue with the application, and Work Item 'I064Q1-More than 100% of the Income Management fund is allocated' generates because of this activity, refer the customer to either:
• an IM trained staff member
• the Income Management line
• Enhanced Income Management line
• withdraw the application, reject the claim by selecting Claim Withdrawn

See the Resources page for a link to Welfare Quarantining Team.

Procedure ends here.

A warning message shows advising the customer's circumstances have been checked and automatic rejection reasons have been identified.

A rejection can only be overridden for the following rejection reason and circumstances.

• Rejection reason: POD - Person has an overpayment/debt

Can be overridden when:

• the debt has been repaid and is not yet updated on the system (and there is evidence the payment has been made such as an official receipt)
• the debt is less than 5 cents, or
• there is no debt

In Override rejection, select Yes or No

If:

• Yes is selected, complete the following fields:
• Override rejection reason: select the appropriate option
• Select Next
• Go to Step 4
• No is selected, complete the following fields:
• Reject/Withdraw claim: Select the appropriate option
• Select Next
• Advance payment application result will show
• Tell the customer the outcome of the advance
• Select Next
• Select Assess and address any errors/warnings
• Select Assess again, then select Finish
• Add additional notes if required
• Select Finalise
• Procedure ends here

If the customer has a nominee, a warning message and details of the nominee arrangement will show.

Does the customer have a nominee?

• Yes, and the arrangement is for:
• an Involuntary Nominee, go to Step 5
• a Voluntary Nominee, go to Step 6
• No, go to Step 8

With an Involuntary Nominee Arrangements, the nominee must be contacted and give approval before any advance being granted. See Table 2 in Advances.

Has the nominee been contacted and approved the advance?

• Yes:
• Who did you speak to? enter the details
• Go to Step 8
• No, a warning message will show advising the customer is unable to apply for advance:
• Reject/Withdraw claim? Automatically defaults to Claim Withdrawn
• Select Next
• Advance payment application result will show. Tell the customer the outcome of the Advance
• Select Next
• Select Assess and address any errors/warnings
• Select Assess again, then select Finish
• Record details of the update
• Select Finalise
• Procedure ends here

Customers who have voluntary nominee arrangements are not prevented from applying for an advance payment but if the staff member considers the customer does not understand how having an advance will reduce their fortnightly payment, then contact nominee (if possible) before granting the advance. See Table 2 in Advances.

Does this customer understand the impact on their payment of having the advance?

If:

• Yes is selected, go to Step 8
• No is selected, go to Step 7

A warning message will show prompting Service Officers to consider contacting the nominee.

Has the nominee been contacted and approved the advance?

• Yes: complete the question set to continue with the workflow. Go to Step 8
• No, a warning message will show advising the customer is unable to apply for advance:
• Reject/Withdraw claim? Automatically defaults to Claim Withdrawn
• Select Next
• The Advance payment application result screen will show. Tell the customer the outcome of the Advance
• Select Next
• Select Assess and address any errors/warnings
• Select Assess again, then select Finish
• Record details of the update
• Select Finalise
• Procedure ends here

The first assessment question determines if the customer can afford to repay the advance without being placed in financial hardship.

Ask the customer to think about their current expenses to determine how much they can afford to repay for the next 13 fortnights (6 months).

If the customer cannot afford to repay the minimum amount the claim will be rejected.

Update the following fields on the Standard Advance Payment screen:

'Thinking about your current fortnightly income and expenses; how much do you have left to repay your advance at the end of every fortnight?:' enter the amount in the text field

• If the customer advises of an amount that would not allow repayments for the minimum advance amount, the following pop-up will show:
• 'Based on your current circumstances, you are not eligible for the minimum advance allowed, therefore the Advance will be rejected'
• The Reject/Withdraw claim?: field will show Cannot afford repayments as the rejection reason
• Tell the customer they are not eligible for an advance payment as they cannot afford to meet the repayments
• Go to Step 12
• If the Customer advises of an amount that would meet at least the minimum repayment amount the following pop up will show:
• 'Based on your current circumstances, you may apply for between $xxx.xx and $xxx.xx'
• 'How much do you want to apply for?' enter the advance payment amount the customer wants to apply for
• Go to Step 9

Following the results of the affordability test and the comparison with the actual payment rate, the amount that can be paid may be reduced by:

• the amount of any Social Security Entitlement advance payments granted during the 13 fortnights immediately before the new application was lodged even if that advance has already been paid in full, as well as
• the amount of any previous Social Security Entitlement advance payments granted within the 6 to 12 months before the new application was lodged that have not been repaid

The result is then rounded to the nearest cent (for example, 0.5c and above is rounded up).

The minimum advance payment that a pensioner can receive is set at 1 week of the Advance Payment Qualifying Amount (APQA).

Note: the maximum amount displayed on the customer's record is the result of the calculations explained above. If the maximum amount displayed is less than the minimum amount, the advance payment application will be rejected.

Both the maximum and minimum amounts will increase in line with the pension rate increases.

The next questions will ask if the customer wishes to have the advance paid in one amount or two instalments.

Payment by instalment:

• If the customer chooses to have the advance payment paid by instalments, the repayments will be calculated on the full amount of the advance and not just the instalment that is being paid first
• When coding the date for the second instalment, for pension customers, the date coded needs to be 2 working days before the date the customer needs the funds. The payment is issued as per normal payment delivery timeframes
• The second instalment must be paid within 6 months of the original grant
• A future activity will be created on the FAL screen for the issuing of the second instalment. This activity must not be cancelled as it is required to ensure the payment is issued

Ask the customer 'Do you wish to have the advance paid in instalments?'

• If 'Yes':
• Amount of first instalment: enter the applicable amount
• Second instalment amount: the calculated amount will display based on the first instalment amount entered
• Date of second instalment (dd/mm/yyyy): this field will auto populate with a date 6 months in the future, - update to the date the customer has advised remembering that the date keyed needs to be 2 working days before this date
• A pop-up message will show, tell the customer: 'Your second instalment amount will be paid one or two business days after the second instalment date, allowing for processing'
• Go to Step 11
• If 'No', go to Step 11

Read the following information and confirm the customer understands the details:

• ' You may not be entitled to another Advance Payment of this type for up to 6 months, you can check your eligibility at any time:'
• Select the box to confirm the customer understood
• 'Your future payment will be reduced for the next 13 fortnights by:'
• The applicable amount will show
• 'This will be ongoing until the advance amount is fully repaid:'
• Select the box to confirm the customer understood
• 'If your payment stops before you have repaid the advance, you will have to repay the amount of the advance payment still owing:'
• Select the box to confirm the customer understood

Complete the following fields:

• Select Next to continue
• Advance payment application result will show. Tell the customer the outcome of the Advance
• Select Next to continue
• The Errors (SWE) screen will show. Address any errors/warnings
• Select Assess
• On the Entitlements (ELD) screen, key PS in the Super Key, select Enter
• The Payment Summary (PS) screen will show
• Select Execute to view and confirm the Advance payment will be paid
• Select Finish
• Add additional notes if required
• Select Finalise

Payment should be issued to the customer's payment destination in 2 business/working days. Payments are not credited to accounts on weekends and public holidays.

If the customer is in immediate need of the advance and any delay in accessing funds would severely disadvantage the customer, see Urgent payments due to exceptional and unforeseen or extraordinary circumstances,

Procedure ends here.

Select Advance Payments from the Task Selector.

Advance Payments overview will show.

From the Current advances table:

• find the correct advance
• check the second instalment date and amount from the advance details
• select Modify

On Modify Advance Payment, update the following fields:

• Via which contact channel is the customer requesting the Advance?: select the appropriate option
• Change action: select Move instalment date
• Date of second instalment (dd/mm/yyyy): enter the applicable date. This date needs to be 2 working days before the customer wants the payment
• Note: a warning message shows, discuss with the customer
• Select Save
• On Advance Payments overview, select Next
• The Errors (SWE) screen will show. Address any errors/warnings
• Select Assess
• On the Entitlements (ELD) screen, go to the Payment Summary (PS) screen
• Select Execute to view and confirm the Advance payment will be paid
• Select Finish
• Add additional notes if required
• Select Finalise

Procedure ends here.