Client Settings

The Client Settings form lets you set up detailed accounting and collection settings for each client. This information can usually be taken directly from the contractual agreement you have made with your client. It could also be determined by your own way of doing business.

Client Settings

The settings in this form thoroughly impact all aspects of Collect! that require billing and fees information. You can enter the information here and Collect! will automatically enter it into fields on other forms where this information is required. For instance, fields in Debtors, Payments, Invoices and Credit Bureau Reporting forms can be filled in automatically from information you set in the Client Settings form.

Although you could enter information directly into those forms manually, it makes far more sense to let Collect! enter the information, especially when you are processing hundreds of records.

*** IMPORTANT ***

Fill in the Client Settings form BEFORE you enter Debtors for your clients. That way Collect! can automatically enter this information for every new debtor you create. Fields on other forms mentioned above will also be filled in automatically.

Billing Period

This is the interval for generating invoice/statements for this client. For instance, if you bill your clients on a monthly basis, MONTHLY is the Billing Period that you would choose.

Collect! uses MONTHLY as the default, but please make a definite choice here. In order to generate statements, Collect! needs to know what billing period you have agreed upon with your client.

Press F2 to bring up a selection list for you to choose from. Please decide on a definite billing period. Do not leave this blank.

Remit AS Gross Funds

All funds collected on behalf of a client are returned to the client at the end of the billing period. The invoice sent to the client at the same time lists all commission and taxes due and payable by the client.

If you retain commission and taxes yourself and only return the remaining funds to the client, then leave this switch blank. At period end, Collect! will correctly calculate the amount owed to the client, or what the client owes your company based on the payments received during the billing period.

This switch has no effect if you have a check mark in the 'Combined Invoice' field.

When changing a client's billing type from Net to Gross or vice versa, Collect! will automatically alter the TOTAL field on the last Invoice as a net client's receivable is reflected as a negative number in the Invoice/Statement record where a gross client's receivable is reflected as a positive number.

Bill Client For Negative To Us

Switch this ON for a Gross client when you need your statements to reflect amounts owed to you for transactions posted with a NEGATIVE To Us amount. By default, Collect! does not bill a Gross client for a NEGATIVE amount.

If you are using Gross remittances, it is advisable to always have this enabled. It will ensure that you are reimbursed for payment reversals like NSF checks where you have already remitted to the client.

Remit AS Combined Funds

Switch this on to generate combined Net/Gross invoices for this client. When you print your statements, Collect! will use the CStatement report to break out the agency and client portions of the total remit and return.

With this switched ON, Collect! ignores the 'Remit gross funds with invoice' switch. A Net type statement is generated and the totals are summarized when the statement is printed.

When changing a client's billing type from Net to Combined or vice versa, Collect! will automatically alter the TOTAL field on the last Invoice as a net client's receivable is reflected as a negative number in the Invoice/Statement record where a combined client's receivable is reflected as a positive number.

Bill Commission To Debtor

By setting this switch, the commission amount is added to the debtor's Owing amount. Thus, any letters sent to the debtor will show the updated total, while any calculations of commission will take into account the fact that some portion of the payment is commission. This switch takes effect when you enter the financial details for the debtor, provided you have set a commission rate for the client.

Do not set this switch unless you have a signed agreement from the debtor on file or the legal structure of your region permits you to bill the debtor for your commission.

Client Is Tax Exempt

This means that the client is not charged tax on commissions paid to your company. This setting can be changed on a per transaction basis.

Exclude From Statement Printing

Check this box to exclude this clients from the month end process of Printing Statements. This is typically used for clients that don't want paper statements such as clients that receive statements via email or via a parent client process.

Credit Card Convenience Fees

Switch this ON with a check mark if this Client permits you to charge a convenience fee when using Collect!'s Payment Processing module for credit card payments.

To implement credit card convenience fees you must set up your credit card convenience fee Transaction Types. Please refer to Help topic, Credit Card Setup for details.

ACH Convenience Fees

Switch this ON with a check mark if this Client permits you to charge a convenience fee when using Collect!'s Payment Processing module for ACH payments.

To implement ACH convenience fees you must set up your ACH convenience fee Transaction Types. Please refer to Help topic, ACH Payments Setup for details.

Success Calculation

Collect! provides two automatic processes for calculating success rate for each given client. Either your success can be based on only closed accounts, or on all the accounts listed for the Client. If you need your own custom calculation, you can create a report to perform the calculations. You would then run the report yourself when you want to determine the Success Rate.

Calculate Using All Accounts

This calculation method is based on all accounts that belong to this Client. The Success Rate is total payments to date over total listed dollar value. This is the default calculation method.

Use Closed Accounts Only

This calculation method evaluates only closed accounts. It gives you a more accurate performance figure over long periods of time, but ignores any active accounts. So it is less current that the All Accounts calculation. This Success Rate is calculated using total payments made on closed accounts over total listed dollar value for the closed accounts.

Custom

This option indicates that you wish to perform your own calculation for Success Rate. This only necessary if the automatic calculations that Collect! provides do not suit your purposes for some of your Clients.

When you select Custom, Collect! will not alter the Success Rate on the Client form whenever the Client is Recalced. To see your custom Success Rate, you would need to run a write back report or add a control file to the Client form. For convenience, you can enter the name of your report in the Report field.

If you are not familiar with creating reports or control files in Collect!, you may want to request help from Collect! Technical Services for pricing of your request which we can create for you.

Report

You can use this field to enter the name of a report that you want to run to refresh the Success Rate on the Client form. This is only necessary if you have created a custom report for success calculation that is different from the two options that Collect! gives you.

This field does not invoke any actions. It is for tracking purposes only.

You can create different reports for different Clients, depending on your needs, or you can use the two options that Collect! provides for automatic calculation.

Only Payments For Comm To Date

Switch this ON with a check mark to tell Collect! to use only Payment type transactions when calculating the total Commission to Date displayed on the Client form.

When this switch is OFF, Collect! will total commissions from any transaction that has a commission amount entered.

Exclude Reversals From Recalc

Switch this ON to exclude Debtors with a Status that is set as a Listing Reversal from the financial summary calculations on the Client form, including success rate.

No Fixed Fees

Turn this switch ON when you don't want to charge a fixed fee to the client or the debtor.

Charge Fee To Client

Turn this switch ON and enter the amount of the fixed fee.

When you add a new debtor to this client, the fixed fee amount is copied to the Debtor record. At period end, when you generate statements for your client, this fee will be included in the statement to your client.

Charge Fee To Debtor

Turn this switch ON and enter the amount of the fixed fee.

When you add a new debtor to this client, the fixed fee amount is copied to the Debtor record. When you edit the debtor's Fee field, you can verify the amount and then Collect! posts a fee transaction to the debtor's account, the fee amount to the debtor.

Fixed Fee

This is the amount of the fixed fee, and should be a dollar amount. This is billed to either the client or the debtor, depending on the Charge to Client or Debtor options described above. If you turn the No Fixed Fees switch ON, this value is ignored.

Currency

This is the default currency for debtors assigned by this client.

This is visible only if you have the ' Multi Currency' switch turned ON in the Company Details form, available from the Options pull-down menu.

Each debtor can operate with a different currency. Similarly, each transaction posted to a debtor can have a different currency.

Collect! does not calculate using exchange rates and currencies. These fields are provided for your information purpose only.

Statement Currency

This is the currency you use when generating statements. This is for informational purposes only at this time.

Collect! does not calculate using exchange rates and currencies. These fields are provided for your information purpose only.

Itemization Date

The itemization date is copied down from the Company Details when a client is created. When sending your first letter to a Debtor, the itemization date is a reference date for the account balance.

For example, if your client uses the Transaction Date as the Itemization Date, and the Client also charged Interest, then the Balance at Itemization must be the original Transaction amount, without interest.

Variable Interest Rates File

This field is only used when you are using the Variable Interest extension module. Enter the exact name of the file containing your interest rates table.

Please refer to Help topic, How to Use Variable Interest for details.

Assign Sales ID To New Accounts

This Sales ID will be assigned to all new accounts recorded for this client. It will be copied to the Debtor record automatically and then the information can be tracked for salesperson status and for commission reporting.

Assign Operator ID To Accounts

This Operator ID will be assigned to all new accounts recorded for this client. It will be copied to the Debtor's record automatically. The Operator ID is very important for following up on a debtor's account, scheduling contacts and reviewing account activity.

Contact Plan For New Accounts

This loads the Contact plan's ID into the Debtor form. Whenever a new account is entered, this plan will run automatically. For instance, you could schedule a phone call or a review for each new account.

Debtor Sort Order

These switches display the order used to sort this client's debtors. This is the order in which they will be displayed when statements are generated.

If the Sort Order option is not set, then Collect! is using the default Sort Order, which is the order that the Debtors were added to the database.

Debtor Name

A dot in the radio button for this field indicates that this client's debtors are sorted by Debtor Name. Statements for this client will be generated in order of Debtor Name.

Debtor Account

A dot in the radio button for this field indicates that this client's debtors are sorted by Debtor Account. Statements for this client will be generated in order of Debtor Account.

Caw Enabled

This switch enables you to flag accounts for use with Client Access Web.

Disable Metafiles

Switch this ON with a check mark if you do not want to save METAFILES when letters are printed through Collect!. Ordinarily, when printing from the Debtor or Client, or in a scheduled letter batch, Collect! creates and attaches a METAFILE to the Letter contact. The "Disable metafiles" switch enables you to control this at the Client level.

When this switch is ON, it overrides any contact plan Letter Event where the "Create metafile" switch is ON.

This switch is ignored when letters are printed through the Scheduled Batch Letters option. This means that Collect! will always create a METAFILE for letters printed in the Scheduled Batch Letters.

Report Accounts To Bureaus

Switch this ON when you wish to set up credit reporting for a client.

Please be aware that this switch does not automatically begin reporting debtors. You must still switch ON credit bureau reporting for each debtor that you want to report. Please refer to How To Setup Credit Bureau Reporting for details.

You must also switch ON 'Send client detail to bureaus' if you are reporting as a Collection Agency so that Collect! can include the details when you run your report.

The batch process for Preparing accounts for CBR will not prepare any accounts where this box is not checked on the client.

When you UNCHECK this box, you will receive a prompt on how you want to manage the Debtor's reporting:

• Yes: disables all CBR reporting on all debtors
• No: cancels and makes no changes
• Turn Off, But Don't Run Query: unchecks this box, but does not stop the CBR reporting on the existing accounts

Original Creditor Is In User 1

This switch may be used by portfolio purchasers who want to use the Client record for tracking the portfolio, yet also want to send the original creditor information to credit bureaus. Switch this ON on a client by client basis and then place the original creditor information into the User 1 field on the Debtor form.

Original Creditor Is In User 2

This switch may be used by portfolio purchasers who want to use the Client record for tracking the portfolio, yet also want to send the original creditor information to credit bureaus. Switch this ON on a client by client basis and then place the original creditor information into the User 2 field on the Debtor form.

You must fill the client's credit bureau reporting details into the applicable User 2 to 4 fields.

Delay From

Select the date on the Debtor that you want to use to calculate the Delays Days from.

From Today

This field is used with the DELAY DAYS field to delay reporting to the bureau. This field is the default selection. If this option is selected, the reporting delay will be based on the date that you prepared the Debtor to be reported to the bureau.

From Delinquency

This field is used with the DELAY DAYS field to delay reporting to the bureau. If this option is selected, the reporting delay will be based on the Debtor's Delnqnt date.

From Charged

This field is used with the DELAY DAYS field to delay reporting to the bureau. If this option is selected, the reporting delay will be based on the Debtor's Charged date.

Delay Days

When you first report credit on an account, you can schedule for the report to be sent later, rather than immediately. The date can be changed manually.

This is configured on the Credit Bureau Setup screen by selecting the Delay Report option.

This field allows you to overwrite the global Delay Days value to report sooner or later than your global setting.

To have this client reporting based on the global settings, leave the box empty.

WARNING: If you change the value in this field, you will be prompted to update the database. If you select Yes, the system will look for accounts that are not qualified to report yet. If they have not already been reported, then the Metro Contact will be re-dated for the correct date. If they have been reported, then the system will update the Metro Contact to submit a DA Status during the next report. On the report after the DA submission, a new Metro Contact with Code TT1 will be created with the exact same parameters for the remaining fields (Condition Code, Report Cosigner, etc.) as the last report.

Min Value Of

This field works with the MIN BALANCE field below and should be set first. If you have a minimum balance to report for this client, select whether the minimum balance is based on Owing, Total Principal, or Original Principal.

WARNING: Owing and Total Principal are based on when you check the "Report to Credit Bureau" box on the Debtor's CBR tab, not the time that the account was created.

Min Balance

This field is used by the NEW BUS - IGNORE REPORTING OWING field on the Credit Bureau Setup form. If the NEW BUS - IGNORE REPORTING OWING field is checked, then debtors being reported for the first time will not be enabled if their owing is less than the value in this field.

This field allows you to overwrite the global Less Than value to report different balances than your global setting.

WARNING: If you change the value in this field, you will be prompted to update the database. If you select Yes, the system will look for accounts that are below the value in this field and stop reporting them.

Commission

Enter up to four commission rates for this client. Payment breakdown settings enable you to specify a type of account for which the commission is applied.

Troubleshooting Commission

There are several settings in Collect! that may affect the calculation of commission. When the calculation seems wrong, please examine the following areas to determine what has a bearing on the amounts Collect! displays.

• Active/closed debtor
• Manually changing the commission rate
• Add commission to owing switched on/off. The commission calculation can be changed by the Add Commission To Owing switch in the debtor's Financial Detail form. Please check this switch in the Commission tab of this form. This switch affects how the commission amount is calculated.
• Commission rate plan
• Control files
• Accuracy of transactions
• Access to Collect!'s fields and forms.

Rate 1

This rate is used if you leave the 'Rate Plan' field blank. This is the standard commission charged to accounts listed by this client. This is automatically copied into new debtors as they are assigned to this client. The individual commission rate can be changed on an account-by-account basis, and even for individual transactions.

This is an absolute percentage rate. You should use this if you have not entered a rate plan. This is a flat commission rate charged to all debtors assigned to this client. Choose EITHER a rate plan or a commission rate but not both.

Rate Plan

You can specify a default Commission Rate Plan for new debtors for this client. When a new debtor is created and the client is assigned, the default rate plan is copied to the debtor record where it can be accepted or changed for each debtor.

Choose EITHER a rate plan or a commission rate, but not both.

If you have selected a commission rate plan, you should not have a commission amount entered as well.

Tax

Enter up to four tax rates for this client. Payment breakdown settings enable you to specify a type of account for which the tax is applied.

Tax 1

This is the rate at which tax is calculated on commissions for this client's debtors. Whenever you enter a new debtor for this client, this tax rate is copied to the new Debtor record. If you have set a "global tax rate" in the Company Details form, which is available from OPTIONS in the top menu bar, that tax rate will be displayed here, whenever you enter a new client into your system.

This can be changed on a debtor-by-debtor basis, and for individual transactions.

OK

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

Debt Prtl

Press this button to open the Client Debtor Payment Plan Rules which will allow you to configure client-specific rules for the Debtor/Consumer Portal for Payment Arrangements.

Help

Press this button for help on the Client Settings form and links to related topics.