This chapter provides an overview of the graphical user interface (GUI) and the major tasks you can perform in Oracle Advanced Collections.
This chapter covers the following topics:
Oracle Advanced Collections provides forms-based windows for tasks performed by collections agents and managers; and web pages for setup, advanced delinquency management, and administration of Oracle Advanced Collections. The following responsibilities control access to functionality based on the role a user has in your company's collections process.
Collections Agent: Allows collectors access to Advanced Collections to perform tasks related to managing delinquencies and interacting with customers, including:
Use eBusiness Center
Perform searches
Review aging
Review history
Process payments
Process promises to pay
Dispute invoices
Manage leasing cases and process payments for Oracle Lease and Finance Management
Manage delinquent loans and process payments for Oracle Loans
Manage strategies and assigned work items
Escalate delinquencies in late stage collections
Run reports
Send statements to customers
Use directory assistance
Collections Administrator: Allows administrators to set up and configure Advanced Collections using the Collections Questionnaire and Checklist. Activities include:
Create and manage scoring components and scoring engines
Create work items (used in strategies)
Create collections strategy templates
Create dunning plans
Create new segments for strategies, scoring engines, and dunning plans
Convert references from Fulfillment templates to XML templates
Create metrics
Enable web directory assistance
Run reports
Run concurrent programs
Set system profile options
Collections Manager: Allows managers to run reports, reassign collectors, access later stage collections activities such as write-offs and bankruptcies, manage lease cases and strategies. Activities include:
View and update delinquency information
View and update litigation information
View and update repossession information
View and update bankruptcy information
View and update write-off information
View and update case information for Oracle Lease and Finance Management
Run reports
The Collections window is your central work area for activities relating to collecting debt from a customer. You can reach it from the Navigator, through the Collector's Work Queue, or by clicking the Details button on the eBusiness Center Collections tab. Use Quick Find to search for a customer.
Collections Header: The header portion of the window displays summary information about the customer's delinquency and payment history.
The fields on the left side of the header show the contact for a customer. They display one telephone number for a customer based on contact type, purpose, and whether it is the primary or preferred number. A phone number with a purpose of Collections will take precedence over a primary number. A purpose of Collections takes precedence over whether a number is a primary number.
For example, if two numbers exist for a customer and both have a purpose of Collections, the one marked Primary will be displayed. If two numbers exist and only one has a purpose of Collections, the one with a purpose of Collections will display even if the other is marked Primary. If two numbers exist and neither has a purpose of Collections, the one marked Primary will be displayed.
The fields displayed in the middle of the header provide high-level statistics about the customer. The following table describes these fields.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Collections Status | Indicates the most critical delinquency status. |
| Customer Since | The year since customer transactions began.
Note: This field displays the date of the customer's first purchase stored in the Year Established field on the Oracle Receivables Customer page. The Receivables user must enable this field by adding the field through page personalization and then populate it in order for Advanced Collections to show a date. |
| Collections Score | Customer level score. You must run scoring at the customer level for a customer to populate this field. For example, if you collect at the bill to level, you must still run scoring at the customer level to display a value here. |
| Collectible Transactions | Number of current and delinquent transactions. |
| Delinquencies in the Past Year | Existing delinquencies for the last twelve months (rolling not calendar). |
| Delinquent Invoices | Number of transactions that are past due. |
The fields on the right side of the header present information driven by the operational data view selected. The following table describes these fields.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Operating Unit | List of available operating units for data filtering and display. |
| View | Level of data displayed: Customer, Account, Bill To, and Delinquency. |
| Amount Overdue | Total amount of all past due transactions in Oracle Receivables. |
| Net Balance | Net amount of all debits and credits for. |
| DSO | Conventional DSO = (total outstanding receivables / total sales for last DSO days) * (DSO days). |
| Last Payment Paid On | Date of last payment received. |
| Last Payment Due On | The last payment received was applied to a payment schedule with this date. If payment was applied to more than one payment schedule, the oldest payment schedule is shown. |
| Last Payment Amount | Amount of last payment. |
Note: Transactions include invoices, credit memos, debit memos, chargebacks, and other receivables instruments.
See also: Viewing Customer Information in Advanced Collections.
Collections Tabs: Detail information needed by Collections personnel is located in the following tabs, in the approximate order needed. You can hide tabs not used by your organization.
Profile: See: Using the Profile Tab.
History: See: Viewing History.
Accounts: See: Viewing Account Information.
Transactions: See: Viewing Transaction Data.
Lifecycle: See: Viewing Collection Lifecycle Data.
Strategy: See: Collections Strategies, Oracle Advanced Collections Implementation Guide.
Case Management (used with Oracle Lease and Finance Management): See: Overview of Reporting to a Credit Bureau.
Aging: See: Viewing Aging.
Contract (used with Oracle Lease and Finance Management): See: Viewing Contracts a Customer Has with Your Organization.
Note: See: Notes Tab.
Task: See: Tasks Tab.
Custom: See: Using Custom Tabs.
Loans: See: Viewing Loan Information.
In addition, you can access online directory assistance from the toolbar. See: Using Directory Assistance.
From the Navigator, you have several choices for using the application while performing your collections activities when logged in using the Collections Agent responsibility:
Collector's Work Queue: Use this link to access your work tasks in the Collector's Work Queue. When you select a customer, transaction, or other collections-related object in your work queue, you go directly to Advanced Collections. See: Using Collector's Work Queue for more information. When you select a task, the task is opened in the related application.
Collections: The Collections window opens with no customer data. You can search to find a customer.
Search: You can search for customers using the following three methods. Select the desired customer from the search results to open the Collections window. (See: Overview of Searching for more information.)
Quick Search: A set of queries set up in the application such as payment, promise to pay, and dispute. Choose one.
Note: The Last Name and First Name parameters for payment, dispute, or promise to pay are not the organization contact. Use these parameters to search for a person who is a customer as an individual, not as an organization contact.
Expanded Search: You can create your own search.
Saved Results: You can activate previous searches that were saved.
Reports: Opens the Collections Reports page in Self Service Administration where you can run Collections reports. See: Running Oracle Advanced Collections Reports.
Statements: Opens the Statement window in Oracle Receivables where you can view or print a customer statement.
If you have implemented a shared services operating model, internal Oracle Advanced Collections users can access, process, and report on data in an unlimited number of operating units within a single responsibility. With Multi-Org Access Control, users do not have to switch application responsibilities when viewing customer accounts in multiple operating units.
Note: If you select all operating units within a responsibility and if different currencies exist, then all the fields and tabs are NOT enabled. For example, the Aging tab will be disabled if different currencies exist for the operating units.
The Collector's Work Queue (UWQ) displays actionable work items for a collector based on the display nodes selected when you set up UWQ. You can organize the information presented to match the operational data level at which your collectors work with customers. Work nodes can be consolidated and displayed at the customer level, account level, bill to level, or by individual delinquencies.
You can display the following nodes for a data level:
Delinquent Node: Displays active, pending, and complete delinquent customers, accounts, bill to locations, or transactions assigned to the collector. When you double-click a line item, you go directly to the Transactions tab in Advanced Collections with the appropriate delinquency highlighted.
Broken Promises Node: Displays active, pending, and complete broken promises. Promises are taken at the transaction level, but can be displayed grouped by customer, bill to location, account, or delinquency. When you double-click a line item you go directly to the History tab in Advanced Collections with the Promise History view selected.
Strategy Work Item Node: Displays all the strategy work items assigned to the collector. When you double-click a line item you go directly to the Strategy tab in Advanced Collections with the appropriate strategy and work item highlighted. Strategy work items can be at the customer, account, bill to, or delinquency level.
Note: When you move to the Transactions, History, or Strategy tab from the Collector's Work Queue, the date range for the displayed items will overrule any default date range settings for the work items to show all transactions (or histories) for that customer. You can set the default date range settings using the IEX: Default Date Range Span and IEX: Default End Date Range Span profile options. See: Profile Options, Oracle Advanced Collections Implementation Guide.
You can also display a Task Node with dunning callbacks, broken promise calls, approvals, meetings, problem resolutions, and other work items.
Note: The Collector's Work Queue provides the total number of actionable items for each node. However, the number of actionable work items shown for the active, complete and pending items is the total number for all the three nodes.
For information about how to refresh the information shown in the Collector's Work Queue, see: Running Concurrent Programs.
The IEU: Desktop: Work Selector profile option determines the layout of work items in UWQ. You can select either a two frame format that displays nodes and their work items (Hgrid) or a single frame with a drop down list of options (Cascade). See: Set Up Additional Oracle Advanced Collections Profile Options, Oracle Advanced Collections Implementation Guide.
To change the order of work items displayed or to search for a particular item, select a column heading to sort the information by that column.
Related Topics
Display Collector's Work Queue Nodes, Oracle Advanced Collections Implementation Guide
Profile Options and Profile Categories Overview, Oracle Advanced Collections Implementation Guide
You can designate an assigned strategy work item as active, pending, or complete. In the Collections window, select Actions from the toolbar and then select one of the options:
Show in UWQ as Active: moves the items to the Active Strategy Work Items node
Show in UWQ as Complete: moves the items to the Complete Strategy Items Work node
Show in UWQ as Pending: moves the items to the Pending Strategy Work Items node
Show in UWQ Advanced: allows the user to move the items to the Pending node for a user-entered amount of days before it is returned to the Active node
Note: There are 2 profile options that control how long a promise stays in the pending and completed nodes. IEX: UWQ Default Complete Node Days has a default setting of 30 days and IEX: UWQ Default Pending Days has a default setting of 10 days. If you override the default setting to null, then the program resets the number of days to 20 to prevent any errors. You can manually override these settings when you disposition the active work by entering the number of days for the task to remain in the work queue. See: Work Queue Configuration Category, Oracle Advanced Collections Implementation Guide.
The Actions menu is available from the Menu toolbar for the following:
Delinquencies on the Lifecycle tab
Broken promises in the Promise History table on the History tab
Note: Using the Actions menu options to change work item status does affect system performance. If you do not want to use this feature, set the IEX: Enable Work Queue Statuses profile option to No. This profile option is not part of the Collections Checklist tasks.
Oracle Advanced Collections includes dynamic tables to provide additional functionality customer and delinquency information. You can identify a dynamic table by its alternating color striped rows.
In a dynamic table, you can:
Arrange table layout by hiding, reordering, or moving columns, and changing column width
Select up to three columns and sort in ascending or descending order
Customize and save table layout and sorting settings
Copy cells or rows to a spreadsheet