Setting Up Collections Manager

Adding Custom Pay Types

When you run the pin_collections_process utility to trigger collections actions, the utility considers only bill units with the default pay types. If you created a custom payment type, you need to configure collections to support it.

To add custom pay types:

Open the pin_collections configuration file (BRM_home/apps/pin_collections/pin.conf) in a text editor, where BRM_home is the directory in which the BRM server software is installed.
Enter the custom BRM pay type code in the pay_type entry:
```
- pin_collections_process pay_type PaymentType
```
For example, enter 10013 for the wire transfer payment type:
```
- pin_collections_process pay_type 10013
```
To add multiple custom pay types, separate the PaymentType entries by a comma.
```
- pin_collections_process pay_type 10013,10014
```
Note:

You can find valid pay type codes in the BRM_home/include/pin_cust.h file, under PAY_TYPE.
Save and close the file.

Setting the Minimum Overdue Balance to Process

You can specify the minimum overdue balance that triggers Collections Manager. When you run pin_collections_process, only bill units with overdue balances greater than or equal to the amount you specify are considered.

Note:

The value you specify in the collections pin.conf file is a system-wide minimum value. Collections scenarios cannot have entry criteria lower than this value. For example, if the minimum value in the collections pin.conf file is $20 and a collections scenario has an entry criteria of $10, a bill unit will enter collections only if its overdue balance is $20 or more.

To set the minimum overdue balance for collections:

Open the pin_collections configuration file (BRM_home/apps/pin_collections/pin.conf) in a text editor.
Set the minimum_due entry to the minimum overdue balance:
```
- pin_collections_process minimum_due Amount
```
For example, enter 25 to specify $25:
```
- pin_collections_process minimum_due 25.00
```
Note:

The default is 0.0.
Save and close the file.

Setting the Number of Bill Units Retrieved during Step Searches

The Collections Facilities Module (FM) opcodes use step search when searching for bill units. The step size determines the number of bill units retrieved at one time. You can improve performance by changing this value.

To specify the number of bill units to retrieve in step searches:

Open the Connection Manager (CM) configuration file (BRM_home/sys/cm/pin.conf) in a text editor.
Set the account_search_batch entry to the number of bill units.
```
- fm_collections account_search_batch Amount
```
For example, enter 500 to retrieve 500 bill units with each step of the search.
```
- fm_collections account_search_batch 500
```
Note:

The default is 1000.
Save and close the file.
Stop and restart the CM.

Setting Up Invoice Reminders

Collections Manager uses the Universal Message Store (UMS) framework to deliver invoice reminders. See "Using BRM Messaging Services" in BRM Developer's Guide for general information.

To use invoice reminders as part of the collections process, you must complete three tasks related to the UMS framework:

Enable messaging by modifying the PCM_OP_INV_POL_PREP_INVOICE policy opcode. See "Enabling Messaging" in BRM Developer's Guide.
Load a message style sheet (message.xsl) that makes it possible to display messages in invoices. See "Loading the Message Style Sheet" in BRM Developer's Guide.
Load invoice reminder templates into /string objects in the BRM database. See "Creating and Loading Message Templates" in BRM Developer's Guide. Collections Manager includes a sample invoice reminder template that you can modify and rename as necessary. The file is BRM_home/sys/msgs/messages/message_invoice_reminder.en_US.

Creating Dependencies between Collections Actions in a Scenario

By default, Collections Manager performs automated collections actions on their due date, regardless of whether the preceding collections actions have been completed or canceled. This can cause collections actions to be completed out of order.

You can configure Collections Manager to create dependencies between collections actions in a scenario and thus perform collections actions in order. In this case, Collections Manager performs the following additional steps during scenario processing:

Performs a collections action on its due date only if the action's status is set to Pending.
After a collections action is completed or canceled, automatically reschedules the due dates of all outstanding collections actions in the scenario. To do so, Collections Manager calculates the difference in days between the action's completed or canceled date and the action's due date, and then moves the due dates of all outstanding actions by the calculated number of days. For example, assume a collections scenario contains two collections actions:
- Action 1: A manual phone call from an agent 5 days after the bill unit enters collections.
- Action 2: Referring the case to an outside collections agency 10 days after the bill unit enters collections.
If action 1 does not occur until day 7, Collections Manager changes the due date of action 2 from day 10 to day 12. This maintains the interval between Action 1 and Action 2.

To create dependencies between collections actions in a collections scenario:

Open the CM configuration file (BRM_home/sys/cm/pin.conf) in a text editor.
Set the collections_action_dependency entry to 1:
```
- fm_collections collections_action_dependency 1
```
Note:

The default is 0, which disables dependencies between collections actions.
Save and close the file.
Stop and restart the CM.

Adding Custom Collections Reason Codes for Billing Care

In Billing Care, you can perform operations such as inserting new collections actions, rescheduling collections actions, and exempting bill units from collections.

For many of these operations, you choose a reason that is associated with the action. Billing Care includes a default set of reasons, which you can modify.

To modify the default reasons, you can add or change reason codes in each reasons.locale file. See "Loading Localized or Customized Strings" in BRM Developer's Guide for more information.