Generating  and Sending Correspondence for Invoice Action Items

Overview

Correspondence action items are action items for e-mail, fax, or print messages that are associated with

• a template that determines the message content, and

• a contact that determines the address (for e-mail and fax messages).

You select correspondence action items when sending or generating correspondence. You identify an action item as a correspondence action by the name in the Action Item column on the Collection Activity screen.

Difference between sending and generating correspondence

You can choose to send correspondence action items or generate them. Here is the difference:

• When you send the correspondence action item, the message is sent to the contact defined for the action without your review or edit. The message appears in the customer's Correspondence Queue where you can review the sent message.

• When you generate correspondence, the message appears in the customer's Correspondence Queue where you can review and edit the message before sending it.

Invoice notes are automatically generated

When you generate or send correspondence for invoice action items a note is automatically added for each invoice included in a message. The note gives the template name, date generated or sent, recipient's e-mail address, and the name of the user who generated or sent the message.

Print correspondence

Your eCredit implementation can be set up for FTP transfer of messages using a print delivery method. If your implementation includes this setup, when you send Print messages from the Collection Activity screen, the messages are created as HTML files on your FTP server for batch processing.

If you want to review or edit the print messages before sending them, you can generate the message. The generated messages appear in the Correspondence Queue from which you can review and modify the message before sending it to the FTP server, or printing it to your local printer.

Consolidating invoices in to one message

When you select the same correspondence action item for multiple invoices, a single message that incorporates information for the selected invoices can be sent if the following are true:

• The action items must use the same template. This means that you must select action items that have the same name in the Action Item column on the Collection Activity screen.

• For e-mail and fax messages, the action items must use the same address.

Note: There is no address check for print correspondence.

If these validations are not met, eCredit sends the correspondence as separate messages.

After sending and generating messages, a link appears that enables you to see the messages sent and the invoices the messages included, and any errors that occurred.

Ways to consolidate messages

You can consolidate multiple invoices into a single correspondence by

• selecting the same correspondence action item for multiple invoices, or

• by selecting a single action item when working in Distinct action item view. In this view the action you select can be associated with multiple invoices, so information for all the associated invoices can be included in the message.

If the number of messages exceeds 500, the processing can take several minutes. You are asked if you want to continue creating the correspondence, or cancel the operation so that you can continue working and generate the correspondence later.

Correspondence and Action Item Views

The following table shows how the action item view you are in affects the invoices that are included when you generate or send correspondence.
 

Related topics

• How to Generate and Send Correspondence for Invoice Items