Microsoft Dynamics NAV Collections Management Solution
Product Overview
In this ever more competitive economic environment, cash flow management is becoming critical to success. Your single most important cash investment is your receivables and yet in the past all you have had to manage this critical asset is an Aging Report. Not anymore!
Solutions is pleased to present for your consideration the Collections Management Solution for Microsoft Dynamics NAV, a highly specialized contact manager designed specifically to support your collections process. This powerful application will allow you to eliminate all non-productive activities, systematize your collections process, reduce your receivables significantly, and therefore generate what could prove to be a substantial cash flow. Just consider for a moment the following:
- Your payback can be measured in terms of a few short months.
- You define who is going to be responsible for collections and when overdue invoices are passed to the application.
- All of the information you need to discuss this invoice with a customer is right there at your fingertips (no more waiting for the Aging Report to be printed, determining who needs to be called, researching information concerning each overdue invoice and maintaining highly inefficient manual notes).
- You record who you talked to, what they said, when they promise to pay and when you should call them again.
- If you need to you can collaborate with other people in the organization to collect this account.
- You can even involve your sales reps in the process by letting them see if any of their customers have collections issues.
All of these functions are available and much more and yet the system can be installed and operational in a few hours. If you call your customers systematically and insist that they provide you with a specific payment date, they will pay you more rapidly. It really is that simple!
Virtually every firm should be using some form of software driven collections process. That just makes good business sense. Depending on the current status of your outstanding accounts, you could reduce your receivables by 5% or possibly even more. While this does not sound like a significant amount, multiply your current receivables balance by 5% and consider the resulting cash flow!
Basic Screen Organization
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The Collections Management Solution gives you all of the tools you need to minimize payment delays while contributing to customer relationship management objectives and strategies. |
Key Elements
The three key elements to The Collections
Management Solution are the Exception List (shown above), the
Exception Manager (shown below) and the notion of Trigger Points.
- The Exception List displays all invoices currently assigned to an individual Collection Representative or workgroup. In addition the Exception List can be used by managers to monitor and control the collection process.
- The Exception Manager tracks the contact history for each invoice providing users with all of the functionality and information they would expect from a contact manager and then some.
- The Collections Management Solution allows users to define a Trigger Point (Due Date + X Days) when an invoice will be transferred to a Collection Representative's Exception List.
Power and Ease-of-Use Standard
While The Collections Management Solution can serve very large organizations with many people involved in the collection process, its power can be unleashed by firms with only one person assigned to collecting overdue invoices without that person having to wade through layers of complexity. The following features are supported:
- Individual Collection Representatives and Workgroups (where people share collections responsibilities) are supported.
- Sales Representatives can be given full or read-only access.
- A hierarchy with up to three levels can be defined to increase management oversight.
- Invoices can be passed up the line for more serious action or just for advice.
- Trigger Points can be defined as system defaults, customer specific or based on a customer's payment history (including automatic updates to reflect current payment patterns).
- Customers can be assigned to individual Collection Representatives or Workgroups.
- A default Collection Representative can be defined so that even new customers will be tracked.
- High-value or partially paid invoices can be transferred earlier in the process.
- Small value invoices can be held until there are a sufficient number where the cost to collect would be more reasonable.
- The Exception List is sorted by Next Contact Date so that users can see who they need to contact when.
- New invoices are added to the Exception List automatically.
- The Exception List can be sorted by customer so that Collection Representatives can discuss multiple invoices in one contact and copy their collection notes to each invoice automatically.
Exception Manager
Basic Screen Organization
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The Exception Manager performs exactly the same functions as a contact manager, but is geared specifically to meet your collections needs. |
Once an invoice has been selected from the
Exception List, it will be displayed in the Exception Manager
(shown above) including a complete contact history for that
invoice.
- The Exception Manager provides the same
general functionality as a Contact Manager, but unlike a
Contact Manager is geared specifically to your collection
requirements.
- The system supports an unlimited number of
customer collection contacts per customer.
- In addition, you will be able to record and
review both customer specific comments and contact
specific comments so that users will understand more
completely the customer and each person in the customer's
organization.
- Collections Representatives can access a
complete payment history, aging reports, sales order and
invoice details, and other critical information from
within the Exception Manager.
- Users can reprint invoices or statements
and access e-mail from within the application.
- Once a contact has been completed, a Next
Contact Date is assigned and the invoice is assigned a
new position in the Exception List depending on the Next
Contact Date.
- If a customer disputes an invoice, even
though it may not be overdue, it can be moved to the
application automatically.
Reporting System
A number of very useful reports help users
monitor the collection process as well as the effectiveness of
individual users.
- Managers can review the progress of all
people for whom they are responsible, from adding notes
to collection files to transferring responsibility from
one user to another.
- The complete collection history for each
customer is available for review so that people can
understand how a customer has acted in the past,
including what delaying tactics they have employed.
- Each customer's payment history is tracked
so that you can determine both their Average Days to Pay
and more importantly their Average Days Late.
Trigger Points
The key to any collection process is how
quickly it can start after an invoice is overdue. The sooner the
customer is contacted, the sooner they will pay. This is
particularly true for customers who run into financial
difficulty. If you do not start the process soon enough, a
customer can reach their own point of no return and no efforts on
your part will result in payment.
The Collections Management Solution gives you
tools that cannot be found elsewhere and as a result your control
of the collection process will be enhanced significantly.
- A default Trigger Point (Due Date + X
Days) can be defined for all customers.
- A customer-specific Trigger Point can be
assigned to individual customers.
- Trigger Points can be based upon a
customer's payment history and dynamically changed as a
customer's payment history changes.
- High-value invoices can be assigned
specific Trigger Points so they are monitored earlier
than other invoices.
- Partially-paid invoices can be transferred
to The Collections Management Solution immediately under
the assumption that a customer would not normally
part-pay an invoice.
- Customers with historically poor payment
histories can be assigned a negative Trigger Point so
that they are contacted prior to the Invoice Due Date and
reminded to pay their invoice.
Payment Classes
Basic Screen Organization
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The use of Payment Classes lets you automatically review a customer's payment history. |
Although The Collections Management Solution
supports a manual review and assignment of system or
customer-specific Trigger Points, the use of Payment Classes can
become an extremely powerful feature. The system will measure
each customer's payment history and assign the customer to a
Payment Class automatically. Each Payment Class can be assigned a
different Trigger Point, thus giving customers stricter or more
lenient Trigger Points depending on their current payment
history. The actual value that is used to assign a customer to a
specific Payment Class is their Average Days Late.
The use of Payment Classes gives you the
greatest degree of control over the collection process. As the
screen above illustrates, the Payment Class Calculations screen
allows you to review each customers' payment history and then
assign them to the best-suited Payment Class.
- Rather than having to review each
customer's payment history via a Payment Class Report and
then manually changing their Trigger Point, The
Collections Management Solution does most of the review
and reassignment for you subject of course to your
approval.
- Specific customers can be exempted from
this process and will therefore revert to their
previously assigned customer-specific Trigger Point.
- You control what payment history is taken
into consideration when calculating Average Days Late.
This includes specifying a minimum number of invoices,
the number of months payment history and when that
payment history should start.
- Each customer is assigned to a Payment
Class tentatively.
- In addition to the suggested Payment
Class, the system will display the Payment Class to which
the customer is currently assigned.
- You can elect to accept the system's
recommendation, revert to the previously assigned Payment
Class or assign a customer to a Payment Class of your own
selection.
Control is the Name of the Game
The key to effective utilization of any
software application is giving people what they need in order to
do their jobs better. We have taken a great deal of time creating
a set of tools that give users all of the assistance they need to
not just collect overdue accounts, but to become more proactive
in preventing accounts from becoming overdue in the first place.
- All customers, no matter whether they are
assigned to a Collection Representative or not, will be
tracked by the system.
- If a customer disputes an invoice, even
though it may not be overdue yet, that invoice can be
transferred to the system for tracking and resolution.
- If a Collection Representative needs the
assistance of someone else in the organization, they can
send the entire collection file to that person as a
Query. That person can in turn review the file and
respond to the Query.
- Users can group invoices by customer and
establish the same Next Action Date so that they can
discuss multiple invoices with their contact.
- Users can copy all relevant contact
information to other invoices if more than one invoice
has been discussed at the same time.
- Every piece of information users need to
discuss either a single overdue invoice, multiple overdue
invoices or even a customer's worsening payment history
is available within the same set of screens.
- If users need to transfer responsibility
for a single file or a group of invoices or even an
entire account, each of these actions can be accommodated
with ease.
- You can even instruct the system to
transfer a file automatically if no action is taken
within a set time limit.
Summary
In this ever more fragile economy, managing
cash flows may prove to be one of the keys to survival. Customers
will delay payment in an effort to preserve what little free cash
they have. Unfortunately this can prove to be extremely painful
for users and may contribute to their demise.
The Collections Management Solution has been
designed from the ground up to help users track and collect
overdue accounts and manage the collection process more
effectively than they could using any existing procedures. An
immediate benefit for many users is an absolute reduction in
Accounts Receivable balances as a percentage of revenue. As an
example, a 3 day reduction in Accounts Receivable balances (a
very reasonable and achievable target) will generate $5,000 in
cash flow for every $1 million in revenue). Thus, a $10 million
dollar company should be able to generate $50,000 in cash flow
simply by investing in The Collections Management Solution.
The Collections Management Solution is a
critical success tool that can and should be used by all
organizations. There are no other products like this on the market
today.
The Collections Management Solution will help you
reduce your Accounts Receivable balances significantly and manage
those balances so that they will remain within acceptable limits.
You have everything to gain and
absolutely nothing to lose
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