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About Collections

Collection is the process of collecting money from customers who are delinquent or are unable to make a payment by a specified date. Collection is a component of the lending cycle and can affect a company's bottom line. Those accounts that a company is unable to collect on must be written off in the end, which reduces the company's profit.

A collection application allows a company to identify delinquent accounts and arrange them into predefined lists so agents can follow up and obtain payment. Many companies group delinquent accounts into three or more buckets, for example, 30 days, 60 days, and 90 days. Each bucket results in a different series of actions. For example, accounts in the 30 days bucket might receive a letter reminding them to pay the outstanding balance. Accounts in the 60 days bucket, however, might get a call from a collection agent to discuss the balance and payment scenarios.

Using the Siebel application, administrators can query and create lists of delinquent accounts based on the number of days the account has been delinquent. Companies can also use the Siebel application in conjunction with third-party applications. For example, if a company uses a third-party application to track delinquent accounts, users can take lists generated by these applications and use the Siebel application to execute collection activities.

Administrators use the procedures in this chapter to set up collection activities, for example creating assignment rules, managing collection preferences and correspondence information, automating the cure process, and enabling workflows.

Collection agents, managers, or end users, use the Siebel application to view work summary information about delinquent accounts, execute collection tasks, and record skip trace, bankruptcy, and legal information related to delinquent accounts.

Figure 22 describes the typical administrator and end-user procedures for Collection Management. The administrator first sets up the collection task, then generates a campaign list, and finally sets up a workflow. End-user procedures include the following: the end user researches delinquent accounts, then executes a collection task, and finally manages skip trace and impound service requests.

Figure 22. Typical Administrator and End-User Procedures for Collections