The / menu allows you to create, find, edit, delete, undelete, import, and find debtor information:
| Edit |
| Create |
| Delete |
| Undelete |
| Import |
| Find |
/// is used to modify debtor information. If no current debtor is specified, the user is asked for a debtor number. If no such debtor exists, the request is refused. Once a valid debtor number is present, the user is placed in a `spread sheet' menu allowing each piece of information about a debtor to be examined and modified. A typical debtor record might look like this:
| Debtor Number | 1 |
| Debtor Org | Doctors Unlimited |
| Debtor Name | Dr. Michael A. Longhorn |
| Debtor Address | 12 Barrow Lane |
| Debtor Location | Amber, TX 90871 |
| Debt Type/Cause | Bustobus medical supplies |
| Phone Number | 987-555-2134 |
| Balance/Hist | 824.23 Late |
| Payment Amount | 100.00 |
| Status | FirstCont |
| Next Contact | 1992/01/04 |
| Next Interest | 1992/01/04 |
| Orig Date/Bal | 1991/12/03 800.00 |
| Identification | SSN 123-45-6789 |
| Comment | space case |
| Save-Info | Saved |
The / selection allows you to select another debtor either by debtor number or by searching with the `finder' which is described below. If the current debtor information has been modified and not saved, the user is prompted to save the changes before another debtor may be selected.
The / selection allows you to specify the debtor's organization, if appropriate.
The / selection leads to a sub-menu as follows:
| Salutation | Dr. |
| First Name | Michael |
| Middle Initial | A. |
| Last Name | Longhorn |
The / menu lists salutations as follows:
| Mr. |
| Ms. |
| Mrs. |
| Dr. |
| Miss |
| n/a |
| Other |
and the remaining entries prompt for the new value when selected.
The / selection allows you to specify the debtor's street or postal address.
The / menu looks like this:
| City | Amber |
| State | TX |
| Zip Code | 90871 |
and all selections produce prompts for textual input.
The / selection allows you to specify the cause of the debt. This should be kept in lower case if possible, since it appears in the middle of sentences in some automatic letters. It also specifies the type of debt being collected. This is a very important field and it must be correct because it determines the sorts of letters and phone scripts used in the collection process.
| Agency |
| Bustobus |
| Charity |
| Club |
| Company |
| Instlmnt |
These correspond respectively to agency based collections, business to business collections, charitable donations, club memberships, company collections from individual debtors, and installment plans.
The / selection allows you to specify the debtor's phone number. If you don't know the phone number, it is good practice to call directory assistance to find it for future reference.
The / selection allows you to specify the debtor's current unpaid balance. Once this is entered, it should normally only be altered through payments, returns, and interest. If you manually alter this amount, you may miss unpaid interest or otherwise attempt to collect less than you deserve on the case.
The / selection lets you specify the amount of regular payments currently expected on a case. This is used by automatic letters to prompt for further payments and scripts for defaulting values. This entry also displays any historical information on the case status.
By default, the / menu lists all of the valid status entries for any debtor:
| New Case |
| First Contact |
| First Call |
| Debtor Skipped |
| Skip Call |
| Regular Payments |
| Payments Late |
| Payment Call |
| We May Sue |
| We Have Sued |
| Bad Skipped |
| Bad Not Worth It |
| Bad Bankrupt |
| Call Debtor's Lawyer |
| Debt in Dispute |
| Paid In Full |
| Closed |
these status codes may be customized to alter the codes for a particular collection process.
The /, /, and / menus are spread sheet menus with entries for the year, month, and day:
| Year | 1991 |
| Month | 11 |
| Day | 01 |
This is the date used in automatic processing to determine if action should be performed on a debtor's case.
The / selection allows you to specify the original debtor balance to the creditor, and is used for reference purposes only.
The / and / selections can be used to place arbitrary text in the debtor record for future reference. By convention, the identification field is used either to specify the creditor's case number as a cross reference, or to store detailed debtor information such as social security number, driver's license number, etc.
The / entry is calculated from debtor behavior over time through a system of `credits'. For example, when a debtor hangs up on the user, the automatic calling system adds one abuse credit to the debtor's case. After the number of abuse credits reaches a threshold value, the history entry indicates the debtor is abusive. The same sort of information is kept on broken promises (indicated as `liar') and late payments (indicated as `late). When making decisions on a case or engaged in activity on a case, the historical information is displayed to help the collector anticipate how the debtor will react.
The / entry allows you to explicitly save the current debtor information, although you will be asked whether to save changes if you leave the menu without saving, so you never need to exercise this option.
The /// selection asks whether to create a new debtor entry, and if you respond with `y', places you into the debtor creation prompter to enter debtor specific information, and then into the editor in case alterations are required. By default, new cases have properly preset values for unprompted responses, so you don't have to change these to properly handle most cases.
The /// selection deletes debtor information. First, you are presented with the debtor information in the standard form, and after you exit by pressing /, you are asked to confirm the deletion of this case. Once deleted, debtor information and all historical records of the debtor's account are deleted from the computer, so be careful!
The /// selection allows the importing of data from ASCII text files compatible with common databases.
The /// selection requests a search term and produces a menu of debtors that match the term.
The user is prompted for a search term, and a match is sought in the database. All database entries that match the search term are then placed in a menu for selection by the user, and the current debtor is set to the debtor identified in this search.