Payment Posting Options

The Payment Posting Options form is used for setting actions performed when a payment is posted to an account. Each action is a contact plan that runs automatically when the payment posting condition is true.

You can manage promises and payment plans and determine what to do when accounts are paid in full.

You may have a policy to close all accounts below a certain balance, or run a certain contact plan when a payment is received. With Collect! you can automate the logical procedures for managing promised payments, administering payment plans and posting normal payments received in the course of daily operation.

Payment Posting Options

Payment Posting

When you post a payment the following sequence occurs:

1. The Default contact plan specified is run (if there is one).

Please be careful here. If you run a contact plan that closes a debtor, the debtor will no longer appear in your WIP List and may be effectively "lost" to your system.

2. The plan associated with the transaction type is run (if there is one).

A contact plan set in the transaction type you are posting is executed before any further action is taken using the Payment Posting Options you have set. So it is important that no conflicting plans are set up by accident in your transaction types.

3. The appropriate payment posting plan is run (if there is one).

Write Date To Debtor Record

Switch ON 'Write date to debtor record' to automatically write the current date to the debtor's Payment date whenever a Payment transaction is posted to the account.

To flag this field, select it with your mouse or, while you are in this field, press your space bar to toggle the switch off or on.

Automatically Manage Promises

Switch ON 'Automatically manage promises' to have Collect! manage promised payments. Collect! will advance the debtor's Promise date when the promise is met. Specified contact plans for full payment, underpayment, overpayment, NSF payment and broken payment conditions are called when necessary.

When this switch is ON and a payment is posted, Collect! automatically fills in Promise details based on the Promise contact's promised Amount and the setting for Transaction Type in the Payment Values form.

SWITCHED ON

When this switch is ON and you save the posted transaction, Collect! checks the payment amount against the amount promised. If the promise amount is met, the debtor's Promise date is advanced. Collect! calls the contact plan associated with full, under or over payment, NSF or broken payment, as needed.

If you are a large office where the person posting payments has little or no knowledge of the accounts they are posting to, switch this ON to control what happens for over and under payment. This enables you to send the file to an account manager for review in exceptional cases.

When a payment is posted, Collect! examines contact and transactions, checking for promised payments. If a promise is found, Collect! fills in the transaction details as soon as you open a new Transaction form. You may then edit the payment being posted if needed.

SWITCHED OFF

When this switch is OFF and you save the posted transaction, Collect! does not advance the debtor's Promise date, and does not call any contact plan. You are manually in control of whatever happens next.

If you are a small office where the person posting payments has some knowledge of the accounts being posted to, you can leave this switch OFF and manage your promises manually.

When this switch is OFF and you post a new transaction, Collect! will not fill in the details automatically. If you select a Payment transaction Type, then, if a promise is found, Collect! fills in the transaction details. You may then edit the payment being posted if needed.

To access the Payment Values form, select the ADVANCED button on the Payment Posting Options form.

Use Today For Payment Date

By default, when a Promise exists on an account and the Due Date is in the future, Collect! will use the date of the next Promise for the Payment Date in any new transactions. When this switch is set, Collect! will always use the current date for the Payment Date by default when a new Transaction is posted.

This is only in effect when the Promise Due Date is greater than today, "Automatically manage promises when posting" is switched ON and the transaction is a PAYMENT type transaction.

Use Today For Posted Date

By default, when a Promise exists on an account and the Due Date is in the future, Collect! will use the date of the next Promise for the Posted Date in any new transactions. When this switch is set, Collect! will always use the current date for the Posted Date by default when a new Transaction is posted.

This is only in effect when the Promise Due Date is greater than today, "Automatically manage promises when posting" is switched ON and the transaction is a PAYMENT type transaction.

Truncate 33 Percent Commission

Switch ON 'Truncate 33 percent commission' to truncate 33% commission rates. When this switch is OFF, a 33.3% commission is calculated as 1/3.

Automatically Run Default Plan

Switch ON 'Automatically run default plan when posting' to run a contact plan every time you post or edit a payment. The plan you run can perform conditional event scheduling based on amount owing, debtor status, or other criteria you choose.

If you want to run the default plan only when the debtor's Owing falls below a threshold level, enter the amount in the 'Run only when balance below' field.

If you want to process and close accounts manually, leave this switch OFF.

To flag this field, select it with your mouse or, while you are in this field, press your space bar to toggle the switch off or on.

Don't Automatically Create 196

By default, Collect! will create an Original Principal transaction of Type 196, as needed, whenever you create or modify financial details on an account. The 196 transaction keeps track of the Principal amount of the debtor. This is necessary for correctly calculating interest, applying a judgment or adding more principal at a later date.

Switch this OFF to prevent Collect! from automatically creating the 196 transaction.

Please be aware that you may have to manually create a Principal transaction if you switch this OFF.

Early Payments Skip Promises

Switch ON 'Early payments skip promises' to disable managing promises on an account if a payment is posted before the due date. This feature works in conjunction with the DAYS field below. Payments posted before X or more days will not manage the promise. The payment will be treated as an extra payment.

This feature only works if the USE TODAY FOR XXX DATE switches are set above.

Days

This field applies to the EARLY PAYMENTS SKIP PROMISES box above. Enter a value here to represent the number of days an early payment will not invoke manage promises. For example, if you enter a value of 7, any payments posted more than a week before the promise's due date will be treated as an extra payment, but any payment posted in the last week will be considered as the current payment and update the promise.

Run Only When Balance Below

Enter a dollar value in the 'Run only when balance below' field. The default automatic contact plan will run only when the debtor's Owing falls below the amount entered. For example, if you enter 50, the contact plan will be invoked automatically only when an account Owing drops below $50.00.

Leave this field blank to always run the contact plan regardless of the Owing amount.

Default Contact Plan

In the 'Default contact plan' field, enter the ID Code of the default contact plan to run automatically when posting a payment. Press F2 to view the list of contact plans in the system.

This plan is run AFTER any Contact Plan you set up in the Payment Posting Options form. This is due to the fact that the transaction plan may do more processing like posting a reversal to split the payment across a group, which will alter the OWING amount.

Be careful here. Running a contact plan that closes a debtor removes this debtor from your WIP List. The debtor may appear "lost" to the system.

Confirmation Delay

Enter a number of days to delay reporting transactions posted with 'Use confirmation delay' switched ON. You can enter a number from 0 to 999 in this field. Collect! uses this number when generating statements. Please refer to Transaction Confirmation Delay for details.

Promise Contact Actions

The payment conditions listed here apply when there is a Promise contact set up on an account. Full, under and over payments, NSF and broken promise payments may each cause a plan to run. This requires that you have switched ON 'Automatically manage promises'.

Collect! does four things with Promise contacts:

1. When a debtor has a Promise Contact, the debtor Promise field displays the date the payment is due. If this date passes by without a payment posted, the promise becomes delinquent and the field is displayed in red when the debtor totals are recalculated.

2. When a payment is posted, Collect! checks for Promise contacts and fills in the transaction details for your confirmation.

3. If the contact contains a Repeat Value, the contact is forwarded to the future date when the promised payment is posted.

4. When a promised payment is posted, Collect! runs the appropriate contact plan for full payment, under payment, or over payment, NSF or broken promise.

Press F2 or select the down arrow at the right of each field below to pick from the list of contact plans in the system.

Promise Full Payment

Select the ID Code of a contact plan to run for 'Promise full payment'. When the full amount of a Promise contact payment is posted, Collect! will run this plan.

Promise Underpayment

Select the ID Code of a contact plan to run for 'Promise under payment'. When less than the full amount of a Promise contact payment is posted, Collect! will run this plan.

Promise Overpayment

Select the ID Code of a contact plan to run for 'Promise over payment'. When more than the full amount of a Promise contact payment is posted, Collect! will run this plan.

Promise NSF Payment

Select the ID Code of a contact plan to run for 'Promise NSF payment'. When you post a transaction for a negative amount due to an NSF payment returned because of insufficient funds, Collect! will run this plan.

Promise Broken Payment

Select the ID Code of a contact plan to run for 'Promise broken payment'. When you run your daily batch process for broken promises, Collect! will run this plan for any delinquent promise that is found. This works when you switch ON 'Broken promises' in the Select Contacts To Process form.

A promise is considered delinquent when no payment has been posted during the past payment period, (i.e., week, month or whatever Repeat period is displayed in the Promise Contact.)

Promise Schedule Payment Order

This section has no impact on how payments are posted. To control the order that payments are applied to, please refer to Transaction Type settings.

This section allows you to set the payment order for the Promise Schedule. There are 3 options for the order: First, Second, and Third.

The screenshot above demonstrates paying Fees first, then Principal, and finally Interest.

Principal

Set the position to apply the predicted promise payment.

Interest

Set the position to apply the predicted promise payment.

Fees Legal Other Misc

Set the position to apply the predicted promise payment.

WARNING: The above payment order will only be used if all 3 fields are filled in. If any of them are left as Unspecified, Collect! will use the default order of Fees, then Interest, then Principal.

Payment Plan Actions

Using the Payment Plan feature, the payment conditions listed here apply when there is a Payment Plan set up on an account. Full, under and over payments may each cause a plan to run. This requires that you have switched ON 'Automatically manage promises'.

Collect! does three things with Payment Plans:

1. When a debtor has a promised transaction, the debtor Promise field displays the date the payment is due. If this date passes by without a payment posted, the promise becomes delinquent and the field is displayed in red when the debtor totals are recalculated.

2. When a payment is posted, Collect! checks to see if there are any promise payment transactions and fills in the transaction details for your confirmation.

3. When a promised payment is posted, Collect! runs the appropriate contact plan for full payment, under payment, or over payment.

Press F2 or select the down arrow at the right of each field below to pick from the list of contact plans in the system.

Plan Full Payment

Select the ID Code of a contact plan to run for 'Plan full payment'. When the full amount of a payment plan payment is posted, Collect! will run this plan.

Plan Underpayment

Select the ID Code of a contact plan to run for 'Plan under payment'. When less than the full amount of a payment plan payment is posted, Collect! will run this plan.

Plan Overpayment

Select the ID Code of a contact plan to run for 'Plan over payment'. When more than the full amount of a payment plan payment is posted, Collect! will run this plan.

OK

Select this button to save any changes you may have made and return to the previous form.

Advanced

Select the Advanced button to open the Payment Values form where you can set minimum and maximum values for Collect! to accept as fulfilled payment when a payment transaction is posted. These values determine when to evoke the different contact plans that you assign in the Payment Posting Options form.

You can also set a Transaction Type to use by default whenever a Payment is posted on an account with an In Progress Promise. By default, Collect! uses Transaction Type 101 but you can use any Payment type.

Cancel

Select this button to ignore any changes you may have made and return to the previous form.

Help

Select this button for help on the Payment Posting Options form and links to related topics.