Txt-A-Park billing fail at Vodafone and they won't correct it

Forums › One New Zealand (including Vodafone, WxC, Farmside) › Txt-A-Park billing fail at Vodafone and they won't correct it

maddygp

41 posts

Geek

#70259 20-Oct-2010 22:09

Following on from the Fixing the fail at Vodafone post by sbiddle ...

Another tale of woe from the billing department and Vodafone's inability to correct the issue that's dragged on for a month or so now.

The GST amount on our August invoice wasn't 12.5% of the pre-GST total so I took it up with customer support.
The CSR's response after following up with the billing team:

Thank you for your patience.

Please be advised that there are some txt a park charging which is charged at GST exempt rate and not all. All the text-a-park changes prior to 13/8/10 and after 13/9/10 has GST on them and anything in between does not have GST.

Following the launch of the TXT to Park service in August an error in the treatment of GST for this service was identified. The issue related to Txt-a-Park being treated on your invoice as GST exempt.

The invoice total is correct, however the GST portion was not correctly split out in the GST total.

The CSR's response when I asked them a fairly simple request to send me a correct tax invoice:

I have been advised by our Billing Team that we are unable to determined on which Txt-a-Park transaction the GST is included and which it is not as we do not have individual txt a park charging breakdown hence we are unable to calculate your most recent GST invoice.

They have however confirmed that this Txt-A-Park issue has been resolved and going forward this will be correct.

I think that counts as a fail. Vodafone have got absolutely no idea what the correct invoice amount should have been yet they still invoiced us. And worse, they've shown no interest in correcting the issue (e.g. just remove the Txt-A-Park transactions entirely from the invoice and credit us the difference).

How hard can it be for a telco to provide accurate billing information for customers?

graemeh

2078 posts

Uber Geek

#394267 21-Oct-2010 09:21

maddygp: How hard can it be for a telco to provide accurate billing information for customers?

Much harder than you would think!

The total bill is apparently correct but the GST is a little out. Who cares? The IRD certainly won't care about your bill for a few cents. They may, however, be giving Vodafone the 3rd degree over it.

johnr

19282 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#394268 21-Oct-2010 09:24

The issue is now resolved a code fix was deployed not that long ago and the customer was the winner at the end of the day as GST was not charged on TXT a park but Vodafone will still has to pay this to the IRD.

I know the $$ figure but not willing to post it and its quite a bit

John

Zeon

3916 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#394269 21-Oct-2010 09:27

johnr: The issue is now resolved a code fix was deployed and the customer was the winner at the end of the day as GST was not charged on TXT a park but Vodafone will still has to pay this to the IRD.

John

Yea but its flipping annoying if GST doesn't add up in your accounting system.

Speedtest 2019-10-14

graemeh

2078 posts

Uber Geek

#394284 21-Oct-2010 09:48

Zeon:
johnr: The issue is now resolved a code fix was deployed and the customer was the winner at the end of the day as GST was not charged on TXT a park but Vodafone will still has to pay this to the IRD.

John

Yea but its flipping annoying if GST doesn't add up in your accounting system.

You will find that GST on supplier invoices can often differ by a few cents from the GST you work out on the total. It all comes down to how their systems are configured and rounding other nasties.

I am surprised that this is the first invoice you've come across where the GST is a little wrong. It's not unusual to see a few cents here or there on the GST amount.

Your accounting system needs to be able to cope with this sort of stuff. In most accounting systems you can over-ride the GST amount when you enter the supplier invoice.

bender

220 posts

Master Geek

#395056 23-Oct-2010 17:25

Legally speaking the GST is based on the total invoice value of the taxable items. So in situations like this enter the total Vodafone bill amount and then divide that by 1.15 or 1.125. Leave any roaming charges out of this.