SDDC Releases New Invoicing Tools

As part of the process of asserting ownership over the 400NG Tariff, SDDC has published a number of items that used to be provided by American Moving & Storage Association (AMSA), before the Surface Transportation Board ruling that prevented them from maintaining the tariff. The first step was the release of the baseline rates for the 400NG in January, and recently they added a couple of other tools used in the invoicing process.

The tool that will probably get the most usage is what they are calling the 2010 400NG Rating Tool. This Excel spreadsheet is designed to replace the AMSA rating disk that was used to do basic  invoice calculations. We have done a quick review of the tool, and  on the items we tested, it did appear to do 400NG calculations correctly. However, it does require a fair amount of manual lookups in order to calculate the rates, so the calculations will only be as accurate as the rates which are input.

The second tool recently released by SDDC was Appendix A to Change2 of the 400NG Tariff. Appendix A was designed to replace a document previously published by AMSA, entitled the Summary of Software Calculations. This document gave directions on how to use the baseline rates to make calculations for the 400NG. We used it to program the Daycos 400NG rating engine, and SRA used it to program the DPS rating engine. Appendix A contains many of the instructions contained in that AMSA document. We are much more comfortable having the “instruction manual” for the invoice calculations as part of the tariff, then as a separate non-government document, as had been the situation previously.

We have been apprehensive about the release of these tools, because any errors contained in them would make the invoice approval process more difficult. While we won’t know for sure until we start seeing PPSOs and TSPs using them, it appears SDDC has done a good job designing and developing these tools to replace the AMSA items, and we don’t anticipate them causing any significant problems with DPS invoicing.

Related Posts

1. SDDC Makes 400NG Rates More Accessible - January 21st, 2010
2. SDDC Publishes 400NG Baseline Rates - December 30th, 2009
3. Invoicing Updates from the DPS Town Hall - March 18th, 2008