API User Inquiries: Responses from Product Owners

We have received recent inquiries from our API users, and the responses provided are from our Product Owners.

We will continue sharing answers to your questions on this channel as they come in.

Question 1:
It was mentioned last meeting that we would be invoiced daily – is it for that day’s transactions, or is the pad submission for the previous day’s submissions?

  • if it’s for that day’s transactions, when is the cut off time? Ideally it’s not for the current day to allow for a buffer in the event there’s some unforeseen issues.
  • How much notice can they provide us with (with this info) before pulling the funds?
  • to ensure we have the funds in our account to cover the amount and;
  • to know how much notice we can provide to our clients about how much we’ll pull from their account to ensure they have adequate funds in the account
  • What is the cut off for transaction, that will be included in the funds being pulled daily at 6 pm?

Answer:
PAD is billed each evening at 6pm. At 6pm the transactions that have happened since the last day’s batch are rolled up and prepared for debiting. Each evening your account’s transactions for the day are rolled up and sent to the back end to be debited from your bank account. At this time, we will send an email summarizing the amount you will be debited. It will take 2 business days until the money is debited from your bank account, so that’s the buffer time.

Question 2:
What information will your summary/.csv file contain? It was mentioned there was a folio field available, but as firms have their own folio naming conventions, it would be ideal if the Registry could provide additional information (e.g. firm that’s doing the filing, since it was mentioned that the Registry is assigning records to firms). It’s very common that a user that’s incorporating a company in a rush uses “New numbered Company” in the folio field.

Answer:
The “Statements” and “Transactions” tabs are currently part of all accounts on the platform. When you are logged in, click your account name in the top-right corner. From there, choose “Account Info” to get a view of all settings available. The Transactions section is meant for searching and filtering the complete list of transactions on the account. Every charge made on the account will show in the Transaction list. Here are the columns available. The Transaction list is a payment record and won’t have the complete filing details such as completing party in it.

  • Transaction
  • Transaction Details
  • Folio Number
  • Initiated By
  • Date
  • Purchase Amount
  • GST
  • Statutory Fee
  • BCOL Fee
  • Status
  • Corp Number
  • Transaction ID
  • Invoice Reference Number

Question 3:
If a filing is performed in error, what is the process for to reverse their filing and obtain a refund (if applicable)?

  • Do you have any insight to the types of queries and frequency of calls you would get for this? Is this potentially being passed on to us now?
  • How would a refund be processed? I assume they would be contacting the Registry directly vs us?
  • What if there are corrections needed on the filing? I assume they would still contact the Registry directly? Note firms would definitely push back if we were the point of contact here in the context of client confidentiality.
  • What if there are issues with the Registries API that cause incorrect information to be submitted.

Answer:
If a filing is done in error a correction filing will need to be completed, and this is a staff-only function. There is no automated refund process. Refunds would only be processed if the error was made by BC Registries or its staff. In the case of a refund being issued, it would be back to the method of payment. Please note: if a correction is made, in nearly every case, this will not “reverse” the error, rather it will add a new entry onto the ledger indicating that the error occurred and what the new corrected entry should be.

Question 4:
In the current system, a draft filing page is returned and users had to confirm the filing with a “pay and file”. Is that something the Registry is still providing through the API?

Answer:
Yes

Thank you for the replies to those questions, Lance.

A follow-up to the answer to question 4… this question had been asked during the recent API meeting and the answer was no. To clarify, the draft filing page was a formatted response that the user can view to verify all information prior to committing the filing. Is that what you are referring to? That is, would we be able to retrieve a draft document or other formatted response or will it be just the data elements returned in JSON format?

Hi Ian,

I was not at the API user group meeting, but as I read your response here, I’m wondering if your question was about sandbox specifically as opposed to how I read it, which was generally about file and pay. Did I misunderstand your question the first time? Do you remember who it was who said “no” so I could get a clarification from them?

Thank you,

Dave

Hi Dave,

I believe it was one of the developers that was doing the demo, but I had also asked the question at the recent meeting between ALF/Ascenti and the API team and was told no at that time. I can’t recall specifically who answered then. The recent meeting was recorded and I’m eager for it to be published so I can review it as it contains helpful filing information. It should also contain my question and the response.

My question is more general as opposed to the sandbox specifically (although having it available there would allow us to properly test before going into production).