Yes, Collect! is designed for both sales and collections. Collect! comes with Sales Manager and Sales user levels with access rights pre-set for those roles. You can use Collect!’s powerful scheduling engine, the Work in Progress (WIP) list, to organize your sales staff’s workloads in the same way you use it to organize your collectors’ workloads.  Unlike our competitors, we do not offer a separate license or modules, Sales can use the same full Collect! version as the collectors and accommodate any customizations required.

Collect!’s Work in Progress (WIP) lists are generated by the Contact (Action) Plans and other functionalities, and are a key part of Collect!’s automation. The WIP list is designed for operators to work through their tasks and schedule the next contact with maximum efficiency with the account information just a click away. WIP lists can also be set up for sales and management, making your whole operation more efficient. 

First, you can use the Work in Progress (WIP) lists reload filters to organize your operators’ WIP list so that operators call at the best time. Also, the WIP list will not present an account that is outside defined calling hours. Additionally, alerts can be set for phone number fields to change color or a warning popup to appear under certain user-defined conditions. Time zone uncertainties presented by unmatched zip codes and area codes will cause the system to calculate the overlap of defined calling hours. 

Payment posting is a component of Collect!’s automation and ties in with the transaction type system, the payment posting option system, and the contact (action) plan system. Setting these systems will automate a lot of the decisions and actions that are triggered by payments.  The most common way to enter a payment is by creating a new transaction on the debtor form. On this screen you can choose the transaction type, add a description, and enter the amount. This screen provides the owing amount before and after the payment and a large number of options that allow you to manage this transaction and transaction generally. The transaction type you select can trigger further actions, depending on the automations you have set in your system.  Transactions can also be loaded from your payment processor’s payment portal.

Yes, Collect’s Version 13, was built to accommodate Reg F requirements. Version 13 overlays Version 12, so you can continue working exactly as before until you invoke the functionalities available in Version 13.
Version 13 includes:

• New Financial Summary Details Form
• New dedicated Judgements Form
• Enhanced Dispute Tracking Attachment
• New dedicated and user-defined fields
• New contact analytics for phone and all contact methods
• New Contact Control Engine to create your rule set
• New Workflow Analysis Reports

The Rest API’s CRUD (Create,Read,Update,Delete) functionality is available for every record and field in the Collect! system. A higher-level layer that calls business logic is available and in continual development. As an example files can be uploaded and downloaded via API functionality. Webhooks are available via the XML data pump and the MS SQL Server for receiving signals through various means of transmission. Web sockets are used for communication between the Collect! application client and the server.                                                                                                                           

The Collect! Consumer Portal enables consumers to select their communication opt-ins, review their balance, review past payments, and make single payments through a link to your payment processor. Further iterations of the Collect! Consumer Portal will accept settlement offers and set up payment plans. Alternatively, users can choose to use other merchant or vendor portals for this function, using integrations, plug-ins or file exchanges.

Yes, in two ways. First, you can create letters directly either on an ad hoc basis or in batches by inserting debtor data into existing letter templates. These letters can be mailed or emailed. Second, data files can be uploaded to a letter service that already has your letter templates on file.

Collect! offers many options in creating reports and letters. The basic Collect! application includes a large stock report and letter template set with additional reports and letters available in the Dashboard and in the Member Center.  Reports and letter templates can all be adapted to your use and you or our technicians can produce completely custom reports and letters.

Report Options Include

• Use a large set of stock reports covering operator, debtor, client, financials and more
• Adapt the stock reports to your specific needs
• Create additional custom reports with the Report Generator Utility or with our proprietary Report Engine
• Have our technicians build additional custom reports
• Incorporate conditional logic, calculations, images, graphs and charts into your reports
• Use standard SQL report generators to draw data directly from your database outside of Collect!

Letter Options Include

• Fill Collect!’s letter templates with your approved text ad hoc or in batches
• Adapt letter templates to suit your desired format
• Letter templates include a Reg F compliant validation letter
• Use the many batch letter options to manage complex letter scenarios
• Schedule your letter series to run automatically
• Store entire letter history inside Collect!
• Sort your letters by zip code
• Export your data to an outside letter service
• Produce letters in Collect! using rich text format or the Letter Engine (letter history stored in Collect!)
• Produce letters in Word using mail merge (letter history not stored in Collect!)

Yes, Collect! can send invoices. With limited exception, any data that you want out of Collect! can be made available using Collect!’s proprietary Report Generator, proprietary Report Engine or using standard SQL report generators to draw data directly from the MS SQL database.  Collect! comes with a large report and letter library that can be used as templates, be branded for your company, or modified for your particular purposes. Additionally, completely custom reports can be built either by your team with the use of our Help documentation and an appropriate level of technical skill, or by our report specialists.

Yes, Collect! can email statements. All the information in the previous question on sending invoices applies to emailing invoices also, with the caveat that they must be in HTML format. Since there is a current trend towards sending emails rather than paper, we are constantly adding HTML items to our default report set.

The Dashboard management view includes graphic operator activity reports suitable for ongoing monitoring and for display on the collection floor. Additionally, the Collect! default report set includes over a dozen operator activity reports including a comprehensive report named ‘Collector Performance Analysis’ and the dashboard management report section contains additional collector activity reports.

Yes, you can use Collect!’s various automation methods to trigger an action if certain user-defined conditions are met. Depending on the level of automation you want, “flagging” can range from an alert added to the account, to a status change and the automatic transfer of debtor data to an outside firm.

You can use Windows Dialer/TAPI settings, softphones or URL strings to have a phone functioning within Collect! Exactly what you can use depends on your technology, because the phone function needs first to work with your computer system before it can be activated to work with Collect! Alternatively, you can contact with a third-party dialer service to use advanced functions such as predictive dialing that sends a list of numbers to the dialer, then directs incoming calls to an operator and “pops” the account on their screen.

First, your computer needs to be set to make calls. Then, when working in Collect!, you click on the number you want to call on the Collect! screen, and then the phone icon in the command ribbon at the top of the screen. That opens a phone screen that lets you click your choice of local, long distance, international or alternate with long distance as the default. Then click “dial”. 3 or 4 clicks and the debtor’s phone is ringing. 

The main Collect! application is  also suitable for debt buyers.  Collect!’s client functions can be used to create infinite client levels. Most commonly debt buyers require 3 or 4 levels including a portfolio level.  Regular reporting can be used to report to portfolio owners.

Yes, you can perform all those tasks ad hoc or in batches right from Collect! using Collect!’s native functionality with 2 caveats:

• Some functionalities require the use of an additional Collect! module
• Some functionalities require you to have a partner account

A few examples:

• To report to the credit bureaus you will need the Collect! Credit Bureau Reporting Module, and a data furnisher account with each bureau you want to report to. The bureaus have a business relationship with the data furnishers, not the software that creates the files.
• To process payments right from the Collect! screen you will need Collect!’s Payment Processing Module, and a payment processor account. Payment processors underwrite businesses that take payments, not the software that they use.
• To email right from Collect! you just use Collect!’s native functionality.
• To text right from Collect! you can use our White-Label Texting Add-On which is a reselling of Vonage services, or you can use our integration with your own account with Solutions by Text or Vonage.
• To produce letters right from Collect! you can use Collect!’s various letter functionalities and print in-house, or you can download data files to the letter service with which you maintain an account.

Collect!’s customer portal allows the primary account holder to update the primary contact person, company and contact information, their authorized person list and passwords and view license information. Our admin department is always available to assist in any way they can.