Introduction To Debtor Information

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Introduction To Debtor Information

The purpose of this topic is to simplify how you think about Debtor information. Generally, 4 important areas of information relate to your Debtor:

Demographics,

Contact phone numbers and trace leads,

Extra client detail, and

Financials - how much does the debtor owe.

You will find that for anything you have, Collect! has a place to store it. But, before you begin that data entry, you have to make some decisions about what your entry standards are going to be. The following are examples of the types of decisions to be made:

Data entry standard examples:

1. Block capitals for the debtor name/address info or sentence English? (only first letter of each word capitalized).

2. Dates MM/DD/YYYY or DD/MM/YYYY?

3. Certain piece(s) of extra client supplied data that is going into a user defined field. Pick the same field for that piece of data all the time. Rename the alias name of the field to identify that piece of data if the client is big enough and the use of the field is exclusive for that item.

We recommend not allowing individual users to decide to put something in User 1 one day and Summary the next, then User 2 the time after that. You will additionally find your needs to draw data from user defined fields into reports a more reliable and expected end result if you are consistent in where you store specific types of information. Likewise the entry style of the data. Example, if a User 1 field contains the referring Doctor's name, then decide if all entries will be "Dr. James Smith" or "Doctor J. Smith" or "Dr James Smith". The use of abbreviations and punctuation marks (in the example above, use of periods or not) will affect your report appearance.

4. Phone numbers. Are you entering them as numerics stripped of any hyphens or parentheses, i.e. 5552451212 OR, are you entering them as 555-245-1212. Because you may want future automations and lookup features to make decisions based on the presence of absence of said non-numerics. We don't recommend using (555)245-1212 as the leading parenthesis will prevent certain types of logic from being able to detect if a phone number is present in the field or not. Specifically, if you want to eventually use the system to find 'skip' files (no phones), then an area code encased in brackets will interfere with a 'Schedule if' conditional that will be looking for the first position being greater than zero. A Bracket symbol will not give the expected result and a file with a phone number could be sent to a trace desk.

You can set a software switch to prevent staff from being able to free-form update Phone fields if your preference is no non-numerics. Click "System\ Preferences\Options, Sounds and Colors" and then check the box On for "Only numerics in phone fields".

5. SSN. Is your standard going to be to enter the number all 9 digits with no spaces, SSN is 555555555 or as the format of 555 55 5555. If your portfolios are of the types that collectors will need to be doing lookups by SSN, you may wish to adopt the no spaces/no non-numerics format and set your preference switch accordingly.

You can set a software switch to prevent staff from being able to free-form update SSN fields if your preference is no non-numerics. Click "System\Preferences\Options, Sounds and Colors" and then check the box On for "Only numerics in SSN".

6. Do you collect internationally? If not, the use of the Country code will get redundant on letters, reports and client statements. You may choose to leave this field blank and/or comment out the field in reports or letters that call for it as part of a client, debtor or agency address.

Putting two slashes in front of a printable field code that is left-flush with the margin will comment out that line and prevent that field from being expressed.

Example; the following is a standard debtor address block that you may see in letters. The country code is the last field, @de.co. As below, it will either express if something redundant (like United States or Canada) is in there, or, create a blank line in your letter if the field is blank.

@de.na<

@de.ad< @de.a1<

@de.ci<, @de.st< @de.zi<

@de.co<

This is the same address block with the country code commented out. The integrity of the coding remains intact for legacy and troubleshooting purposes, but the unwanted field will not express.

@de.na<

@de.ad< @de.a1<

@de.ci<, @de.st< @de.zi<

//@de.co< 06/09/2015 Commented out country code.

7. We recommend using the standard 2 digit State (or Province) codes of your region and not entering the name of the state/province in full words. This will allow your State field to be ascending/descending sortable and maintain another data convention that will be reflected in your letters and report outputs. As well, in some countries, postal services will not accept envelopes that have non-standard abbreviations for their provinces/states.

8. If you plan on reporting to any of the Credit Bureaus, establish correct address format standards right from the outset. Your local Post Office will have a handbook which describes what is or is not an acceptable addressing format. The reason for this is to ensure not only is your mail not rejected by the postal service but that both the Collect! Credit Bureau Module and the Credit Bureaus themselves will reject addresses not submitted in correct format.

Example of a correctly formatted address:

123 - 55 Somewhere St.

New York, NY 12345

Example of an incorrectly formatted address insofar as the credit bureaus are concerned:

55 Somewhere Street
Apt #123
New York, New York, 12345

9. Collector Notes. Do you want them to write in block caps all the time or regular sentence English. If you employ live skip tracers, do you want their notes to be block caps or sentence English? Some agencies have collectors write in block caps and tracers in lower case so that at a glance, who wrote the notes is distinguishable. You also have the ability to color code your users notes by selecting a specific color in the Operator Setup for each user level's notes.

For sites using any feature build of CV11, colored notes are characterized by the color defining the BACKGROUND of the note field, as selected in "System\ Rights\ Operator", Detail Tab. The text will be black.

For sites using CV12 and higher, the background of notes remains a uniform beige while the TEXT is what is colored. This is a new feature which Collect! is proud to be offering. The preference is still defined in the same Operator Setup screen, in the Detail Tab. Color options are as numerous as there are Hex color codes to choose from. Use your favorite Internet site that offers colors and the Hex codes needed to represent them. A sample site to try is "http://www.color-hex.com/color-names.html".

10. Have you created Action/Result codes for your collectors to use that negate perfunctory note entry such as Tel Res - No Answer (or Tel Res - NA) etc. and standardize how you want certain actions to be notated in your accounts note history? This improves your collector efficiency if they can enter a 3 digit Run Plan to input static notes instead of having to redundantly type them all day.

11. Have you designated which windows you want collectors to use for any other office specific requirement, AND updated the pick lists so that said windows/entry screens are ready for them? Example, if you will be utilizing the Cosigners Tab for the Other Parties as well (as it is designed for), have you updated the pick list for the Class in that window to include all the different designators that you may wish such as NOK, AKA, Reference, Relative etc. Perhaps you wish to drill down farther and update the pick list for Cosigner Type to include designations like Mom, Dad, Brother, Sister, MIL, FIL, B/F, G/F, etc.

12. Have you reviewed the Financial preferences that will govern the behavior of how Transactions will behave? See the Help page called Transaction Type. Your preferences for these must be set and uniform from the beginning if you wish to have reliable results.

13. Are you a credit reporting agency? If so, you will need to purchase a license for the add-on CBR Module (call Administration if you have not yet done this) and implement some entry standards to ensure your monthly (or more frequent) reporting takes place with the least amount of rejects needing review.

This means there are some key client and debtor entry areas to be aware of:

Company Details. You need to ensure you have a complete company name and address in your Company Details. This information is written from this file to the Header Record of the Metro2 file you will send out to your bureaus of choice.

Credit Bureau Setup. You need to complete the "System\Preferences\Credit Bureau Setup" screen with the required entry fields updated. See the Help page "How To Setup Credit Reporting".

Client Setup. You need to choose a Type in the upper right corner of the Client setup screen. This is actually the bureau's creditor classification field. The pick list shipping default should not be changed as these are exactly what options are acceptable in the Metro2 output file for Equifax, Trans Union and Experian. No others will be accepted. The field left as "Unknown" (the default when you set up a new client) will be rejected by the Collect! CBR Module.

Advanced Client Settings. Check ON "Report accounts to bureaus" and "Send client detail to bureaus". This latter is the K1 segment that includes the mandatory creditor name as part of the submission.

Make sure to enter EITHER a Delinquency or Charged Date into your debtor accounts. The Collect! CBR Module requires at least one of these fields to be present, because the credit bureaus require that the correct age of the account be reflected at time of reporting. Absence of dates in both fields will cause the CBR Module to reject the account. It can be updated and will be picked up by the next output process.

Make sure to turn ON your new debtors for credit reporting. This can be done either manually by clicking into the CBR Tab when an individual account is being data entered, or can be done as a Batch Process from a tagged list of accounts you have entered that day. See the Help topics " Credit Report Details", " Prepare Accounts for Reporting to Credit Bureau" and " Select Bureau Report Details".

14. If you have clients with different Remittance/Statement cycles (i.e. Monthly, Biweekly etc.), it is important to have these clients properly set for their cycles right from the beginning.

15. The shipping default for clients is Net Remit types. If you have clients for whom you remit as Gross or Combined, these settings should be set for these clients from the beginning.

16. If you have client balance forwards from Receivables before your cutover to Collect!'s software, these can be (manually) input into created Invoice/ Statements. The timing of these entries and methodology is a more advanced task. Contact Technical Services at 250-391-0466 for info and pricing to accomplish this task.

17. Do you intend to use Collect!'s CHECK, GCHECK, and CCHECK forms? These are the check outputs that would be created when you generate Statement/Invoices. If so, there are input fields that need to be completed for your banking name, address and Routing/ABA/account # details. If you use custom check stock but would still like them output by Collect!, contact Technical Services at 250-391-0466 for pricing to have your check reports modified to output to your preferred check stock format.

The following is the inside of the CHECK report indicating the fields you need to complete before you generate your first Statements/Invoices.

Bank Info Update for New Site Checks

The fields where you want to input the correct information between the quotes to replace the "placeholder" information are:

@varRoute = "123456789"

@varAccnt = "123456789258"

@varBank = "Your Banks Name"

@varBnkAdd = "Bank Address Line 1"

@varBnkAdd2 = "Bank Address Line 2"

If you have Gross and/or Combined remittance type clients, you will want to do the same things for the report names GCHECK and CCHECK.

Follow the menu path " Print\ Customize Printing\ Edit Report Template" and this will bring up your print menu window called Report Definition. Select the report called CHECK. This will open up the report body on your screen. Click into the yellow colored "Report Body" and it will turn white. You are now in Edit mode. Scroll to where you see the insert lines above and input your bank routing #, your bank account #, your bank name, bank Address and bank City, State Zip into lines where indicated. Then click OK to save or press F8. Repeat this process for GCHECK and CCHECK if you have Gross or Combined remittance type clients, as a generate statement run will output three different types of checks to go with the different types of statements.

If you are a Canadian or Bahamian site, you will want to request that Technical Services update your CHECK / GCHECK / CCHECK as well as Statement / GStatement / CStatement for the spelling of "cheque" in place of "check" where applicable in these documents. Canadian sites will also need to update "US Funds" to "Canadian Funds" in two sports on each of the three check reports.

18. If you would like your logo to added to the Statement/Invoice forms that Collect! outputs as its shipping default type, OR, other customizations, contact Technical Services for 250-391-0466 for pricing.

19. Have you set up your Contact Plan for initial use? Example, the system ships with a NEW contact plan as a sample. Use this as a template to decide how you want your new business to be activated. Items to consider:

What do you want the initial status to be? NEW is a common site favorite but this can be changed to be NBS if you have a different preference.

Do you have a letter series that you want to imbed right away? A Letter1 that goes at day 0, Letter2 that goes at day 30, Letter3 that goes at day 45 (or any delay date timeline)?

Would you like a Review or Phone Contact Event to be inserted to get the account on a collection desk right away or with a delay in the event of a letter hold period in your region?

Any other date driven activities that can be set up at the time the account is listed? i.e. 90 day Mgr or Auditor Reviews, etc.

20. Do you have your dunning letters set up? If you are a new to Collect!, you may wish to have our Technical Services team set up your first letters so that go forward, you have samples to follow. Call or email Technical Services for pricing at 250-391-0466 or support@collect.org.

21. Do you have specific reports that you are required to send to your clients, like New Business Acknowledgements (called Client Acknowledgements in Collect!) or Monthly Inventory reports (called Client Status Reports in Collect!), or client performance metrics (such as Client Analysis 12 Months, Monthly Batch Analysis, and Monthly Spindown in Collect!)? Please review the shipping default reports. If you require customized reporting to meet your clients' requirements, please call or email Technical Services at 250-391-0466 or support@collect.org.

With these actionable items preplanned for and attended to in advance, you will find your migration and usage of the Collect! system to be smooth and seamless.

If you'd like to purchase any training or orientation time to augment your Collect! system launch, contact Technical Services at 250-391-0466.

Introduction To Debtor Information

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