User's Guide - Working Accounts

This user's guide is an orientation to familiarize all Operator types with Collect! basics.

Starting Collect!

Once you have launched Collect!, you will see the splash screen below.

Collect! Splash Screen

Enter your login credentials in the ID and Password fields indicated.

IDs display as block capital letter entries irrespective of how you input the ID. Passwords are case sensitive. If you get an 'invalid' message, check your cap-locks and retry. Depending on your site's preferences, your password may be all lowercase, uppercase or a mixture of cases. Your entry must match exactly.

When you have entered your login credentials, you will be advanced to the Welcome screen.

Welcome To Collect!

Click START to enter the program.

Your Operator Type and User Level will determine what screen you are presented with next. Administration/Data Entry/Management see a Main Menu screen while collection personnel are navigated directed to their WIP windows.

Main Menu

The choices in the Main Menu are described in the User's Guide - Administration.

Work In Progress

For collection personnel, the WIP screen provides all-points access necessary to work their accounts.

Daily Collection Activities

As your WIP list is generating, it will be gathering all accounts which have a scheduled, In Progress contact associated with your Operator ID which is dated for the current day PLUS anything which you had in Priors (dated prior to current but not yet worked).

Work In Progress To Do List

Entering The To Do List

The list displays contacts scheduled to be worked today. It is called your " To Do List." What you see in your list depends on how your office as configured your WIP settings. Typically, it is contact event types Review, Phone, Promise and Other which are used to build a collector WIP list.

The following describes the significance of the screen features and options available to you.

TO DO LIST COLUMNS

Collect! ships with default list views, meaning the columns being shown and order they appear in are general. A highly popular feature in the software is the ability to customize your list views to present you with the information that is most relevant to you and restructure the column order to meet your own preferences.

By right-clicking your mouse on the column header row, you will be presented with the options of adding or removing columns from your view. You can also click into the label of a column to expand or narrow the width to suit your view as well as drag-and-drop the column to a different position in the column order.

The same capability to modify list views exists for most browse lists in the system.

Any columned list in Collect! which shows you it has a triangle on the right end of column label is an indicator that you may sort that column in ascending or descending order by clicking your mouse on that triangle.

In the upper portion of the WIP screen, you will see a series of radio buttons and drop-down picklist menu options. These are your Filtering options. By making selections within these pick lists, your WIP will regenerate, showing only those accounts which meet the selected criteria.

For collections personnel, these sub-WIP tools allow for strategic working of accounts. For administration and management, these tools provide easy access to desk counts and inventory breakdown data for operations monitoring and metrics.

Type is the kind of contact event that you have scheduled; Phone, Promise, Review, or Other.

Priority is a value from 1 to 99 that indicates how urgent you designated this contact event to be. It may be used to further sub-WIP your accounts within the same Type. For example, a Priority 99 can be used to alert you to handle this right away, while a 20 may indicate non-primetime hour attention.

Debtor is the name of the debtor whose account the contact refers to.

Status is the Status on the debtor's account.

Description is what you have typed into this line when the contact event was created. Collectors can use this as their 'next step' note to themselves to negate redundant noteline review each time an account is scheduled to be worked. Events scheduled by automated processes will have a generic description which is associated with the Contact Plan that was used to insert the event. For example, your office may have " New Business - Work Account" in the description line of Review contacts created when new listings are entered. Phone events do not permit free-form description entry; they require selection from a picklist of which phone you plan to dial on your next contact.

Date is the scheduled work date.

Time may be used to time queue an account. Use this feature to meet a specific request for call-back, night calls and when you are endeavoring to adhere to attempts at different times of day standards in your workplans. It is important to NOT time queue every account on your desk. This may cause non-timed accounts to be left unworked due to the over-queuing of timed calls.

Client is the Client Number for the debtor's account.

Owing is the Balance on the debtor's account.

Timezone tells you which of the timezones that debtor account is located in on the basis of area code on the phone number(s). Use Sort in this column to assist you in making the most efficient use of legal calling hours. For example, if you are located in a Pacific timezone, you can start Eastern night calls by sorting your timezone column for Eastern accounts anytime after 3pm in your local timezone.

Debtor Screen Basics

Viewing Account Information

The Debtor screen contains all known information about the debtor since it was received by your office. The upper portion of the screen contains the tombstone details and demographic contact information known about the account. The upper right corner identifies which client this debtor owes. Below the client information and client account number, you will see the financial summary information down the right side of the screen. This shows you to-date totals of what is owing in any of principal, interest, costs and also a total of what has been paid to-date, if applicable.

The Tabs running horizontally in the lower part of the screen are separate sub-folders associated with the account. When a tab is grey in color, there is nothing in it. When it is yellow, see this as the 'light is on' and something is in there to be viewed.

Any tab which opens with 2 small square buttons in the upper right corner of the tab display is a window which may be expanded to full screen size by clicking on the square. The tab contents will return to regular size when you click the square a second time. You may exit the tab view by clicking the "x" to close it or by pressing your Esc key.

In addition to the Tabs, there is further information on the account which may be viewed by clicking into fields of selecting from the bank of buttons in the lower right corner of the screen, beneath the OK button.

Any screen you enter may be exited by clicking an associated "x" in the corner of the pop-up window or by pressing your Esc key. In other views, you may be prompted to acknowledge a pop-up by clicking an OK button or clicking on a choice for Yes (or No).

Actions you can take on a debtor screen include review all existing information, add notes, add payment plan, post a payment, establish your next work date by adding a new contact event, update address information (depending on your User permissions), update status, send a letter, send an internal request to a coworker or manager via contact event, or run a contact plan to invoke one or more events.

Navigation around the screen is via your mouse point/click or if you prefer keyboarding, you can use your Tab key to migrate from field to field on the screen.

Viewing Debtor Notes

A complete set of notes on the debtor may be viewed by selecting the Notes tab on the Debtor screen. Click into the Notes area. In addition to the tab window expansion, if you are presented with a scroll bar on the right of the tab display, then there is additional information which you can't currently see because it doesn't fit in the regular/contracted tab display size. Use the scroll bar to page down through additional information if you do not wish to expand the tab display to full screen.

Typing Debtor Notes

Unlimited notes may be entered either free-hand by clicking into the Note tab body area, you will be presented with a prefilled date/time/user ID stamp and a flashing cursor waiting for you entry. It is also possible to enter notes via action/result contact plans which your office may set up to eliminate redundant noteline entry. For example, a Contact Plan action/result code could be defined to do all of auto-write a noteline such as "Tel Res - NA" for you as well as update your account status code from NEW to ACT once it has been worked.

Viewing Payment History

Select the Transactions tab to view a list of individual payments made as well as any charges levied on this account. Click into the Transactions area and scroll down to view the entire list of line entries, or, expand the window to full screen by clicking the square in the right corner.

Debtor Payment History

Summary payment information may be displayed by clicking into the Owing field on the main debtor screen to obtain the Debtor Financial Summary pop-up. This window shows you totals for original amount(s), paid amount(s), accrued amount(s) for interest/ other costs or charges, arriving at the balance owed and displaying this with a breakout into the balance component parts.

Viewing Additional Account Information

Additional information pertaining to the account is stored in the Detail, Attachments, Cosigners, Credit Bureau, and Group tabs.

Select the Detail tab to enter bank account information.

Debtor Detail

Select the Cosigner tab to enter either additional responsible parties on the debt AND use this feature to store associated information such as employer, attorney, references, next of kin, spouse (not responsible), alternate or previous address details, and alias names. Utilizing the window Class and Type descriptors allows you to set up as many windows as you need for each account to store relevant data.

Debtor Cosigners

Viewing Contact History

Select the Contacts tab to view a list of all contacts for this debtor. Within this tab you will see the full complement of events which have taken place on this account including letters sent, how many updates have been sent to the Credit Bureau (if applicable) as well as all collector and manager events completed.

If you need to see the contents of any letter sent, highlight the letter event of interest and click on it to open. In the line labeled "Attachment", you will see the word [METAFILE]. This means there is an image of the letter and what it contained exactly as it was sent on the indicated date that the contact event was completed.

Contact Schedule

From a WIP list, you will select a contact event to work and click on it to open the file.

WIP Scheduled Debtor Account

The yellow bar beneath the "Summary" field displays information from the contact event you selected from your WIP list. The reason for this is two-fold; (a) it saves keystrokes in that you do not need to stop to open your Contact tab and (b) it identifies exactly which contact item you selected in the event that you have more than one scheduled contact with the same work date on the same debtor account.

When you have completed all the work you wish to do on this account today and are ready to advance to the next account in your queue, you need to do 2 things before advancing. Each site will make an individual decision as to how they want contact events to be managed; voluntarily or by automatic prompt. Please see your management to find out which process you should follow:

If your office is using WIP Option "Always show next contact when" switch checked On:

1. After selecting and working your WIP account, click the right pointing arrow key (under the OK button) to advance to the next account. You will receive 2 pop-ups. The first will ask you to choose between marking the current contact event done, leaving it in your WIP or staying on the account. If you are done, proceed to step 2.

2. Click the Mark it Done button.

3. You will immediately be presented with the second pop-up which will be the item you need to setup your next work date by assigning a new contact event with a new date to be worked.

Schedule the Next Contact

If your office has not using the "Always show next contact when" feature:

1. Click into the Contacts Tab, and then click the New button or F3 to generate a fresh event window to set your next work date. Choose the contact Type and Date for your next event and enter your 'next step' Description, if applicable.

2. Click the double arrow button pointing right under the OK button on the main debtor screen. You will receive another pop-up.

3. Choose whether to Mark it Done, Leave it in WIP list or Stay on Account. If you are ready to advance to the next file, and you do not need to return to this account for any reason today, choose Mark it Done. If you need to return to it today, click Leave it in WIP list. You will then be advanced to the next account or back to your WIP list itself.

Prompt to Complete the Contact

4. Click the double arrow pointing right to advance to the next account in your WIP list.

Schedule the Next Contact

It is necessary to enter a next work date contact event. Accounts which do not have an In Progress contact scheduled no longer appear in a WIP list and become an 'orphaned' account. Orphaned accounts can be located and sent back to the current collector's WIP or an alternate operator's ID by running an internal inventory management report that will insert a current dated Review event with a Description of Forgotten.

We recommend that each site run the Orphaned Account Search report weekly. It is located in the menu path "Tools\ Utilities".

Letters On Demand

While administration/clerical departments will be looking after scheduled letters to be printed, collectors may have occasions where outputting a letter must be created/printed immediately.

Printing a single letter on a specific account right away is accomplished in these easy steps:

1. The account to receive the letter needs to be on your screen.

2. Depending on personal preference and user level, there are two ways to access the Print menu: (a) by clicking the Print button in the lower right hand corner where the OK button is located, or (b) by clicking the drop-down menu Print from the top of the screen and selecting the option Reports and Letters.

A list of available letters/ reports is displayed.

Printing a Letter Immediately

3. Select the letter you want to print and either click on it or press the Enter key. You will get a pop-up to launch the print task as follows:

Print Window

The configured default printer name will appear as the device your letter is going to be sent to. To select a different network printer, click the drop-down arrow at the end of the field displaying the printer name an select which device you wish to have the print job sent to.

4. Click the button labeled Print>> and your letter will be sent to the chosen printer to be produced.

If you have opened the Print Menu and can't see any of the debtor letters you expect to see, then you are likely in one of the associated account Tabs and not really on the main debtor file. The solution is to exit the Print Menu, click into the background in the upper portion of the debtor account display to re-establish your location in the system and retry clicking Print. This time you should see debtor related reports/letters in the menu listing.

All reports and letters have a designation of where in the system they may be initiated from. For example:

Anywhere - a report which may be run from any part of the system.

Debtor - must be run from a debtor list or an individual debtor file.

Client - must be run from a client list or an individual client.

See Also

- Topics Collections