1. Collections Manager
  2. Managing Promise-to-Pay Agreements

9 Managing Promise-to-Pay Agreements

Your customers can enter into promise-to-pay agreements so they have more time to pay off their debt while deferring collections actions. You manage promise-to-pay agreements in Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management (BRM) by using Collections Manager.

Topics in this document:

Note:

If a customer wants to pay for a bill in multiple installments when the bill is not in collections, use installment payments instead. See "Setting Up Payment Installments" in BRM Configuring and Collecting Payments.

About Promise-to-Pay Agreements

When a bill unit is in collections, the customer can request a promise-to-pay agreement. This agreement defers all collections actions for a bill unit, allowing the customer to pay the due amount at a date beyond the original payment due date.

Customers can pay off the agreed upon amount in one payment or in multiple installments. The installment schedule and amount can be set up in the following ways:

Note:

You cannot change a promise-to-pay agreement after it is created.

When a customer enters into a promise-to-pay agreement, Collections Manager reschedules all outstanding collections actions in the bill unit to start one day after the last promise-to-pay installment due date. For example, if the last installment due date is 20 March, the outstanding collections actions are scheduled to start 21 March and onwards.

If the customer pays off the total promise-to-pay amount on time, the outstanding collections actions are canceled and the bill unit is removed from collections. If the customer cancels or breaks the promise-to-pay agreement, the outstanding collections actions are resumed the day after the agreement was canceled or broken.

About System-Configured Promise-to-Pay Installments

You use system-configured promise-to-pay installments to have Collections Manager calculate the installment schedule and installment amount for you. Collections Manager divides the total amount due into equal installments at equal intervals, such as 4 installments of $50 due every 30 days.

To create system-configured promise-to-pay installments, you provide the following information:

  • The total amount the customer agrees to pay. The total amount cannot be less than the minimum amount to exit collections.

  • The due date for the customer's first promise-to-pay installment.

  • Either the amount due for each installment, or the total number of installments.

    If the installment amount is provided, Collections Manager calculates the number of installments as the total amount due divided by the installment amount. For example, if a customer owes $200 and requests a $50 installment amount, the total number of installments is 4.

    If the number of installments is provided, Collections Manager calculates the installment amount as the total amount due divided by the number of installments. For example, if a customer owes $300 and requests 3 installments, the installment amount is $100.

  • Either the interval between each installment, or the number of days until the total amount due will be paid off.

    If the interval is provided, Collections Manager calculates the agreement's total number of days by multiplying the interval by the number of installments. For example, if the interval is 15 days and number of installments is 4, the agreement's total number of days is 60.

    If the agreement's total number of days is provided, Collections Manager calculates the interval as the total number of days divided by the number of installments. For example, if the total number of days is 30 and the number of installments is 2, the interval is 15 days.

    Note:

    If the calculated interval includes a partial day, such as 12.5 days, the extra days are added to the last installment interval: 12 days, 12 days, 12 days, 14 days.

For example, a customer enters into a promise-to-pay agreement to pay off $500 by making $100 installment payments every 14 days, starting 1 June. In this case, Collections Manager creates the promise-to-pay installments shown in Table 9-1.

Table 9-1 Sample System-Configured Promise-to-Pay Installments

Installment Number Amount Due Interval from Previous Installment Due Date

1

$100

 N/A

1 June

2

$100

14 Days

 15 June

3

$100

14 Days

29 June

4

$100

14 Days

13 July

5

$100

14 Days

27 July

About Manually Configured Promise-to-Pay Installments

Note:

BRM allows you to create manually configured promise-to-pay installments only if your system contains promise-to-pay specifications (/config/collections/promise_to_pay_spec objects).

Manually configured promise-to-pay installments allow you to create installments with varying amounts due and varying intervals between installments. For example, a customer could request three installments with the first one for $200 due on 1 January, the second one for $100 due 15 days later, and the third one for $150 due 20 days later.

You specify the limits for manually configured installments by creating a promise-to-pay specification, which defines the following:

  • The minimum initial installment amount as a percentage of the total amount due, such as 25%.

  • The minimum amount for a promise-to-pay installment, such as 10% of the total amount due or $50.

  • The maximum number of installments allowed, such as 5.

  • The maximum number of days between promise-to-pay installments, such as 30 days.

  • Whether to temporarily increase the customer's credit limit for the promise-to-pay agreement and then decrease the credit limit after each installment payment.

    For example, assume a customer has a $200 credit limit and enters into a $100 promise-to-pay agreement on 1 March, with a $30 installment due 10 March and a $70 installment due 30 March. If you specify to temporarily increase credit limits, the customer's credit limit would increase on 1 March to $300 ($200 + $100), decrease after the 10 March payment to $270 ($300 – $30), and then decrease after the 30 March payment to $200 ($270 – $70).

For information about creating promise-to-pay specifications, see "Creating Promise-to-Pay Specifications".

To create manually configured promise-to-pay installments, you provide the following information:

  • The total amount the customer agrees to pay. The total amount cannot be less than the minimum amount to exit collections.

  • The due date for the customer's first promise-to-pay installment.

  • The promise-to-pay specification to apply for validation.

  • For each installment, the absolute amount due or the percentage of the total amount due. The sum of all installments must equal 100% of the total amount due.

  • For each installment, the interval, in days, from the previous installment.

For example, a customer could enter into a promise-to-pay agreement to pay off $500 starting 1 June, with the installments shown in Table 9-2.

Table 9-2 Sample Manually Configured Promise-to-Pay Installments

Installment Number Amount Due Interval from Previous Installment Due Date

1

$250

 N/A

1 June

2

$50

30 Days

 30 June

3

$100

14 Days

14 July

4

$50

7 Days

21 July

About the Promise-to-Pay Status

When your customers enter into a promise-to-pay agreement, Collections Manager begins tracking the status of the agreement and each installment. Table 9-3 describes the available statuses for an overall promise-to-pay agreement.

Table 9-3 Overall Status of a Promise-to-Pay Agreement

Status Description

Pending

The customer has entered into a promise-to-pay agreement, but an installment due date has not occurred yet.

Canceled

The customer has canceled the promise-to-pay agreement. All outstanding collections actions are rescheduled to start from the next day.

Completed

The customer has paid off the full amount owed in the promise-to-pay agreement.

Kept

All installments to date have been paid by the customer. Other installments are due in the future.

Broken

The customer missed an installment, breaking the promise-to-pay agreement. All outstanding collections actions are rescheduled to start from the next day.

Collections Manager stores the overall status of promise-to-pay agreements in the PIN_FLD_PROMISE_TO_PAY field of /collections_scenario objects.

Table 9-4 describes the available statuses for an individual promise-to-pay installment.

Table 9-4 Status of a Promise-to-Pay Installment

Status Description

Pending

The installment is due in the future.

Canceled

The installment has been canceled.

Completed

The installment was paid off in full on time.

Error

Collections Manager was not able to retrieve the installment's status.

Broken

The customer did not pay off the installment by the due date.

You can view the status of a promise-to-pay installment by using Billing Care. See "Viewing a Bill Unit in Collections" in Billing Care Online Help.

About Paying Promise-to-Pay Agreements Early

If your customers pay off their promise-to-pay agreement early, Collections Manager changes the status of all promise-to-pay installments to Completed. Likewise, the status of the overall promise-to-pay agreement is changed to Completed.

Collections Manager also cancels all remaining collections actions and removes the customer's bill from collections.

About a Missed Promise-to-Pay Installment

When a customer does not pay off a promise-to-pay installment by its due date, Collections Manager does the following:

  • Changes the status of the missed promise-to-pay installment to Broken.

  • Changes the status of all remaining promise-to-pay installments to Canceled.

  • Changes the status of the overall promise-to-pay agreement to Broken.

  • Reschedules all remaining collections actions to start from the next day.

For example, Table 9-5 shows how the status and schedule of collections actions change when a customer misses a 15 May promise-to-pay installment.

Table 9-5 Sample Collections Action Status and Schedule for a Missed Promise-to-Pay Installment

Collections Action Collections Due Date Status Rescheduled Due Date
Promise-to-Pay Installment

15 April

 Completed N/A

Promise-to-Pay Installment

15 May

Broken

N/A
Promise-to-Pay Installment

15 June

Canceled

 N/A
Apply Late Fee 16 June

Pending

16 May
Apply Finance Charge

20 June

Pending

 20 May

Inactivate Services

 25 June

Pending

 25 May

About Partial Promise-to-Pay Payments

When customers pay only a partial amount of a promise-to-pay installment, the installment remains in a Pending status and the customer still owes the remaining balance by the due date. If the installment is not paid in full by the due date, the installment's status is changed to Broken and is treated as a missed installment payment.

About Canceling a Promise-to-Pay Agreement

Your customers can cancel an existing promise-to-pay agreement with your company. Customers might do this, for example, if they realize that they will be unable to pay their installments on time. When an agreement is canceled, Collections Manager changes the status of all pending promise-to-pay installments to Canceled. It also reschedules all remaining collections actions to start from the next day.

Setting Up Collections Manager for Promise-to-Pay Agreements

To set up Collections Manager for promise-to-pay agreements, do the following:

  1. Create promise-to-pay specifications for manually configured agreements. See "Creating Promise-to-Pay Specifications".

  2. (Optional) Perform customizations to the promise-to-pay process by using the Collections policy opcodes. See "Customizing the Promise-to-Pay Process".

  3. (Optional) Configure BRM to generate reminder messages for customers a specified amount of time before their promise-to-pay installment is due. You do so by:

After Collections Manager is set up, you can start creating promise-to-pay agreements for your customers in collections. See "Creating Promise-to-Pay Agreements".

Creating Promise-to-Pay Specifications

Promise-to-pay specifications define the limits for manually configured promise-to-pay installments. For example, they specify the minimum installment amount, the maximum interval between installments, and so on.

You create promise-to-pay specifications by:

  1. Editing the BRM_home/sys/data/config/config_collections_promise_to_pay_spec.xml file.

  2. Loading the XML file into the BRM database by using the load_config utility.

    See "load_config" in BRM Developer's Guide for information about the utility's syntax and parameters.

Table 9-6 describes the elements in the config_collections_promise_to_pay_spec.xml file for defining a promise-to-pay specification.

Table 9-6 Promise-to-Pay Specification Elements

Element Description
<PROMISE_TO_PAY_SPEC>

An array that defines one promise-to-pay specification. Add an array for each specification that you want to create.

<MINIMUM>

The minimum installment amount.

<TYPE>

The type of the minimum promise-to-pay amount: absolute amount (0) or percentage of the total amount due (1). The default is 0.

<MIN_PERCENTAGE_THRESHOLD>

The minimum amount due for the initial installment as a percentage of the total amount due.

<MAX_UNEQUAL_INSTALLMENTS>

The maximum number of installments that are allowed.

<MAX_UNEQUAL_INTERVALS>

The maximum interval, in days, between each installment.

<CREDIT_LIMIT_FLAG>

Whether to temporarily increase a customer's credit limit during the promise-to-pay period (1) or to leave the customer's credit limit unchanged (0). The default is 0.

The following shows sample content for the config_collections_promise_to_pay_spec.xml file that creates one promise-to-pay specification with these limits:

  • Each installment must be at least $25.

  • The initial promise-to-pay installment must be at least 20% of the total amount due. For example, if the total amount due is $200, the initial installment amount must be $40 or higher.

  • The maximum number of installments is 10, and the maximum number of days between installments is 50.

  • The customer's credit limit will not be adjusted during the promise-to-pay period. 

<ObjectList    
   xmlns="http://www.oracle.com/schemas/BusinessConfig"    
   xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"    
   xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.oracle.com/schemas/BusinessConfig ../../../xsd/config_collections_promise_to_pay_spec.xsd">
   <ConfigObject>        
      <DESCR>Collections promise-to-pay specification</DESCR>        
      <NAME>Sample promise-to-pay specification</NAME>                
      <PROGRAM_NAME>load_config</PROGRAM_NAME>	
      <PROMISE_TO_PAY_SPEC elem="0">		
         <MINIMUM>25</MINIMUM>		
         <TYPE>0</TYPE>
         <MIN_PERCENTAGE_THRESHOLD>10</MIN_PERCENTAGE_THRESHOLD>				
         <MAX_UNEQUAL_INSTALLMENTS>10</MAX_UNEQUAL_INSTALLMENTS>		
         <MAX_UNEQUAL_INTERVALS>50</MAX_UNEQUAL_INTERVALS>		
         <CREDIT_LIMIT_FLAG>0</CREDIT_LIMIT_FLAG>	
      </PROMISE_TO_PAY_SPEC>     
   </ConfigObject>
</ObjectList>

To load the config_collections_promise_to_pay_spec.xml file into the BRM database:

  1. Open the BRM_home/apps/load_config/pin.conf file in a text editor.

  2. Uncomment the following entry by removing the #: 

    #- load_config validation_module libLoadValidCollections  LoadValidCollections_init

  3. Save and close the file.

  4. Load the XML file by running the following command:

    $PIN_HOME/apps/load_config/load_config -v $PIN_HOME/sys/data/config/config_collections_promise_to_pay_spec.xml

  5. Stop and restart the CM.

    To verify that the specifications were loaded, you can display the /config/collections/promise_to_pay_spec object by using Object Browser or by using the robj command with the testnap utility.

Customizing the Promise-to-Pay Process

You can customize the promise-to-pay process in the following ways by using Collections policy opcodes:

  • How Collections Manager handles missed promise-to-pay installments by using the PCM_OP_COLLECTIONS_POL_HANDLE_BREACH_PROMISE_TO_PAY policy opcode.

  • The conditions a payment must meet to set the status of a promise-to-pay installment to Completed by using the PCM_OP_PYMT_POL_EXEC_COLLECTIONS_ACTION policy opcode.

For more information, see "Managing Promise-to-Pay Agreements" in BRM Opcode Guide.

Creating Promise-to-Pay Agreements

You can create a promise-to-pay agreement for a customer in collections by using the following: