Understanding the Collections Workbench

The PeopleSoft Receivables Collections Workbench is a central work space that presents a complete view of each customer. Collectors can perform their day-to-day activities, including accessing and completing action items directly from the Collections Workbench. Prior to contacting a customer or completing an action, the collector can use the Collections Workbench to review a customer's history, such as the average days it takes a customer to pay, the number of days any sales are outstanding (DSO), any past due balances, and any previous broken promises. With this information at hand, the collector can contact the customer and hopefully, work out a plan for payment and indicate on the Collections Workbench that the customer will pay by direct debit, credit card, or a check. If the customer does not make a commitment to pay, the collector can use the Collections Workbench to place the customer on credit hold and add an action to follow up in a specified number of days. If the customer agrees to pay within a certain number of days and does not pay, the collector can use the Collections Workbench to send a dunning letter. The collector can continue to follow-up with this customer, and, after reviewing several broken promises, can use the Collections Workbench to mark the customer in collections and refer the customer to a collection agency. The Collections Workbench provides the collector all of the information and metrics needed to diligently track and manage customer data from the days the customer receives a statement until it is paid or referred to a collection agency.

Collections managers can use the Collections Workbench to complete day-to-day management activities, which may include reviewing the current payment promises, reviewing any outstanding broken promises, the reassigning action items to different members of their team, or completing their own assigned action items.

The Collections Workbench enables an authorized user to:

  • Easily access and populate the workbench data.

  • Navigate to and from multiple pages and levels of data.

  • Personalize the workbench.

  • Access an enhanced owner action list and view action lists across customers.

  • Access specific levels of customer detail.

  • Display the credit profile information of a customer.

  • Display and work the item list associated with a customer.

  • Display the payment status and payment history of a customer.

  • Review customer promises.

  • Review, add, update, and delete conversations with a customer.

  • Review the correspondence history of a customer and send statements by e-mail.

  • Review customer aging and open credit information.

  • Calculate a credit risk score for a customer.

  • Review direct journal payments.

If your PeopleSoft 9.2 installation includes Contracts and Financials, you can leverage the Collections Workbench for payments associated with contracts. This expanded Collections Workbench functionality extends collections to contracts based on detailed item references and worksheets.

The Collections Workbench integrated with Contracts enables an authorized user to:

  • Review balance and past due amounts by contract or contract line.

  • Display and work the item list associated with a contract.

  • Display the payment status and payment history by contract.

  • Review, add, and update conversations that reference a contract.

If you enter both customer and contract criteria, the system matches contracts payment items, including credit items, payments, drafts, and direct debits, from all customers in the defined hierarchy.

See also the product documentation for PeopleSoft Contracts.

You can easily access customer data on the workbench by searching for or entering a customer ID in the Collections Workbench header. When you enter the header information, your user ID is used to generate an action list in the Action List group box, which lists any actions assigned to you that apply to the selected customer. Customer detail information also appears for the selected customer in the Customer Details group box along with tabs on which you can review:

  • A credit profile of the customer.

  • Any payment activity by this customer.

  • A list of items purchased and the details regarding the purchase and payment of each item.

  • A list of conversations with this customer.

  • A history of correspondence with this customer in the form of statements and dunning letters

  • Customer aging details.

  • A multilevel customer hierarchy, which displays the item balance, past due balance, and credit limit for each customer in the hierarchy with rolled up information that customers defined within the hierarchy.

You can also leave some of the header information blank, such as the Unit field and the Customer ID field to display multiple customers who are associated with your user ID and have new or pending actions in the Action List group box. Instead of selecting a customer, you can select the Detail button for one of these action rows and display the customer detail for the customer associated with the action.

Conversations

You can record any conversation you may have with the customer while working on the Collections Workbench by clicking a link in the header of the Collections Workbench to add a new conversation or by selecting the Conversations tab on the workbench to add, review, or delete conversations concerning the selected customer. Conversations enable a collector to track and act on conversations and promises made by the customer. Conversations and promises are discussed in more detail in a discussion about the Conversations tab and in the PeopleSoft Order to Cash Common Information documentation.

See also Reviewing Conversations and Promises.

See also Entering and Reviewing Conversations.

Content Personalization

You can click the Personalize Content link in the header of the Collections Workbench and access the Personalize Content page, where you can determine if and how you want the Action List or Customer Details to appear on the Collections Workbench. You can also indicate if you want the message alert icon to appear next to the customer's name, which indicates that there are notes associated with the selected customer. These notes can be standard or custom and are printed on selected documents such as a bill of lading, a picking plan, an invoice, and more. They enable you to view what type of information has been sent to the customer, for example a reminder note, prior to your contacting them.

You can personalize the contents of the Customer Details group box by identifying the row and column where you want to add a specific field name in the group box after you select one of these field categories.

  • Activity Field

    When you select this field category and place your cursor in a specific row and column, you can select from field names such as Broken Promises, Credits, Kept Promises, In Process Payments and more. When you select a field name, that selected field name appears in the row/column location of the Customer Details group box with a value next to it.

    For example, a customer has 4 broken promises and you want to display the number of broken promises in the Customer Details group box on the Collections Workbench., If you select the Activity Field for the category, click the Search icon in Row 1, Column 1, and select the field name Broken Promises, when you return to the Collections Workbench page the field name Broken Promises will appear in Row 1, Column 1 in the Customer Details group box and the system displays 4.0 as the number of broken promises that exist for the selected customer.

  • Balances Field

    This field works the same way as the Activity Field. However, the field names produced by the online search are different. Some of the fields names for the Balances Field category are Balances, Collections, Deductions, Deposits and more. The system will display the value associated with the selected field name in the selected column and row on the Customer Details group box.

  • General Field

    This field also works the same way as the Activity Field. However, some of the field names that you can select are AR Specialist, Bill to Address, Collection Date, Collection Status and more.

  • Metric Field

    This field also works the same way as the Activity Field. However, some of the field names that you can select are Prior History Day, Prior Avg Days Late, Prior Current Date, Prior DSO 30, Prior DSO 90 and more.

  • User Field

    These are fields that you define specifically based on the needs of your organization. You can set up user-defined fields using instructions in the PeopleSoft Receivables and PeopleTools. documentation.

    See PeopleTools: PeopleSoft Application Designer Developer's Guide.

This table is an example of Summary Information entered on the Personalize Content page. A Field Name and Category are selected for 3 columns and five rows.

Row/ Column

Column 1

Field Name (Category)

Column 2

Field Name (Category)

Column 3

Field Name (Category)

Row 1

Bill To Address 1 (General)

Balance (Balances)

Primary Contact (General)

Row 2

Bill To City (General)

Past Due (Balances)

Contact Title (General)

Row 3

Bill To State (General)

Credit Limit (General)

Contact Phone (General)

Row 4

Last Payment Date (Activity)

Risk Score (General)

Contact EMail (General)

Row 5

Last Payment Amount (Activity)

Broken Promises (Activity)

Last Statement Date (Activity)

This diagram displays how the information entered on the previous example table appears in the Customer Details group box on the Collections Workbench page for the selected customer, in this example Customer 1000.

This example illustrates the fields and controls in the Customer Details group box on the Collections Workbench.

Collections Workbench - Customer Details group box results based Personalize Content example

You can also personalize the tabs that appear on the Collections Workbench page. You can rename the tabs and change the order of the tabs. The content of the data that appears on each tab is system-defined. The system-defined tab labels are:

  • Credit Profile

  • Items

  • Aging

  • Corporate Accounts

  • Payments

  • Conversations

  • Correspondence

  • Contracts

  • Direct Journal Payments

See General Information - Notes Page.

If you specify a customer ID in the Collections Workbench header, any action items associated with the user and the selected customer appear in the Action List group box, along with the details and workbench data applicable to the selected customer.

If you do not specify a customer ID and you click the Search button in the header of the Collections Workbench, the system displays all action items in the Action List group box of the Collections Workbench that are assigned to this user and have an action status of New. The list is initially sorted by customer name and priority. Once the user clicks the Detail button next to an action list item, the Collections Workbench header is refreshed with the customer ID and customer name associated with the action item along with any details and workbench data that apply to that customer. In addition, the system overrides any setid or customer entered in the Collections Workbench header and replaces it with the SetID and customer associated with the action list item.

You can also display a list action items by selecting a user-defined action filter. You can set up user-defined action filters by selecting the Action Filter link in the Action List group box to access the Filter Action List page. You select specific criteria on this page that are used to filter the owner action data. You assign a name to this filter, save it, and click the Search button. The system displays the action items in the Action List group box on the Collections Workbench page based on the filter criteria. You can set up, name, and save as many filters as you need for your organization. Whenever you access the Collections Workbench page, you can click the Search icon, select the appropriate action filter and display the action items that fall within the parameters of the selected action filter.

You can also reassign an action to another action owner by selecting the Reassign Action link on the Collections Workbench page.

See Assigning Actions and Sending Notification.

As previously discussed, you can personalize the customer details that you want to appear in Customer Details group box directly after the Action List on the Collections Workbench page by clicking the Personalize Content link and accessing the Personalize Content page. The values for the credit details that you select to appear on the Collections Workbench page are updated by the system based on the customer you select. You can also select an option on the Personalize Content page, which indicates that you do not want the Customer Details group box to appear at all on the Collections Workbench page.

The Personalize Content page also enables you to change the system-defined tab labels and change the order of the tabs that appear on the Collections Workbench.

See the documentation for the Collections Workbench Tabs Page.

These are the system-defined tabs:

  • Aging

  • Contracts

  • Conversations

  • Corporate Accounts (also known as Customer Hierarchy)

  • Correspondence

  • Credit Profile

  • Items

  • Payments

  • Direct Journal Payments

For summary and links to more information, see Understanding Collections Workbench Detail Tabs.

The Contracts tab is available only if your business has implemented PeopleSoft Contracts. In addition, you can populate the Payments, Items, Aging, and Conversations tabs using contract-related criteria, whereas Credit Profile, Corporate Accounts, and Correspondence tabs return only customer-related data.

The Direct Journal Payments tab data is populated only if Track Direct Journal Customer check box is selected on the Installation Options - Receivables Page.

See information about personalizing the content of the Collections Workbench for all users by role or user ID in Setting Up Collections Workbench Components.