Correspondence

Overview

Use the Correspondence feature to generate and send print, e-mail and fax messages using custom templates created by the Cortera, Inc. Professional Services Organization (PSO). You can also preview correspondence and print it to your local printer.

The Correspondence feature includes the Correspondence Queue from which you view the history for print, e-mail, and fax messages generated and sent for customers. If you have business licenses for Customer Analysis, Automated Decisions and Collections, the specific correspondence you view is determined by how you access the Correspondence feature, as described in the following table:
 

Using the Correspondence feature you can:

• Generate correspondence for a customer or a credit request using the templates created for your eCredit implementation.

• Attach files to a customer or a credit request correspondence template.

• Preview correspondence and print it to your local printer.

• Generate correspondence for a customer from Dispute Management - Search Results.

• Send print correspondence to your FTP server for batch processing, if your eCredit implementation is set up for FTP transfer of print correspondence.

• View the history for all correspondence that was generated or sent for a customer. If you have the Automated Decisions and Collections business licenses, you can also view correspondence for a credit request, or for a customer invoice. Correspondence for a customer invoice is generated from the Collection Activity screen from action items created by your collection strategy.

• Edit e-mail and fax messages that have not already been sent. This includes correspondence generated from the Collection Activity screen.

• Choose to send the correspondence as an e-mail or fax when you generate it, or save it to the correspondence queue to send later.

• When generating a message, select e-mail addresses or fax numbers that are entered for business or internal contacts through the Contacts feature in the Customer Analysis module, or through the Invoice feature. This eliminates the need to manually enter the e-mail address or fax number.

• Resend e-mail or fax messages. However, you are not able to edit a message that has already been sent.

• Delete messages from the Correspondence Queue.

• View the history for deleted messages.

Click a link for more information about correspondences:

• About templates

  During your subscriber setup, PSO can create templates for the types of correspondence you routinely send out during credit approval, credit analysis, or the collection process. For the credit business module, these templates can include standardized text and customer or credit request data from the eCredit database. For the collections business module, these templates can include standardized text and customer, invoice, and A/R data.

  Templates are defined for either credit requests or customers. The Automated Decisions and Customer Analysis modules each have their own unique templates. When you access the Correspondence feature from the Customer Analysis module, you can generate and view only correspondence for customers or for customer invoices. When you access the Correspondence feature from the Automated Decisions module, you can generate and view only correspondence associated with credit requests.

  When you generate a message from the Correspondence feature, you select the template. Once a message is generated and saved to the Correspondence Queue, you cannot select a different template. For correspondence generated from the Collection Activity screen, the template used is always the template selected by the Strategist when defining the strategy, or by the collector who added the correspondence action item.

  Templates are available to you if your subscriber setup includes customized templates, and if your business administrator activates the template using the Admin module.

• Sending faxes

  The following are requirements for sending faxes:

  • You must have an eFax Plus® account. This account enables you to receive and send faxes directly from your eFax email account. You can sign up for an account directly from the eFax Web site: http://www.efax.com/

  • The e-mail address provided by eFax must be entered on your User Profile screen in the Fax Email field. To automatically enter the fax number in the To field, the contact to whom you are sending the fax must have a fax number entered on the Contact Details screen for the customer.

• Reviewing and editing generated messages

  To review and edit messages, you generate the message from the Correspondence feature, or from an action item in the Work Queue. You then use the Correspondence feature for reviewing and editing the message. You can send the message after reviewing or editing it. All messages generated and sent from the collection Work Queue appear in the Correspondence Queue as a history of the contact.

• Working with print messages

  Your implementation of eCredit can be set up so that correspondence with a Print delivery method is sent to your FTP server for batch processing. From the Correspondence Queue, you can generate messages with a Print delivery method so that you can review and edit them before sending. When you send messages with a Print delivery method, the messages are created as HTML files on your FTP server for batch processing. As with messages using any delivery method, you can preview and print a single message to your local printer.

• Selecting the output format for a message

  The output format for messages can be either Text or HTML. Choose HTML to send an e-mail message with formatting and images, if images are included in the template. Choose Text to send a message without any formatting or images.

• Modifying messages

  If a message is generated and saved to the Correspondence Queue, you can change the delivery method (print, fax or e-mail), the e-mail addresses, the subject line, or the output format.

  If a message for a customer or a credit request has been generated but not sent, you are able to edit the message by saving it to your computer, and opening it in your default text editor or word processing application. You can edit the message, save the changes, and then send the edited message as an attachment to the e-mail. After a message has been sent, it cannot be edited, although it can be resent.

Related topics

• Generating Correspondence for Customers

• Generating Correspondence for Credit Requests

• Adding Attachments to Correspondence Templates

• Editing Correspondence Messages

• Viewing Messages in the Correspondence Queue

• Sending Generated Correspondence Messages

• Previewing and Printing Correspondence

• Deleting Messages from the Correspondence Queue

• Viewing the History for Deleted Correspondence Messages