How To Print Debtor Letters

Debtor letters may be printed in several ways:

Print a letter to a debtor
Print a customized letter to a debtor
Print to selected debtors
Print letters in a batch

Whenever a letter is printed to printer, Collect! automatically writes a line to the Debtor's Notes and marks the Letter contact 'Done'.

Print A Letter To A Debtor

These steps will print a single letter to a single account.

1. Select Browse from the top menu bar and then select All Debtors from the drop-down choices. This will display the list of all debtors.

2. Press ENTER to open the first Debtor in the list. The Debtor form is displayed.

3. Select Print from the top menu bar and then select Reports and Letters from the drop-down choices. This displays a list of reports and letters that can be printed from the Debtor form.

4. Use the DOWN arrow key on your keyboard to scroll down the list until Letter 1 is highlighted.

5. Press ENTER. The Print Report form is displayed for choosing the printer to use and several other details. Press F1 to see help on this form.

6. Select the PRINT button or press ENTER to start printing. Soon you should see the letter coming out of your printer.

A Letter contact with the letter's Name will be saved in the Debtor's contacts.

A letter may be edited before being sent to the printer. This is explained in the next section.

Print A Customized Letter To A Debtor

When a letter is displayed on the screen, it may be edited before you print it. The steps are similar to printing to the printer and are given below. When a letter is customized and printed, Collect! saves the modified letter for future reference.

This allows you to make small changes to a letter right away and send it off. If you want the changes to be permanent, it is best to actually edit the letter report body.

1. Select Browse from the top menu bar and then select All Debtors from the drop-down choices. This will display the list of all debtors.

2. Press ENTER to open the first Debtor in the list. The Debtor form is displayed.

3. Select Print from the top menu bar and then select Reports and Letters from he drop-down choices. This displays a list of all reports and letters that may be printed from the Debtor.

4. Use the DOWN arrow key on your keyboard to scroll down the list until Letter 1 is highlighted.

5. Press ENTER. The Print Report form is displayed. Put a dot in the radio button labeled Screen.

6. Select the PRINT button or press F8 to start printing to Screen. In a moment the editor will pop up showing you the letter.

7. Edit the letter just as you would any other text document and then press F5 to print it.

A Letter contact with the letter's Name will be saved in the Debtor's contacts.

Next, we will step through printing to a list of debtors.

Print To Selected Debtors

To print to a selected list of debtors, manually select debtors, or use search criteria to select debtors defined by some criteria. These two methods are explained in this section.

1. Manually Select Debtors

This method allows you to manually select the debtors that you want to print a letter to.

1. Select Browse from the top menu bar and then select All Debtors from the drop-down choices. This will display the list of all debtors.

2. Using the arrow keys and the spacebar, tag several Debtor records. They will be highlighted in blue.

3. Select Print from the top menu bar and then select Reports and Letters from the drop-down choices. This will display a list of reports and letters that can be printed from the debtor.

4. Use the DOWN arrow key on your keyboard to scroll down the list until Letter 1 is highlighted.

5. Press ENTER. You will see a prompt. Select ALL to print a letter to each of the debtors in your selected list.

6. The Print Report form is displayed for choosing the printer to use and several other details. Press F1 to see help on this form.

7. Select the PRINT button or press ENTER to start printing. Soon you should see the letters coming out of your printer.

The next method we will cover uses the Edit Search Criteria form to select debtors.

2. Use Search Criteria to Select Debtors

1. Select Browse from the top menu bar and then select All Debtors from the drop-down choices. This will display the list of all debtors.

2. Press F6 to bring up the Edit Search Criteria form.

3. When the Edit Search Criteria form is displayed, enter the criteria you want to use. Press F1 for help on this form.

4. When you have entered all your criteria, press the SEARCH button to filter the Debtor list. When prompted to tag the search results, select YES. You will see a list of accounts highlighted in blue.

5. Proceed as outlined in the first method, to select your report and start the printing process. Soon your letters should start coming out of the printer.

We have already discussed one way to send letters to a "batch" of debtors - that is by selecting them, either manually or by using search criteria. Next, the daily print batch is discussed.

Print Letters In A Batch

Another way to send letters in a batch is to use the Scheduled Batch Letters feature in Collect! This is a very efficient method for queuing individual letters to print in a daily print queue.

Letters are scheduled for accounts by using a contact or a contact plan. At the end of each day, print all letters scheduled for the day in a batch through the Daily Administration, Daily Batch Processes or the Print menu, Daily Reports.

Please see Scheduled Batch Letters for details.

Summary

There are many ways to print debtor letters.

Print a single letter to one debtor, or to a selected list of debtors.

If needed, quickly modify a letter printed to screen and then print it to the printer.

Once letter contacts have been scheduled for your accounts, you can print queued letters in your daily batch.

When you print letters from Collect!, the names, addresses and other details are automatically merged with pre-designed letter templates. Use the existing letter templates, or make a copy and edit them, or create your own letter templates.