SaBC police station claims: what the attendance note must feed the upload

SaBC does not invent claim data. Your monthly file either carries clean fields from the attendance note — or it rejects. For police station attendances that means Fee Code INVC. This is a field map: what the note must feed the Submit a Bulk Claim upload, what fails first, and how to keep the monthly rhythm.

Key takeaways

• Police station attendance claims go through SaBC under Fee Code INVC.
• The attendance note is the source of truth for UFN, DSCC, station/scheme IDs, times, and net costs.
• Missing DSCC, bad UFN, or unusable time blocks are classic pre-assessment rejects.
• Upload by the 20th for work finished in the previous calendar month.
• For UFNs from 22 December 2025: one fixed fee £320, escape threshold £650 (ex VAT) under SI 2025/1251 — confirm live figures before you bill.

1. What SaBC expects on an INVC line

Submit a Bulk Claim replaced CWA bulkload for crime lower. One office, one area of law, one file per month (CSV, XML, or TXT from the LAA spreadsheet or your CMS export).

For attendance at the station, use Fee Code INVC. SaBC pays the Police Station Scheme fixed fee from the Police Station ID. Report the matching Stage Reached code and the other INVC fields the guidance requires. A narrative that never became structured fields is invisible to SaBC.

2. Field map: note → bulk upload

Treat every custody note as a pre-filled claim row:

1. Case start + file sequence → UFN (DDMMYY/NNN)
2. DSCC notification → DSCC number (10 characters)
3. Station attended → Police Station ID
4. Instructing duty scheme → Scheme ID
5. Duty / own client → Duty Solicitor flag
6. Offence category → Matter Type
7. Timed travel / waiting / attendance → Net profit, travel, waiting (ex VAT)
8. Visits in the matter → No. of attendances

Capture UFN and DSCC at instruction. Capture station and scheme IDs at the desk. Stamp travel, waiting, disclosure, consultation, and interview as separate start–end blocks. Cost them later at prescribed rates — not a single “total hours” line.

Police station fees are not graded under the current tables: one fixed fee, one escape threshold. Threshold deep dive: Police Station Escape Fees in 2026.

3. Rejections that start in the note

SaBC validates before costs settle. Gaps in the note become gaps in the file.

Missing or malformed DSCC. Required for INVC. Ten characters. Capture it when the call comes in.

UFN errors. Wrong date part, blank UFN, or a duplicate INVC UFN on the same office account can reject the line — and, on duplicates, the whole monthly submission.

Station / scheme mix-up. Police Station ID drives the INVC fixed fee. Scheme ID is the instructing duty scheme. Record both at the desk.

Unusable times. “Long night — about six hours” does not feed net profit, travel, or waiting. Without block times, escape testing and audit defence are guesswork.

4. The monthly-by-20th rhythm

Report concluded matters monthly. Deadline: the 20th of the month after the work finished (unless LAA directs otherwise). March work → upload by 20 April. Upload early so rejects can be fixed.

Mid-month audit: every finished attendance has UFN, DSCC, station ID, scheme ID, duty flag, and costable time blocks. Then the CMS export or spreadsheet is assembly, not archaeology.

5. Structured note as source of truth

Do not reconstruct SaBC fields from prose. Hold them in the note: identifiers up front, timed stages in the middle, outcome at the end, PDF to the firm file the same day. That is the INVC upload, prepared at the custody desk.

Get the fields down at the station

Custody Note is a Windows and macOS app for structured, offline-first PACE attendance notes. LAA-oriented fields sit in the same record as disclosure, advice, interview, and outcome. Free during beta. No credit card. Download the beta.

Disclaimer

Confirm live LAA figures, Fee Codes, and Submit a Bulk Claim guidance on GOV.UK before you bill. Practitioner workflow guidance only. Custody Note is not endorsed by the Legal Aid Agency.

Official sources

• Submit a Bulk Claim (SaBC)
• SI 2025/1251