LDC billing option

Under this billing option, Choices for You suppliers include their charges on the Peoples Gas bill. For each billing period, Peoples Gas will post the consumption, billing dates and other billing information in PEGASys® for the Choices for You supplier to use in calculating charges. The supplier will have up to three business days to post charges in PEGASys. Once the supplier submits the charges (or at the close of the three business days), Peoples Gas will create the customer's bill. Additionally, residential customers that receive Federal Funds for their utility bills will have available monies automatically applied to LDC Supplier charges.

If you would like to use the LDC Billing Option, please contact Gas Transportation Services for the LDC Billing Services contract.

Peoples Gas
Choices for You Program
c/o Meter To Bill - P129
231 West Michigan
Milwaukee, WI 53203-2918

  • Overview of the LDC Billing Option.
  • Instructions on how to use the PEGASys reports and ledgers.
  • File layouts of the PEGASys ledgers and reports used with this option.
  • Explanation on how customer payments are remitted to Choices for You Suppliers

Overview

The LDC Billing Option is an optional service available to Choices for You suppliers. Suppliers can choose to use this service for all, none, or some of their customers. Suppliers display their charges on a page separate from Peoples Gas' delivery charges.

Initiation of service

To begin using this service, the Choices for You supplier must submit a signed Billing Services Contract to Peoples Gas. The supplier will be given the option to create up to ten (10) descriptions to be used as Charge Description Lines on the customers' bills. The Choices for You supplier must submit at least one (1) Charge Description Line at the time the Billing Services Contract is submitted. Additional description lines can be added at a later time. A time period of five (5) business days is required before the requested description lines will be available.

Cost

Every month, suppliers will be assessed the following fees under the LDC Billing Option:

  • Basic service: $0.50 per bill
  • Additional billing lines: $0.02 per line per bill
  • Bill messages: $0.01 per line per bill

Basic service includes a maximum of five charge description Lines per bill. The same description lines do not have to be used for each customer or for each month. Up to two (2) additional description lines — for a total of seven (7) lines — can be used on each bill. Up to five (5) bill message lines can be displayed on each customer bill.

Billing indicator

The Choices for You supplier can choose which customers will be billed using this service. The LDC Billing Indicator can be set during sign up to either "Yes" to bill the account under this service or "No" to bill the account on a separate bill issued by the supplier. The supplier can change the LDC Billing Indicator for any customer at any time by submitting an Amend through the PEGASys Enrollment Ledger. The effective date of the change in billing option status will be on the customer's next meter read date. See the Enrollment Instructions for more details.

Bill creation

Each business day, by 8 a.m. CST, usage will be available for all customer accounts that had a meter reading the prior day. By 5 p.m. CST on the third business day (Charges Due Date), if the Choices for You supplier has not submitted charges (which can be zero) to Peoples Gas, the billing window will be closed. The supplier can either put that month's charges on the next month's bill (as part of the five lines) or bill them separately. The accounts for which suppliers do not submit charges will be marked accordingly.

Example of 3-business day window:

  • 8 a.m. Monday Meter reads are available
  • 5 p.m. Wednesday Billing window closes

The bills will be created the earliest of (1) the day the Choices for You supplier submits charges or (2) the Charges Due Date. The payment due date will be based on the billing date (date the bill is issued).

Supplier charges

The charges for services provided by the Choices for You Supplier, will be calculated by the supplier. Peoples Gas will not make tax or late payment charge calculations for the supplier. If the supplier does not submit charges to be billed, the second page will be printed with a message indicating that supplier charges were not available and the Supplier will not be charged a billing fee ($0.50) for this bill. However, if the supplier submitted bill messages, these will be displayed on the bill and the supplier will be charged the per Bill Message charge for each line. In either case, the supplier's name and phone number will be displayed on the second page.

The first page of the bill will continue to show Peoples Gas charges and the payment coupon. The total Amount Due from the customer will be a total of Peoples Gas delivery and other charges (from the first page) and the supplier's charges (total from the second page). Any payments made by the customer for Peoples Gas' charges and the supplier's charges will be included in the payment received amount shown on the bill.

A supplier can submit an Adjustment to a customer's account at any time during the month. The Adjustment will immediately affect the Total Balance Due by the customer. All Adjustments submitted between billing periods will be netted together and printed on the front page of the customer's bill as "Adjustment-Supplier."

Note: Charges and Adjustments can have either a positive or negative value. The benefit of using Charges versus Adjustments is that Charges are shown separately on the customer's bill. Also, Debit Adjustments are not included in automatic payment withdrawals. Therefore, if a Supplier didn't post a charge to a customer's account during the open billing period, it is recommended that the charge be added to the next billing period's charge(s). If a Debit Adjustment is used, the customer will be required to write a separate check to Peoples Gas to pay for the charge.

Supplier bill messages

The Choices for You supplier can submit up to five lines of free form text to be displayed in the Supplier Message Section of the customer's bill. Each line will be limited to 100 fixed length characters. (See the Choices for You LDC Billing Option PEGASys Instructions for format details).

Peoples Gas will periodically audit the bill messages submitted by suppliers as allowed under the Billing Services Contract.

Cancel/rebills

Peoples Gas may need to cancel (or deduct) usage from a prior billing period. This activity will appear as a 'Deduct' in the PEGASys Billing Ledger. In most cases, but not all, a rebill for the same billing period will also appear simultaneously in the Billing Ledger.

Multiple bill consumption records

Peoples Gas may issue a bill that covers multiple billing periods. If Detail records are available they will be posted in PEGASys Billing Ledger. In all cases, charges must be submitted against the Master record.

Note: The Net consumption of the Master record does not include the deducted therms if the Detail records consist of both Deducted and Consumption records. The Deducted records cancel previously billed therms not included in this Master record. However, if the Master records only include Detailed Deducted records, then the consumption of the Master record will be the sum of the deducted therms.

Customer payments

Customer payments will be applied to receivables in the following manner:

  • Oldest Peoples Gas utility service receivable
  • Oldest Supplier receivable
  • Current Peoples Gas utility service charges
  • Current Supplier charges

Oldest receivables will be applied in bucket succession (i.e., first Peoples Gas 90-day then supplier 90-day, second Peoples Gas 60-day then Supplier 60-day, and third Peoples Gas 30-day then supplier 30-day).

Customer payments (active payment plan customers)

Customer payments will be applied to receivables in the following manner:

  • Current Utility charges (0 day)
  • Current Supplier charges (0 day)
  • Oldest Peoples Gas utility service receivable
  • Oldest Supplier receivable

Oldest receivables will be applied in bucket succession (i.e., first Peoples Gas 90-day then Supplier 90-day, second Peoples Gas 60-day then Supplier 60-day, and third Peoples Gas 30-day then Supplier 30-day).

LIHEAP payments

Eligible Choices for You residential customers can apply for and receive federal grant funds payable toward their utility bills. Suppliers that participate in the LDC Billing Option will have available monies applied automatically against their charges and will not be required to submit LiHeap Claims.

Overage adjustments

If the Choices for You supplier submits an Adjustment or Charge with a negative value greater than the total arrears due to the supplier from the customer, the remaining amount will be treated as an Overage Adjustment. Overage Adjustments are treated as a customer payment and would follow the above payment schedule.

Transfer of account receivables

Supplier receivables will not be transferred between accounts unless the accounts belong to the same customer. This will most commonly occur when a customer moves or is closing one of multiple accounts. The utility will set up a transfer relationship between the accounts. In rare cases, multiple accounts may have an ongoing transfer relationship. The original account will be referenced as the "From Account" and the new (or other) account will be called the "To Account."

All transfers of receivables will display in the C For U Transferred Account Receivables Report based on the following rules:

Activity type Transfer type Transfer activity date
Billing (Debits only) Transfer Out Date the From Account bills
Transfer In Date the To Account bills
Debit Adjustment Transfer Out Date the Adjustment posts to the From Account
Transfer In Date the Adjustment posts to the From Account
Credit Adjustment Adj Transfer Out Date the Adjustment posts to the From Account
Adj Transfer In Date the Adjustment posts to the From Account

The transfers will display in the C For U Account Transaction History report based on the following rules:

Billing or debit adjustments — positive values:

The activity will display in PEGASys on both accounts. The "From Account" will show the original activity type of (Debit) Billing or Debit Adjustment and another activity type of Transfer Out. These activities cancel each other and the net balance from this activity on the "From Account" is zero.

The "To Account" will display the activity type of Transfer In. No distinction will be made to show if the Transfer In amount was from an original Billing or Debit Adjustment activity type.

Credit adjustments — negative values:

Because the activity is not immediately associated with a bill, the activity will not display in the "From Account." The "To Account" will display an activity type of either Credit Adjustment or Overage Adjustment depending on if the "To Account" has outstanding receivables due to the Choices for You supplier under any Charge Code or not.

Credit billing — negative values:

Credit Billing (or negative charges) will not transfer between accounts. The negative charges will first cancel any outstanding receivables due to the Choices for You supplier under any Charge Code on the "From Account." If a negative value remains, an Overage Adjustment will be created. Although the customer may see a credit balance transfer to the "To Account," the supplier will not see the Overage Adjustment transfer in PEGASys. If a supplier receivable remains on the "From Account," it will transfer to the "To Account" as described in the above "Billing or Debit Adjustment" section.

Payment plans

If a customer is put on a payment plan, any Choices for You supplier arrears on the customer's account will be included in the installment calculation. There are two types of Plans defined below:

  • Current Plus: the customer is required to pay their current bill (utility Supplier charges) plus an installment towards their arrears.
  • Levelized Plus: the customer is required to pay their utility charges budgeted over a period, their current Supplier charges, plus an installment towards their arrears.

Collection on behalf of Choices for You supplier

Peoples Gas will continue to collect outstanding customer receivables on behalf of Choices for You suppliers up to 45 days after the due date of a customer's final bill with the supplier. At the end of the 45-day period, receivables will be returned to supplier.