CISR90250 - View Customer: View contact history

With the solitary exception of the 'Identify Customer' window, wherever you are within the CIS system at the top right hand side of the window you will find a 'contact' button. By selecting this button this will take you to the 'View Contact History' window, where you will find displayed details of all the contacts made in respect of that customer within the last three months. This capability will be available to all HMRC staff who have been allocated access to the CIS system.

In most instances where a contractor or their authorised agent or capacitor make a contact regarding more than one subcontractor, a separate enquiry will be created for each one discussed, and be displayed within 'View Contact History' for the contractor. However, where the contact is in respect of the verification of a number of subcontractors, or to the submission of the monthly contractor return (CIS300) for a number of subcontractors, this will be treated as only one enquiry for the contact. This is irrespective of how many subcontractors were verified, or how many subcontractors were included on the CIS300 and hence only one enquiry will be displayed within 'View Contact History' for the contractor.

At the top of the 'View Contact History' window under the heading 'Contact Summary History' will be shown the customer’s name and Unique Taxpayer Reference (UTR). Below this are two further headings, firstly 'Suspect Bogus Enquiries' and then 'Summary Enquiries'.

Suspect Bogus Enquiries

Listed under this heading will be all those contacts where the operator has marked the contact as being 'bogus'. For example, where a contractor had tried to verify a Limited Company that had ceased trading, or an individual or partner who was deceased. These contacts would be automatically marked as 'bogus', and the caller advised that the subcontractor should use the 'unmatched' rate of deduction. The contacts shown will be arranged in date order with the most recent shown at the top of the page, and descending to the earliest at the bottom of the page. Where there is more than one page of bogus contacts, the numbers 1, 2 and so on will be displayed beneath the 'bogus' enquiries to enable you to page through the various contacts made during the last three months.

Please be careful not to refer to any subcontractors using the word 'bogus'. The correct term is 'unmatched'.

Summary Enquiries

Listed under this heading will be all other contacts other than those marked as 'bogus'. Once again the contacts shown will be arranged in date order with the most recent shown at the top of the page, and descending to the earliest at the bottom of the page. Where there is more than one page of contacts, the numbers 1, 2 and so on will again be displayed beneath the contacts to enable you to scroll through the various contacts made during the last three months.

Under both the 'Suspect Bogus Enquiries' and Summary Enquiries' headings seven columns will appear across the page as follows:

Enquiry Date	Business	Subject	Subject Ref
Contact	Channel	Direction

Enquiry Date

This will be the date of the contact made irrespective of the type of contact made (by telephone, paper, internet or face to face at an Enquiry Centre) and whether the contact is inbound by the contractor, subcontractor or appointed agent, or outbound by HMRC staff.

Business

This will default to 'CIS' in each case, in the future it may be possible to view other contacts coming from other business areas as well

Subject

This will briefly describe the subject matter of the contact made (examples are: Authentication attempted, Verify Subcontractor, Register Subcontractor, Error on Contractor return and Replacement contractor return requested.)

Subject Ref

If the contact is being made by the subcontractor or their appointed agent then the subcontractor's UTR will appear in this field. If however the contractor or their appointed agent made the contact, what will appear here depends on how the contact was authenticated. If the contact was authenticated using a Contractor scheme Accounts Office reference then this reference will appear in the field, if the contractor authenticated using their own UTR, then the UTR will appear in this field.

Contact

The entry here will describe the person who is making the contact, the options are Subcontractor, Contractor, Agent or Capacitor.

Channel

This will describe the method used for the contact and will show either 'Document' for any letter or form either received or issued, 'Internet' for any e-contact either in or out by HMRC staff, and 'Telephone' for any telephone contact in or out by HMRC.

Direction

This will show the direction of the contact either 'in' from the contractor, subcontractor appointed agent or capacitor, or 'out' by HMRC staff.

Under each of the above headings you will have available to you a 'sort' facility and depending upon which heading you are in, the results of your 'sort' will be different. For example, under the 'Enquiry date' heading, by selecting this once, the dates of the various contacts will reverse so that the earliest contacts are displayed at the top of the page and the more recent at the bottom. By selecting the 'Subject' heading this will sort the contacts into alphabetical order, by selecting the 'Subject' heading a second time, this will reverse the order the contacts are displayed in. By selecting the 'Direction' heading this will sort the 'In' and 'Out' contacts together, with the 'In' contacts displayed first. By selecting the 'Direction' heading a second time this will once again reverse that order so that the 'Out' contacts are displayed first. Any 'sort' you perform on any of the headings above, will automatically mean that any previous 'sort' done on the contacts will automatically be lost.

Enquiry Details Window

Further information can be displayed about each of the contacts made for the customer either under 'Suspect Bogus Enquiries' or 'Summary Enquiries', and this is done by selecting anywhere along the line of the particular contact you wish to display. This will then take you into the 'Enquiry Details' window. Here you will see the following entries displayed:

Suspect Bogus	Subject Name	Subject Reference	Contact Name
Contact Type	Additional Name	Additional Reference	Enquiry date
Action Date	Contact Channel	Contact Direction	Subject
Line of business	Actions taken	Reason	General notes

More information about each of these entries is below.

Suspect Bogus

This will be set to either 'N' (No) or 'Y' (Yes) indicating to you whether this contact was suspected to be 'bogus' or not. The 'bogus' indicator would be set automatically where for example, a contact had tried to verify a subcontractor, and the CIS system had found a record for the UTR quoted, but it related either to a Limited Company that had ceased, or an individual or partner who was deceased. This contact would be automatically marked as 'bogus' and would be displayed in 'View Contact History' as such.

Subject Name

This will show the name of the contractor or subcontractor who is making the contact, or on whose behalf contact is being made by an authorised agent or capacitor.

Subject Reference

This will show the UTR of the contractor or subcontractor about whom contact had been made.

Contact Name

This will show the name of the contractor or subcontractor who is making the contact, or the contractor or subcontractors name on whose behalf contact is being made by an authorised agent or capacitor.

Contact Type

This is the capacity in which the person making the contact is acting. The four options available are Contractor, Subcontractor, Agent, or Capacitor.

Additional Name

This will be the name of the subcontractor, where for example the contractor or the contractors appointed agent, is making a contact about the tax treatment of a particular subcontractor.

Additional Reference

This will be the UTR of the subcontractor, where for example the contractor or the contractors appointed agent, is making a contact about the tax treatment of a particular subcontractor.

Enquiry date

This is the date that the contact was made.

Action date

This is the date of the action taken or form issued. Note that where any output (Letter or form) is to be printed on the same day as it is generated, the date of issue will be that day’s date. Where the output is to be printed overnight the date of issue will be the next available working day.

Contact Channel

This is the type of contact that is being made, the available options are, phone, paper and face to face (Enquiry Centre).

Contact Direction

This is the direction of the contact being made either, Inbound from the customer or appointed agent, or Outbound by HMRC staff

Subject

This will be the subject matter of the contact that has been made, for example 'verify subcontractor'.

Line of business

This will automatically default to 'CIS'.

Actions Taken

This box will display any actions taken by the operator who has taken the contact. For example, if the contact was from a contractor asking for a duplicate monthly return, this will show that a duplicate CIS300 was issued to the contractor. There will be no facility to write 'free format' notes in this field, the notes shown here will be automatically populated depending on the actions taken within CIS.

Reason

This will show the reason why the action was taken, an entry will only appear here where an 'output' has been issued. There are many reasons that could appear here, but in the example above where a duplicate CIS300 was issued to the contractor, this could show 'destroyed' to show that the original monthly return had been destroyed accidentally by the contractor.

General Notes

This field will give you the facility to write 'free format' notes. (This text has been withheld because of exemptions in the Freedom of Information Act 2000)

Once you have finishing viewing a contact, if you select the 'back' button at the right hand corner at the bottom of this page, this will take you back to the 'Contact History Summary' window. At this window you can either select another contact to view, or by selecting 'OK' at the bottom left hand corner of the page, this will take you back to the window within CIS from where you selected 'contact' in the first place.