Collection Agency Referrals

Before debt is written off, many implementations refer the unpaid bills to a collection agency. The following points describe how to implement this.

• Set up an overdue event type with an activation algorithm that refers an overdue process's bill(s) to a collection agency.
• When such an event is activated, the system creates a Collection Referral record for a collection agency. The specific agency to which the debt is referred is controlled by the event type's activation algorithm. The sample algorithm simply refers debt to the collection agency with the least amount of referred debt. If you prefer different logic, you must develop your own algorithm.
• A collection agency referral history record is linked to an account. It contains the amount of debt referred to the collection agency. It is the creation of this record that triggers the interface of information to the collection agency. The method used to interface the information to the agency is defined on the collection agency's record. Refer to Setting Up Collection Agencies for more information.
• If the collection agency is successful in obtaining the funds, a payment will be added. If the payment satisfies the cancel criteria defined on the overdue process template's cancellation plug-in, the overdue process will cancel. When an overdue process is cancelled, the cancel criteria on the overdue process's template are executed. We strongly recommend plugging in an algorithm that will cancel collection agency referrals when an overdue process is cancelled.
• If the collection agency is not successful in obtaining your funds after a given amount of time, you probably want to cancel the referral and write-off the debt. The cancellation of the referral will happen automatically if you set up your overdue process template to have an event that creates a collection agency cancellation X days after the referral. You can cancel a referral manually by simply creating a new collection agency referral history record (with a type of cancel ).
• Collection agencies are notified of the cancellation of a referral by the creation of a new collection agency referral history record (with a type of cancel). This record will be interfaced to the agency in the same manner used to interface a new referral (see above).