How To Run A Contact Plan On The Last Payment Date Of A Payment Plan

When you create a payment plan schedule in Collect!, you can trigger a contact plan to be run on the date of the last payment in the schedule. This is a highly effective way to manage your payment schedules. Collect! creates the Plan contact automatically when the payment plan schedule is created using the Payment Plan feature. It can also be triggered manually using the LAST PAYMENT button on the Transaction form, if you are posting the payment schedule manually.

When using this feature, you must process your automatic contacts previously scheduled to run the plan on the designated day. Please refer to Help topic, Batch Processing.

Last Payment Setup

1. In the Payment Plan Setup form, from the Last Payment Plan pick list, select the plan that you want to schedule.

Payment Plan Setup form

You can create or modify a contact plan to suit your purposes. This can be as simple as scheduling a Phone call, for instance, or more complex, if needed.

2. You can switch ON "Prompt before creating" if you need to prompt the end user before Collect! schedules the Plan contact. This enables flexibility in the decision to schedule the plan or not on a per account basis.

Using The Last Payment Feature

You can schedule the Plan contact automatically when creating a payment schedule using Collect!'s Payment Plan functionality. The contact creation can also be triggered manually using the LAST PAYMENT button on the Transaction form, if you are posting the payment schedule manually.

You MUST set a contact plan in the Payment Plan Setup, "Last payment plan" field to use this feature; otherwise, NO Plan contact will be created.

We will cover each of these scenarios next.

Payment Plan Scheduling

1. Enter payment plan details on a debtor.

Payment Plan Set Up on Debtor

2. When the OK button is selected to schedule the plan, Collect! also creates a Plan contact with a Due Date matching the Payment Date of the latest transaction created by the Plan.

If you chose to “Prompt before creating,” when you set up the Payment Plan Setup, then a prompt will come up showing you the details of the Plan contact Collect! is about to create.

Prompt to Create Plan Contact

3. Collect! posts all the transactions for the payment plan schedule and a Plan contact.

Payment Plan Transactions

The Due Date of the Plan contact is the Payment Date of the final transaction in the payment schedule.

Last Payment Plan Contact

If you already have a Payment Plan scheduled on an account and you need to reschedule it, Collect! will reschedule the Plan contact, as well, so that the Plan contact Due Date matches the date of the final payment in your rescheduled payment plan.

Prompt to Modify Plan Contact Date

Post-Dated Transactions

You can also enter payment schedules manually by creating post-dated transactions. You can schedule a Plan contact to trigger on the Payment Date of one of these manually entered transactions.

1. Post transactions as needed to fulfill the promised schedule of payments.

2. Select LAST PAYMENT while posting the final payment in the schedule.

Last Payment Option on Transaction

If you chose to “Prompt before creating,” when you set up the Payment Plan Setup, then a prompt will come up showing you the details of the Plan contact Collect! is about to create.

Confirming Last Payment Contact

3. When the LAST PAYMENT button is selected, Collect! also creates a Plan contact with a Due Date matching the Payment Date of the transaction.

Plan Contact with Payment Due Date

If you already have a Plan contact scheduled and you select LAST PAYMENT on another Transaction, Collect! will update the Due Date on the existing Plan contact.

Prompt to Modify Plan Contact Date

Logging

Contact creation is also logged to the Collect! Application Log in the FINANCIALS category.

Log Entries for Plan Contacts Scheduled

Process Plan Contacts

When using this feature, you must process your automatic contacts previously scheduled so that the Plans that you are scheduling will be run on the designated day. Please refer to Help topic, Batch Processing.

Rescheduling Payment Schedules

If you need to reschedule a Payment Plan in the Debtor's Financial Detail area, or if you add a Transaction to a Post-Dated Transactions plan manually, Collect! will modify the Plan Contact, as needed, so that it always reflects the last Payment Date.

If there is already an IDENTICAL uncompleted Plan Contact, its Due Date will be re-assigned. If there are multiple IDENTICAL uncompleted Plan Contacts, the most recent one will be re-assigned.

Summary

When you create a payment plan schedule in Collect!, you can trigger a contact plan to be run on the date of the last payment in the schedule. This happens automatically when the schedule is created using the Payment Plan feature. It can also be triggered manually using the LAST PAYMENT button on the Transaction form, if you are posting the payment schedule manually.

If you already have a Plan contact scheduled on an account and you need to reschedule your payment plan, Collect! will reschedule the Plan contact, as well, so that the Due Date matches the date of the final payment in your rescheduled payment plan.

You MUST set a contact plan in the Payment Plan Setup, "Last payment plan" field to use this feature, otherwise, NO Plan contact will be created.

The plan that you want to schedule must exist in your list of contact plans when you select the plan in the Payment Plan Setup form. The plan may be as simple as scheduling a Phone call, or more complex, if needed.

Each day, when you run your batch process to process automatic contacts previously scheduled, Collect! will process any Plan contacts that have come due.