Advance fees are prohibited
Under CROA §1679b(b) you may not take payment before the service is performed. Every charge in this platform must point at evidence that work was completed, and the system checks that evidence itself rather than trusting the person creating the charge.
"Cannot charge while enrollment is ‘{status}’" and "Round {n} is ‘{state}’, not completed — billing a round in progress is an advance fee" are both this rule.
What counts as evidence
Exactly two things:
- A completed round — mailed, waited out, re-imported, and diffed.
- A verified deletion — the diff engine confirmed the item is gone from a re-imported report.
Why an unverified result isn’t billable
"Deletion was not verified by the diff engine against a re-imported report — unverified claims are not billable." A deletion you believe happened but never re-imported is a claim, not a result. Import the fresh report; if the item is gone, the diff will confirm it and the charge becomes available.
"Completed round has no diff — results were never verified against a re-imported report" is the same problem at the round level.
Updates versus deletions
The billing page lists "Verified updates (not billable)" separately. An update means the furnisher corrected something rather than removing it. Under a per-deletion model, only removals are chargeable. If you want to charge for corrections, that belongs in a per-round model, which you set on the client.
Each deliverable is chargeable once
"This evidence has already been billed — each deliverable is chargeable once." The same completed round or verified deletion cannot be billed twice, even from a different screen. This is enforced in the database, not just in the interface.
Billing model mismatch
"Client billing model ‘{model}’ does not permit ‘{type}’ charges." The client is set to per-round, per-deletion, or both. Change the model on the client, or bill against the evidence type their model allows.