Why doesn’t the permit count on the State Surcharge Report match the State Data Request count?

State Surcharge report: Permits get counted on this report when permit fees (not surcharge fees) are paid, voided, or refunded.   Permit types like the 1 & 2 Family Dwelling may have permit fees in each of the Structural, Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing categories; a permit fee assessed in a category will count as 1 permit (so you may have 4 “permits” counted for a single 1 & 2 Family Dwelling permit). Each  permit fee category that has a positive fee total counts as 1 permit in the permit count, while  negative fee totals (caused by refunds or voids) count as -1 in the permit count. In other words, if you take a permit payment in one month it will count as 1 permit and if you refund that same permit payment six months later it will count as -1 on your next report. Also, if you take partial permit payments each payment will count as a permit fee paid, so your permit count will be too high for each extra permit payment you record. 

Building Data Request report: This report looks for permits that have the status of “permit issued,” that also have a paid surcharge fee (looking for the surcharge fee weeds out the permits, like demolition permits, that are not covered by the building code and thus should not be included in the building data report). 

In summary, the big differences between the reports:

• The State Surcharge report includes permits that may not have been issued while the Building Data Request report only includes permits that have been issued. 
• The State Surcharge report calculates the surcharge owed by tallying paid building permit fees, so it counts permits that have paid building permit fees; the Building Data Report counts building permits by finding permits issued that include surcharge payments.

In addition: 

• Because permit fees that are “paid” with Credit Memo, Fee Waiver, or Write Offs do not implicate surcharge payments, these payment types do not trigger permit counts for the State Surcharge report; however, these “payment” types can result in valid permits, so they do get counted in the Building Data report. As an example, an issued plumbing permit that has its fees waived will not be counted on the State Surcharge report but it will appear on the Building Data report. 

Given all of this, when the mechanical, structural, plumbing, and electrical permit counts on the State Surcharge report are totaled for an entire year, the count is likely to be slightly higher than the permits issued count on the Building Data report for the entire year.