Ovaltech PC programs for UK local authority Revenues - Housing Benefits, Council Tax and NDR / Business Rates

The Quick (Desktop) Benefits Calculator

Essentially, this program is designed to be a powerful stand-alone "Trial Benefits Calculator" for staff or (potentially) public use. The user travels through 10 main sequence input screens to reach the result. At any point the user is completely free to move backwards or forwards and change the data, which makes it very easy to model "what if" estimates. A print button launches a single sheet print-out summarising the claim details. The QBC is a VB executable program offering huge detail and powerful features - but it is not web enabled, for that capability you will need our WebBenCalc.
View a QBC screen sample.

ADVANCED FEATURES - recent releases have implemented some significant ideas, for example -

to meet popular demand we enhanced the program in 2008 so that users can output the figures, results etc. to a tiny text file and store that file on disk.
a General Benefits Checker. The QBC automatically calculates Housing Benefit, CTB and all the Tax Credits - but if you are interested in other benefits then just click the torch and our General Benefits Checker spotlight will estimate them all.
Verification Checklist facility - an optional print out listing those vital documents that the claimant should produce to "prove" the relevant claim components, based upon the information supplied. For example, claimants who disclose no unearned income will not see the unearned income paragraph on their print out, those who disclose no savings will not see the Capital and Savings paragraph and so on. Accordingly, the document is tailored, to some extent, to match each claim.
for those employed earners who only know their gross pay, there is an instant tax and N.I. estimate facility. Similarly, for self-employed earners, there is an instant tax and N.I. estimate facility based upon their Net Profit and Capital Allowances.
for those "tricky" student claims, there is a grant and loan income calculator.
from the final screen you can launch a single sheet print-out summarising the claim details.

For its grand finale, the QBC program performs an automatic Tax Credits calculation (if appropriate) for Working Tax Credit, Child Tax Credit and Pension Credit.

Where to use the Quick Benefits Calculator -

Designed to give fast and accurate estimates for Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit claims, the program is already being used at a large number of Local Authorities -

internally - allowing Revenues staff the luxury of rapid benefit claim estimates without recourse to mainframe systems - especially to model "what if" scenarios.
externally - at Enquiry Counters, Area Offices and Exhibitions. Authority staff and (potentially) members of the public can test out their benefit claims. The print-out can be retained for future reference.
Verification Officers can check claims "on the hoof" and simultaneously improve the rate of Benefits "take up" in the area.

The QBC program is currently released to more than 100 local authority customers and numerous Housing Associations. When FIRST software/Sx3/Northgate saw the Quick Benefits Calculator they liked it so much that they proposed a joint marketing agreement, giving them exclusive rights to sell the QBC into their userbase. Obviously this contract is quite an accolade for our Quick Benefits Calculator, to say the least.

So far as we are aware, several of the leading "mainframe" Benefits systems currently do not include a stand alone "Trial Benefits Calculator" e.g. FIRST, Sanderson and Academy. Those that do provide some sort of capability (like HBIS and Bull), cannot compare with our QBC in terms of speed, versatility and flexibility.

QBC screen sample . . . . . Otech home