Finance and Accounting · Daily operations · 8 min read

Collections, promises to pay and dunning

Work the overdue customer list, log contacts, record promises to pay and issue reminder notices by level.

Before you begin

• Permissions: collections.view to read; collections.manage to log contacts, add promises and run dunning; collections.configure to change the policy and levels.
• Customers have posted invoices with due dates. Disputes are recorded as described in Write off balances and manage disputes.

Set the policy and the levels once

1. Open Finance > Configuration > Collection policy and dunning levels.
2. Edit the policy: whether a dispute pauses dunning, whether an open promise holds dunning back, the Promise grace (0 to 30 days), the Minimum amount below which customers are skipped, and the Days between notices (0 to 90).
3. Press Add the standard levels or New level. For each level enter the level number (1 to 9), the From days overdue (each level must start later than the one before), the Channel (email, whatsapp, letter or call), and the subject and text. Email levels need both. The text can use placeholders such as {customer}, {total}, {items} and {days}.
4. Fees and interest are off. To switch them on you must confirm that Legal has reviewed them and say who reviewed. The change is recorded.

Work the list

1. Open Finance > Receivables > Collections. Each row is a customer with money overdue, in dispute or promised, with the oldest days, collector, risk, last contact and next action. Tick Include customers that are not overdue to see everyone.
2. Open a customer and press Log a contact. Choose the kind (call, email, whatsapp, visit, note or escalation), write what was said, the outcome and the next action and date. An escalation must name who it goes to.

Record a promise to pay

1. Open Finance > Receivables > Promises to pay and press Add a promise to pay.
2. Choose the customer, optionally the invoice, the Promised amount and Promised date (today or later, within 180 days).
3. Save. Each customer can have only one open promise.

Whether it is kept or broken is decided from receipts that arrive. A promise becomes Kept when the money arrives and Broken once the date plus the grace days has passed with no receipt. To drop a promise, press Cancel promise and say why.

Run dunning

1. Open Finance > Receivables > Dunning and press Propose a run. The date is today or earlier. Only one draft run can exist at a time.
2. Review the notices. Each shows customer, level, channel, overdue amount, fee and interest, and status. Customers who were left out appear with the reason, for example an open promise, everything overdue in dispute, a below-minimum amount, unapplied receipts that cover the debt, or a notice sent too recently.
3. To remove a notice, press Withdraw this notice and say why.
4. Press Issue. Notices go out by their channel; an email level for a customer with no email address is flagged and skipped. The run becomes Issued.
5. To abandon the run, press Cancel run.

Worked example. With fees on, level 2 has a fee of AED 25.00 and interest of 12% a year on a 365-day basis. A customer with AED 10,000.00 overdue by 30 days shows interest of 10,000 x 12% x 30 / 365 = AED 98.63 and a fee of AED 25.00.

What happens next

Issued notices are kept against the customer. Fee and interest figures are shown on the notice only; nothing is posted to the ledger. Raising them as an invoice is a separate, deliberate step.

Good to know

• A level that has sent notices cannot be deleted; switch it off instead.
• Escalation levels pass the customer to the named person.
• The list agrees with the receivables aging because both come from the same open items.