You can now see a list of all the outstanding invoices for any contact from the Search Contacts screen. Simply click on the value of the invoices beside the contact name and you can see the list of invoices. While you are there you can suspend any single invoice from collection (maybe it is under dispute or the customer told you that they have paid you manually) or even set up an installment plan for that invoice.
There are times when you just need one invoice but need to collect that invoice over several installments. So we’ve made it easy to be able to break down an invoice into smaller collections. From the Invoice list you can easily add a payment plan. This must total to the outstanding invoice amount before you can submit it. From now on uCollect will ignore the invoice due date and will collect the installment amounts on the specified dates. Each time we process the installment we double-check to make sure that the invoice is still unpaid (just in case you have processed a credit note or manual payment) and will collect the lower of the invoice amount outstanding or the installment amount.
Please note that installments override suspensions, so if you are suspending a contact with installments you will need to remove the installment plan.
Even your best clients can hit a cash flow crunch. Every now and then you need to suspend collections for a particular client at their request. Now in uCollect you can easily and quickly mark a contact as suspended without having to delete any of the gateway data you are storing for them. Then, when they are ready to resume automated collection you simply un-suspend them and uCollect will resume collections. It’s all available from the Edit Contact screen.
In release 1.1 we have significantly improved the way to manage Upload (CSV, ABA, SEPA) file management. Previously when we detected that a collection was due we sent you an email and marked the invoice as paid (in anticipation). However, if you forgot to download the file and upload it to your bank we didn’t chase you for it (as we now believed that it was paid) – and it could take you weeks to realise that there was a stale collection request.
So now we do not mark the invoice as paid until you have actually downloaded the file from us. If you don’t respond to the email, we keep emailing you every day until you download the file (yes, we’re just like that nagging grandmother). Of course, uploading the file is still your responsibility (that’s why we prefer the Direct approach so much better – but the banks do not allow this) – we can lead a horse to water, but we can’t make you drink!
If you are doing Direct Debits in NZ or AU using trading banks, you may want to consider using EziDebit or some of the other third-party services (we will have more coming online over the next few months) as these have direct connections that do not require any interaction from you to process the collection request.