AAR Car Repair Payables Billing & Auditing

RAS will be designated to receive supporting electronic data from the Railinc Car Repair Billing Data Exchange (CRBDX) System.  In order to maintain an accurate and complete repair history, bills from parties that do not subscribe to the CRBDX service will be entered manually by RAS at the detail level.  At the close of the designated accounting period, a reconciliation of the actual bills versus the electronic data will be performed.  Discrepancies that cannot be corrected or adjusted will be documented as part of that period’s reconciliation report. RAS will maintain a detailed historical database of repair records for the life of each railcar and will use this data to produce maintenance reports designed to meet the individual customer’s requirements.

Notification to railroads to render bills for car repairs directly to RAS will be provided through personal correspondence as well as Railinc’s FindUs.Rail application.  Upon receipt, a pre-payment audit will be performed as allowed by AAR Office Manual Rule 112.  Bills with errors or exceptions greater than the thresholds set forth by this rule will be returned unpaid for correction.  Bills passing the pre-payment audit will be paid directly by RAS.  At the end of each defined accounting period, RAS will provide to the car owner a report of repair bills paid on their behalf along with supporting data as necessary to document these expenditures.

AAR Rule 112 H allows the car owner or its designated representative to perform a post payment audit of all railroad billing and to present claims for errors to the repairing railroads.  RAS utilizes a two-part system to perform this function. This process consists of an automated system to detect errors that require analysis and processing of large amounts of information, and a comprehensive manual examination to identify errors that require intuitive analysis.

Exceptions to billing are presented to the originating railroads, requesting counter billing authority or valid explanations for errors noted.  Counter billing authorities received are billed back to the issuing railroads on a monthly basis and credited to the car owner’s account.  Requests for counter billing that are declined will be pursued to their logical conclusions, up to and including submission to the AAR Arbitration Committee.