How To Batch Process Letters And Emails

Once letter contacts have been scheduled for your accounts, you can print the queued letters in your daily batch using Scheduled Batch Letters. Letter batches may be printed for Debtor or Client letters.

Print letters that were scheduled to print in today's letter batch, or select a Date Range to print letters scheduled for other days. Perhaps, you were not able to print them on the day they were scheduled.

Print your letters and notices at the end of each working day. Collect! will mark the contacts 'Done' for these printed letters if you choose YES when asked "Mark this letter batch as completed?" A line is written to the Debtor's Notes when each letter is printed. If you are printing a batch of Client letters, a note is written to the Client's Notes when each letter is printed.

This feature may be accessed in two ways:

1. From the Main Menu, select Daily Administration to display the Daily Administration menu. Select Daily Batch Processes to display the Daily Batch Processing menu. Then select Scheduled Batch Letters.

2. Or, select Print from the top menu bar and then select Daily Reports from the drop-down choices. This will display a sub-menu. Select Scheduled Batch Letters.

3. Either way, you will be prompted to print Letters or Labels. Select LETTERS to display the Batch Letter Options form where you may set options, for instance, a Date Range to include in the batch, or an Operator ID. If the optional Client Management module is enabled, you have the option to process either Debtor or Client letters.

4. Press F1 for help on the Batch Letter Options form. Set the options as you wish and then select the PRINT button.

After printing, review the Report entries in the Application log accessed through System, Diagnostics. Ensure that "report" is switched on with a check mark to view any error reports and messages.

Debtor Notices

Debtor notices are letters scheduled to be printed in a batch. When you are on a Debtor, you can print a letter immediately or schedule a Letter Contact to put a letter in the print queue. Notices will be sent to a Debtor only if there is a check mark in the check box labeled Address OK in the Debtor form.

Printing Client letters follows the process, only you need to select Client in the "Process" field on the Batch Letter Options screen.

Contacts for print batches may be scheduled manually from the Debtor or set up using contact plans. Please refer to How To Schedule Contact Events.

Print Notices For Any Historical Date Or Date Range

1. Select Print from the top menu bar and then select Daily Reports. This will display a sub-menu. Select Scheduled Batch Letters. You will be asked "Do you want to print the reports/letters or mailing labels?"

A Mailing Label may be printed for each of the letters that you print in the batch. We will just choose Letters for this example.

Select LETTERS and the Batch Letter Options form will pop up.

2. Enter a Start Date and an End Date for contacts to consider in the print batch.

3. Select the PRINT button. The Report Options form will display.

Some batch processes may be very lengthy! Now is the time to make sure you have enough paper in the printer.

4. Select PRINTER as the Destination and then select PRINT to begin to print the notices.

5. You will be asked "Are you sure you want to send this letter batch to your local printer?" If you are sure you are ready, choose OK to send this batch to the printer.

6. What happens next depends on the letter you are printing. In the letter itself, there may be prompts for additional information like operators or a date range. Also, if you have chosen to be alerted, you might get an Address Not OK screen whenever you encounter a debtor without a valid address. Follow whatever prompts you may receive.

7. When the printing is finished, you will be asked "Mark this letter batch as completed?" Select YES to mark all the letter contacts completed for letters that just finished printing.

8. Each contact processed in the letter batch will have a Metafile attached to it, unless you have disabled metafiles.

9. View the User Log from the File menu to see messages and results of your batch operation.

Print To Email

You can print a letter batch to " Email" if you have an email address on the Debtor and also on the Operator form for the Operator who is processing the letter batch.

There are two ways to do this:

1. In the Report Options for your letters, set the Destination to "Email." This will send an email for each item in the batch even if the Destination for the Letter Batch is set to "Printer."

2. In the Destination for the Letter Batch, select "Email." This will send the letter batch to email, even if the Report Options Destination is set to Printer.

In either case, letters printed to Email will have a "metafile" attached to the Contact when it is marked completed.

When a letter is printed to email, Collect! will save the Contact as a Email contact, not a Letter contact. The Description field will contain the name of the Letter that was emailed. It is set to type Email for tracking purposes.

Print Mixed Batch To Printer And Email

Collect! can process multi-location letter batches, printing some letters to "Email" and some to "Printer" in the same letter batch. This enables you to send an Email to a Debtor or Client immediately, following up with a printed letter or report sent by regular mail. Letters are sorted by Destination before being processed. All letters going to Printer will be processed before the letters going to Email. Metafiles will be attached to each completed Contact, unless you have disabled metafiles.

You can create a contact plan with your two letters in it and schedule it on accounts where you need to send an email immediately and follow up with a printed letter.