Creating a Maintenance Plan Auditing, Data Exchange and Paperless Billing Carol Scarborough.

Creating a Maintenance Plan

Auditing, Data Exchange and Paperless BillingCarol Scarborough

May 23, 2008 DTE Rail Services, Inc. Maintenance Management Seminar

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Auditing

Auditing Maintenance Bills The rules for auditing are in the AAR Field Manual and

AAR Office Manual AAR Office Manual contains the Price Matrices All freight railroads and freight car owners must

subscribe to the AAR Interchange Rules Contract shops use AAR Rules for job codes and

other reporting Price Master is available from Railinc for $425 each

issue, or $1,700 annual subscription


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Auditing

Auditing Maintenance Bills Contract shop general rule:

Contract shops use AAR labor standards for applying labor time to repair work

Material costs will be a percentage over actual cost of material In extreme heavy repair cases, actual hours may be charged Labor and material can be negotiated Individual agreements can vary


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Auditing

Auditing Maintenance Bills Both railroad and contract shop billing is in AAR Billing

Repair Card format (500 byte) Billing can be generated and supplied to you

manually floppy disk electronic file via email AAR Car Repair Billing via Data Exchange (Railinc) – now

required for Class I’s billing. Mandatory 1/1/2009.


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Auditing

Auditing Maintenance Bills Minimum AAR Billing Repair Card Requirements:

Railcar initial and number Kind of car (not mandatory for Group Billable repairs) Date repairs completed SPLC (location name may be used in addition) Load/Empty indicator (not mandatory for Group Billable

repairs) Location on car Quantity


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Auditing

Auditing Maintenance Bills Minimum AAR Billing Repair Card Requirements (cont.) Condition Code Job Code Applied Description of repairs Why made code Job Code Removed Responsibility Code Net Charge


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Auditing

Auditing Maintenance Bills Other items to audit

Duplicate billing for same repair Components standard to car (incorrect repair) Correct number of components per car Correct pricing Correct job code and why made or condition code Calculation of total amount


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Auditing

Auditing Maintenance Bills AAR Rule 112.H.3:

If entire bill is improperly rendered, return unpaid for correction 10% when bill is $10,000 or less 7.5% when bill is $10,001 to $200,000 5% when bill is $200,000 or more

If net amount of error or questionable charges (not counting car number) exceeds limits of the total amount, return the bill no later than 60 days from receipt to the billing road or shop

Returned invoices can be resubmitted within 12 months from date of return. Corrected invoice will to back through DX.


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Auditing

Auditing Maintenance Bills AAR Rule 112.H.4

Exceptions to paid repair bills= Within 7 months from receipt of bill (DX date) Except if rebilled from lessor, then 10 months Must be more than $50 (except for incorrect car numbers) All exceptions to bill taken at the same time Exception letters and supporting documentation can be sent

via mail or as PDF attachment to an email. Must send copy of original BRC Billing Road has 90 days to handle and/or issue CBA


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Auditing

Auditing Maintenance Bills Measurement and Analysis is important Look for problem cars Look for problem components Need to gather mileage on cars, real or estimate Projection of maintenance and planning


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Data Exchange

Data Exchange – What is it? Car Repair DX was deployed in 1970 Redesigned 2004 – 2006

New Environment / Flexibility Enhancements to Survey, Online PM, Internet BRC Expanded Format

Authorized by AAR Circular C-10397


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Data Exchange

Data Exchange – Why participate? Minimizes data entry and eliminates manual auditing

of bills Supports a more detailed audit by checking against AAR

pricing Facilitates paperless billing and re-billing

By importing repairs from DX the backup can be used for rebuttal billing, CBA backup, etc.

Feeds a repair database for historical trending and analysis of repairs by car, component, etc.

Currently required for submittal for Class I defect card and JIC damage claims and will be mandatory on 1/1/2009


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Data Exchange

Data Exchange – Who participates? Submitter – submits input to the CRBX system for car

repair data No cost for submitter only data

Receiver – received output from the CRBS system on equipment which they own or control Base fee of $140 per month $5.75 for 1,000 records over base (each line is a record)

CRB Committee working on removal of fees to receiver as part of 1/1/2009 deadline for paperless billing


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Data Exchange

Data Exchange – How do you participate? Create your own system – maintain your own internal

pricing and audit system capable of generating the 500 byte CRBX (CRIP) file.

Use a 3rd Party Vendor – partner with a qualified vendor that can submit and or receive (500 byte CRBX file) on your behalf

Use the Railinc Internet BRC – basic input system allowing users to input car repair data at no charge (submitter only)


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Data Exchange


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Data Exchange


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Data Exchange

After CRBX is run, a system generated email is sent to active participants containing a PDF summary information of their outbound file

CRBX Outbound Detail Files (CROP) are Zipped and put into receivers FTP mailbox which they can pull within the next 20 days


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Data Exchange


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How to become a CRBX Submitter

1. Must send an e-mail to [email protected] stating that you want to become a submitter to CRB.

2. Your email must contain the complete company name and address, with a contact person's phone and E-mail information.

3. Your e-mail must also include list of the repair mark(s) registered with Umler

Or include a list of marks which you will be submitting on behalf of

4. Must submit a TEST 500 byte CRB file via email The file must be in a ZIP file with naming convention of

MARKcripyymm (ex: MARKcrip0802)


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How to become a CRBX Submitter

5. After you have created your (Zipped) 500 byte test file it must be attached to an e-mail and sent to [email protected] so it can be download and processed in our TEST system.

6. You will receive your TEST file results (and associated Error/Warnings) so you can see what records the system accepted or rejected.

7. You may want to review this output, make corrections and then resubmit this Test file to again be reprocessed.

8. When your TEST file is approved by Railinc then you will be able to go live in our CRBX Production System.

9. DX Admin will create a CRB profile and an inbound FTP mailbox for you to use in Production.


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How to become a CRBX Receiver

1. Must send an e-mail to [email protected] stating that you want to become a receiver of CRB.

2. Your email must contain the complete company name and address, with a contact person's phone and E-mail information.

3. Provide a list of (receiving) car mark(s) that you own or lease that has your stenciled mark.

4. Complete and return a Railinc credit application.

5. DX Admin will set up profile in CRB with the owner’s mark or marks.


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How to become a CRBX Receiver

7. DX Admin will create a outbound FTP mailbox for the CRB file to be placed

FTP mailbox id and password will be provided Must be able to open a ZIP file from the Railinc FTP server.

8. CRBX file receivers will also receive the 2008 DX schedule, current file layout and a copy of the FTP users manual.

9. DX Admin will work with the customers on how to pull down the outbound file.


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Car Repair Billing Procedures Manual Required Reading for creating your own system


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Paperless Billing

In 2008 AAR Office Manual:

Rule 112.G.2: “Data supporting the invoice presented in accordance with Rule

112.G.1 must be submitted to the Car Repair Billing Data Exchange System in accordance with Rule 113.”

Rule 112.G.7: “Presentation of the invoice will be either paper mailed to the

responsible part or as a PDF attachment to an email presented to the Billed Party. The presentation method will be at the discretion of the Billing Party. Regardless of method chosen, the repair detail source data must be submitted to the Car Repair Data Exchange System in accordance with Rule 112.G.2 and Rule 113.”


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Paperless Billing

In 2008 AAR Office Manual:

Rule 112.H.2: “The receipt of the invoice for the purpose of invoice payment

and auditing will be defined as the date that the detail source data supporting the invoice is available (Rule 113) from the Car Repair Billing Data Exchange System. In the event that your company is not downloading your repair data from Car Repair Data Exchange, the receipt of the invoice will be defined as the date that the Data Exchange data would have been available subsequent to the date that the Billing party submitted the detail source data.”


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Paperless Billing – After 1/1/2009 Defect cards and JICs are going away and will be

submitted and stored thru Railinc. The billing party will no longer be required to submit a

paper or PDF invoice. Generic e-mail address database that will allow delivery to a

company and not to a person The invoice will be the Data Exchange system records. The billed party will have access to their data exchange

details without a fee. The time limits for exception handling will be reduced


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Conclusion

Many changes in Car Repair Billing Fleet Managers need to be current on changes

in the industry Maintenance Plans save $$ Plan for maintenance important to fleet size Proper fleet size can drive out excess cars Maintenance no longer the “black hole”


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Conclusion

Maintenance on railcar fleets is expensive Through Proactive planning and management

Costs can be controlled Predictive costs can be planned for and budgeted Cars can experience higher utilization More product can be moved with less expense

through proper fleet sizing

Creating a Maintenance Plan Auditing, Data Exchange and Paperless Billing Carol Scarborough.

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