New Features - 13-5

Welcome to Collect! Version 13.5. This latest version has several new features and functionality, as well as several optimizations and enhancements to existing features.

The full revision history is available to Members via the Member Center.

Display And Environment

Redesigned the Application Log to use a database table instead of text files. Merged the Scheduler, Credit Card, and ACH logs into the Application Log.

WIP Options: Relabeled OK and Cancel as Save System and Don't Save. Relabeled Save as Default to Save Operator. Save System will update the global settings for Operators that do not have a custom configuration file. Don't Save will close the form without saving. Save Operator will create or update the custom configuration file for the selected Operator.

Auto Dialer Preferences: Relabeled OK and Cancel as Save System and Don't Save. Added Save Operator. Save System will update the global settings for Operators that do not have a custom configuration file. Don't Save will close the form without saving. Save Operator will create or update the custom configuration file for the selected Operator.

Hid "Dial in Background" on the Auto Dialer Preferences form as it didn't do anything.

Reordered some fields on the TCN Schedule Calls & TCN Download Report forms for ergonomics.

Clearing the Validation Date and CBR Hold Dates will now log to notes, if the log to notes box is enabled on those fields.

Added the ability to search by Invoice and Receipt/Check numbers on Debtor Transactions and Client Invoices.

Added "Website" to the Company Details form.

Running a Contact Plan or Report will now record the Last Run date and time on the record.

Added "Last Login" to Operator form, which populates when logging in to desktop or web host application.

Removed the language pick list from the Cosigner Speech field.

Added a Type field to the Email record to track Personal or Work.

Moved the NCOA log to the Application Log.

Opening a file in the text editor will now inherit the editable properties of the field that was used to open it. Setting a field to No Delete, like Control File, will allow users to see the Control File, but not edit it.

Added a utility to the Tools, Utilities menu that will reset the Client and Debtor numbers to the next highest value.

Added Debtor Payments button to the Day Sheet form, which will only show transactions that are Type Payment.

Added "Full SSN Wildcard" to the Account Matching Setup form which, when enabled, will search the entire SSN for the partial match when using the * character. When off, only the last 4 of the SSN are used for the partial search.

Added the Windows username to the SQL application name so we can easily identify users in connected to the database.

Re-ordered some fields on the Account Matching Setup form to line up related fields horizontally.

Swapped the Cascade Notes and Share Notes options on the Group Member Setup form to have all the cascade options grouped together.

Update the Collect! Application Log so the list entries could be navigated with the arrow and paging keys on the keyboard.

Added Charged to the Find By list.

When changing an address in the validation period, the user will now be prompted on whether they want to clear the validation date.

Increased the width of Debtor User 1 to 79 characters.

Increased the width of Debtor User 2 to 63 characters.

Financials

Updated the Batch Recalc to exclude Closed accounts rather than include Active ones. This will allow recalc to run on Suspended and Pre-collect accounts.

Contact Management

If the "Use SMS" box is enabled during Print to Email, the Contact Type will now be Text/SMS and the Note Line will say "Texted" instead of Emailed.

Undo Completed Contacts will turn SMS and Email contacts back into Letter contacts for reprocessing.

Added an Action button to the Cosigner form to run Contact Plans.

Added Delay Months to the Contact Event form which, when enabled, will allow Contact Events to be delayed by a specified number of months.

When running a Contact Plan, Note Events are now cascaded to grouped debtors if the Cascade Notes option is enabled. User's will be prompted to confirm if they want to cascade the notes if the "Prompt before cascading changes" option on the Account Matching Setup form is enabled.

The Validation Date will now log to notes (if enabled) when printing the Validation letter.

When a debtor is closed, if they have an uncompleted Promise Contact and also belong to a group, then a copy of the promise contact is placed on an active debtor from the same group who has the highest owing amount.

When a Contact Plan is run on a Cosigner or Associate, if it has a Note type Event, the form name and related party name are prepended to the note line.

Report Writer

Converted Letter Number on the Report Options form to an alphanumeric string field.

Updated the Letter Text Scanner to do inclusive text instead of just exclusive.

Added support for not equals date range when using date prompts in a report.

Added /claddress to the start up parameters to enabled the Client Address Update utility for user level 99.

Added /encrypt to the start up parameters to enable Encryption in Transit for older versions of the ODBC driver. It's automatically enabled for ODBC Driver 18.

Added the ability to use @include to Headers and Footers.

Added @REPORT.ORIENT, @REPORT.TM, @REPORT.BM, @REPORT.LM, @REPORT.RM to the variable assignment process so users can get report information when printing.

Added the ability for Reports to call other Reports using the @report and @subreport commands.

Added "Sub-report" to the Report Options form to hide reports that should not appear in the print list. For example, Reports that are called from other Reports.

Emails will no longer go out if the total size, including attachments is over 20MB.

When printing batch letters, the system will now check the Report Definition's Start On and fail if it does not match the record being printed to.

Printing the Client and Debtor Notes report will now create a Contact and Log to Notes.

Added "Save to letters folder" switch to the Report Options form.

Added "Include in Client Portal" box on the Report Options form which, when enabled, will include the report in the new Client Portal for Clients to be able to access.

When Exporting and Importing Report Templates, check boxes now included in the data.

Added a box to the Report Options form called Legacy Report. When enabled, this will tell the API to run the Collect! Report in Legacy mode for backwards compatibility.

Import/Export

Added "Save Skips to File" to the Import Options for users who prefer the legacy flat files for logging skipped lines.

Re-ordered the Import Options form to clean it up.

Added support for importing Phones, Addresses, and Email records to Clients, Cosigners, and Associates.

Credit Bureau Reporting

Implemented the CBR rules for July 2022 (minimum days to report) and March 2023 (minimum balance to report). Converted the "From date" radio buttons to a pick list called "Delay from" on the Client Settings form. Added "Min value of" and "Min Balance" to the Client Settings form. When you change the Delay Days field or Min Balance field on the Client Settings form, you will be prompted to run a query. If you select yes, the system will update the Metro Contacts accordingly. For any that are set to DA during this process, the system will flag the Debtor with a special Reactivate flag. The next CBR run after the DA has been submitted to the bureau will invoke the reactivation process, which will set the account as a new report with the TT1 code and the remaining fields on the CBR tab will be set based on the last Metro Contact before the account was deleted.

Added a switch to the Credit Bureau Setup form called "Exclude log warning" which, when enabled, will exclude any Info and Warning messages from the CBR log where the accounts were still sent.

Added an option to the Cosigner form called "CBR Report Override" which, when checked, will always include the Cosigner in the CBR report, regardless of the CBR Send Hold date.

Added an "Accounts to report" pick list on the Report to Credit Bureau form with the options for All (default), Consumer, and Commercial. If All is selected, the legacy behavior will occur where all accounts are run to a single Metro2 file. If Consumer is selected, then only accounts where the Legal Entity is 0 (not set) or greater than 99 will be processed and outputted to a file post-fixed with _CON in the filename. If Commercial is selected, then only accounts where the Legal Entity is between 1 and 99 will be processed and outputted to a file post-fixed with _COM in the filename.

When an account is setup to report to the Credit Bureau, if the Legal Entity field is set to a Commercial value, then the ECOA code for the Debtor and New Cosigners will be set to W (Commercial).

Added an option to the Credit Bureau Setup form called "Report SIF as $0" which, when enabled, will report a $0 balance for accounts submitted with AU (Account paid for less than full balance) in the Special Comments field of the CBR tab.

Added the ability to run the CBR Age Out Report as part of the CBR process.

Payment Processing

Disabled pop up prompt asking for ID and Password every time a level 1, 10, or 99 made a payment.

ACH payments will now adjust the final payment to the remaining Debtor or Group owing if the owing gets lower than the payment amount when setting up the post-dated transactions.

Added the ability to waive fees with the payment middleware using Single Credit Card payments.

Increased Credit Card PIN to 50 characters.

Added the Last Reconcile Date to the payment processing Application Log entry for when the date is invalid.

Added the ability to setup Email and Text EFT notices. When setting up a Recurring Payment Plan for CC or ACH, there is now a prompt asking which contact method to use.

Disabled the EFT prompt on recurring payments if only 1 communication method is configured.

Renamed Credit Card Pin form to Credit Card Password.

Renamed Source Key to UserId and PIN to Password on the Credit Card Setup, Credit Card Password, Single Credit Card Payment, and Recurring Credit Card Payment forms.

Added support for credits/refunds in Credit Card reconciliation.

Dialer

The Predictive Dialer module now accepts both file= and phone= commands without needing to change the /w2 command line option to /w2file or /w2text.

Added the ability to use email=, SSN=, and acct= in Predictive Dialer.

Added /w2b to the start up parameters to run the Predictive Dialer in the background, while working a Work In Progress list.

Updated the Dialer Campaigns to store the dialer logs in to the Log Files\Dialer Output folder.

Web Host

Added "/wh_ddrg" to the startup options to disable the Dynamic Report Generation option in Web Host.

Rest API

When rebuilding access rights, new base level Access Rights are generated for all database tables. These do not map to visible forms but to the actual database tables themselves.

Upgrading To This Build

Please refer to How to Upgrade Collect! for details about upgrading your existing Collect! system to take advantage of the features and optimizations in this latest release.

If you are upgrading from Version 11 or earlier, this is a major revision and considered a paid upgrade.

Latest Features

Latest Features