Credit Control Manager (S/L Only)

This new utility provides a single option that allows you to chase debts easily. It selects the accounts which are overdue, allows you to send statements for increasing severity of debt, mark accounts as ‘on-stop’, and record comments and notes of conversations with the customer.

This feature ties in with a couple of new options discussed later in this manual – updating the saved aged analysis on payment entry, and flagging back the date a statement printed – and earlier options to record the aged analysis breakdown on the account record and to control the details printed on a statement.

On selection of this new option you may, depending on configuration, be prompted for some initial options.

Update Save Aged Analysis

This option uses the ‘Save Aged Analysis’ values on the customer record to select the accounts that are overdue. The configuration options allow you to check that if this process has not been run in the last n days to offer to re-run on selection of the Credit Control Manager option.

Note – the update of the saved aged analysis details requires exclusive access to the sales accounts file.

Selection of Accounts

You may have differing types of customer for which you set flags on the customer record – Trade-Y/N, Distributor-Y/N, Retail-Y/N, etc. The Credit Control Manager allows you to select whether to include / exclude these accounts based on these flags (up to five flags can be shown).

Each configured Y/N prompt has options to ‘Include’ or ‘Exclude’ – if include is set then only those accounts where this item is set to ‘Y’ are shown, if exclude then only those accounts where this item is not ‘Y’ are shown. If neither option checked then this flag is ignored (i.e. all accounts are processed – dependant on settings of other flags).

The selection options are ‘compulsory’ checks, if you set the include option for both ‘Trade-A/C’ and ‘Distributor’ then both flag items must be ‘Y’ before the customer record is included.

Once any initial selections have been made the overdue accounts are displayed.

All the overdue accounts are listed with the amount they are overdue and the number of days overdue of the highest outstanding transaction. The list shows:

q A/C – the customer account code

q Name – the customer account name

q M – flag of ‘M’ if a ‘Debtors Memo’ is recorded against the customer

q S – flag of ‘S’ if customer account is ‘on-stop’

q Credit Terms – usual credit terms for the customer

q Overdue – the total value of transactions overdue

q Days – the age of the highest overdue transaction

q Last-Pay – date of last payment recorded against the account

q 30-Day/60-Day/90-Day – these columns show the date this particular statement was printed. The names may be different on your own systems based on the criteria you choose (say) 30-day, 7-day warning, Legal warning, etc. Up to five levels of statement warning can be configured.

q X – flag if the customer set not to receive a statement

q Defer – if you’ve previously contacted a customer and they’ve promised payment by x date then you can record this date against the customer record and this is displayed here.

q Comment – short comment for display (the Debtor Memo can be used for longer notes).

Selected columns – Memo / Stop / Last Pay / Comment – can be omitted from display. Depending on screen resolution and items displayed the system will reduce the display size of the comment (if shown) to a minimum of 10 characters before the system begins to reduce the display size of the account name within the pick list.

Options at the bottom of the screen allow you various facilities against the highlighted customer record.

More / Zoom

This option displays selected details from the customer record. It would likely include customer contact details – telephone number, fax number, email address and contact name, together with balance and credit information.Up to fifteen items from the customer record can be displayed.

At this point you can press the ZOOM button to transfer to the Desktop Sales Account Ledger Enquiry for this customer or OK to return to the list.

Enquiry

The Enquiry option takes you to the Sales Ledger Account Enquiry for this customer. You can also access the ledger enquiry from here using the F8-Zoom key. <Esc> takes you back to the list.

Debtor Memo

Debtor Memo allows you to enter notes about your contact with the customer. The entry procedures are similar to the standard memo functionality.

The memo is created as a ‘Debtors.rtf’ file within the associate file location for the customer account (this location is based on the MSWORD path set within the DATAFILE.INI).

Stop Status

This option allows you to set an account as ‘on-stop’ which prevents further invoices being posted against the customer (if the account is already on stop you can release it here also).

Comment

This option allows you to enter a short comment (20 characters) that appears in the list.The idea is that you can enter ‘Call Friday AM’ etc. as a note to contact this particular customer at a certain point next time they are in their office etc.

Additional options allow you to set whether this customer does not receive a statement, enter a deferred date and amend/clear statement printed dates.

30-Day / 60-Day / 90-Day

These buttons allow you to print a selected statement for the highlighted account. The actual options shown may vary based on your requirement (i.e. as discussed above you may have a 30-day statement, 7-day pre-legal warning, legal warning, account termination document, etc.) – up to five different statements can be called / configured. Note that the transactions printed on the statement depend on the configuration of the selected document.

If the selected document has already been printed you will be prompted whether you wish to replace the recorded date with today’s date, or keep the original date on file (the statement always being printed with today’s date)

Close

Exit from the Credit Control Manager.

Note that to mark an account on-stop, update a comment, or print a statement requires exclusive access to the account record.

Installation

Changes are required to the sales ledger accounts database, the system profiles, the application user facilities and the statement designs for this feature.

Database Changes

New items are required on the Sales Accounts file for the ‘Credit Control Manager’. In addition, if the items do not already exist, you will need the items for the ‘Save Aged Analysis’ procedure.

Item Name Type Description

NB: The items below may already have been created in your accounts file.

AGE-FORWARD K, L Only applicable if ageing on due date, this item is updated with value of transactions that are not yet due for more than n days in advance (where n is the first aged analysis period).

AGE-CURRENT K, L Updated with value of transactions that are, if ageing on invoice date, less than n days old (where n is the first age analysis period). If ageing on due date, this holds the value of transactions due today or in the next ndays (again where n is the first aged analysis period).

AGE-1 K, L Updated with value of transactions that are, if ageing on invoice date, greater than n days old but less than y days old (where y is the second aged analysis period). If ageing on due-date, this holds the value of transactions due in the last ndays.

AGE-n K, L Up to five aged analysis slots may be configured for use. Create AGE-2, AGE-3, AGE-4 and AGE-5 as required.

AGE-DATE D, E Date the ‘Save Aged’ procedure was last run as at.

AGE-TIME N Time the ‘Save Aged’ procedure was last run at.

NB: The majority of items from this point on are new for the ‘Credit Control Manager’ – possible pre-existing items are noted accordingly.

AGE-OVERDUE K, L Holds the total value of overdue transactions (or the total value in AGE-1 through AGE-5 if ageing on invoice date).

AGE-HIGHEST N Records the no of days since the oldest outstanding transaction was entered (ageing on invoice date) or due (if ageing on due date).

OMIT-STM ? Flag item which, if set, can be used to omit an account from a statement run. Introduced in Release 5.6.

DEBT-COMMENT X (20) Holds short comment that can be entered during against the account within the Credit Control Manager.

DEFER-UNTIL D, E Holds date which can be entered against the account within the Credit Control Manager at which you will next contact the customer regarding their account.

LAST-STM Y (1) You can configure for use five statements within the Credit Control Manager that can be used for ‘printed’ communication with the customer in order of increasing severity. This flag holds the last statement printed.

STM-DATE-1 D, E Holds the date the statement of the first level of severity was printed.

STM-DATE-n D, E Holds the date the statement of the nth level of severity was printed. Up to five statements can be configured for print.

Database Profiles

The items added to the database above need to be referenced within the Database Profiles for the Sales Ledger. The items are referenced within the ‘Account Aged Anal’ and ‘Account Statement’ parameter screens.

System Profiles

An additional parameter has been added that allows the re-calculation of the saved aged analysis values on payment entry (either via Sales Ledger or Cashbook). In addition this screen provides options to control whether the system, as a whole, ages on invoice date or due date and sets the ageing periods.

Monthly Aged Analysis– set whether transactions are to be aged on a monthly basis or on a daily basis. If ageing on a monthly basis and on invoice date then AGE-CURRENT includes transactions entered in this month or forward, AGE-1 is transactions entered last month and so on. If ageing on a monthly basis and on due date then AGE-FORWARD is transactions due next month or further in advance, AGE-CURRENT is transactions due this month, AGE-1 is transactions due last month, and so on.

If set for monthly aged analysis a pop-up will allow you to enter the number of monthly periods to analyse over (up to five).

Aged Analysis Periods- if not ageing on monthly periods you can enter the breaks at which you wish to group transactions into – i.e. 30, 60, 90, etc. Up to five breaks can be entered though you do not have to enter all five.

Aged Analysis Normally By Due Date – set to age on due date, leave blank to age on invoice date. This option controls how the system age’s on the save aged analysis procedure and the ledger enquiry. Statements and the Aged Analysis Report have their own parameters for this option and should be changed to be consistent with this setting as/when required. As noted earlier for the ‘Credit Control Manager’ you should age on due date unless all accounts / transactions use the same credit terms and those credit terms match the first age-analysis period.

Update Save Aged Analysis on Receipts – the ‘Credit Control Manager’ relies on the Save Aged Analysis fields on the customer record.These are recalculated when you run the ‘Save Aged’ procedure (and this can be re-run as part of the Credit Control procedure if it hasn’t been run forn days). This option allows you to re-calculate the save aged analysis procedure after a receipt is entered in either the Sales Ledger or the Cashbook.

Application User Facilities

The ‘Credit Control Manager’ options are configured on the fourth screen of the Sales Transaction features.

Pick Debts: Run-Time Selection Items – These prompts allow you to select up to five items from the customer record to be used as criteria for including / excluding accounts from the credit control pick list.Whilst you would usually use ‘?’ items, you can select X, D or E types. The criteria works on a null / not-null process for the non ‘?’ item types so, for example, you could include one of the statement date fields so that only accounts which have had a warning statement are picked up.

Up to five items can be selected and for each item you enter the data item to check and the prompt to be shown on screen to the operator for it.

Linked to Statements– the credit control options can be linked to up to five statements which are processed in increasing order of severity of the debt. For each statement option you select the document to print (1-6 corresponding to the entry in the statement document design) and a prompt to be shown for that statement.

Exclude if Omit Stm?– set to exclude accounts which are flagged not to receive a statement from the credit control procedure.

Omit Column for: Stop Status, Comment, Memo, Last Pay – set to omit these items from the column pick list. This will increase the detail of the account name shown.

Show Comments Before Print – set to display the comments recorded on the account in a pop-up on print of a statement from the credit control procedure.

Warn if Save Aged Not Run for X days – set number of days since last run before the system offers to run the save aged analysis on selection of the ‘Credit Control Manager’.Typically you would set this to ‘1’.

Item to View A/C– up to fifteen data items from the accounts file can be set for display on the MORE/ZOOM option. These will typically include the contact details for the customer – telephone, fax, etc. If no items are set a pre-defined list of items will be displayed.

Aged Debtors Report

If you’ve changed the ageing procedures to work on ‘due date’ rather than invoice date you’ll likely wish to do this for the aged debtors report also. This is done via a parameter on the ‘Aged Analysis’ section of the Account Reports menu.

Age on due-date – set to age on transaction due date, leave blank to age on the invoice date.

Document Design Manager

The ‘Credit Control Manager’ allows you to print up to five statements that would be printed for increasing severity of contact – i.e. ‘these transactions are over 30 days old’, ‘we’ve had no contact since our last statement and these transactions are now over 45 day old’, etc. You may want to consider these parameter options when configuring your statement.

On Screen 1 ‘General Statement Parameters (1/2)’:

Aged Analysis on Due Date – set if the statement is to age transactions on due date.

Flag Account with Date Statement Printed – set to flag the statement date back to the account record.

Acc Stm Flag – set which of the five levels of statement this document corresponds to (controls which date to update and also the setting of the flag).

Check Account Statement FLAG=Y omit – set if this statement is not to be printed for accounts flagged to be omitted from statement runs. (You may omit from general runs but include in the debtor chasing letter processes).

On Screen 2 ‘General Statement Parameters (2/2)’:

Show Only Outstanding Invoices (No Others) – set to show only o/s invoices (likely when chasing debts).

On Screen 4 ‘Aged Analysis Printing’:

Default Types of Account – this allows you to restrict the accounts that would be processed on this statement:

1 = All

2 = If Account Balance

3 = If Account Balance or Current Transactions

4 = Over Age-1

5 = Over Age-2

..

8 = Over Age-5

You are likely to tie in your debtor chasing letters with aged analysis slots so if you might send your initial ‘ gentle reminder’ letter for those over 30 days, your ‘strong reminder’ over 45 days and so on so your aged analysis slots, set in System Profiles, would be 30, 45, etc. You would then set this option related to the severity – i.e. if it’s the gentle reminder set to ‘4’, if it’s the strong reminder ‘5’, and so on.

Only Print Old than Sel – this relates to the transactions to print. On the above prompt we control whether a statement would be printed for an account based on the age of it’s debt, for this prompt we control the transactions printed – i.e. does your statement print ALL o/s invoices for the customer or just those over the selected age slot (over 30 days, over 45 days, etc.).

Menu Design

Finally, the ‘Credit Control Manager’ option needs to be added to the Sales Ledger menu through the CONFIG sign on. Use the Application Menu Design to amend either the SL.D03 (main Sales menu) or the SLUTIL.D03 (the Sales Utilities menu) to add the option.

Applic, Program or Notes – P for Program

Menu Name or Program Path – SL.EXE

Parameter – 4500