How are payments credited to the right collector, and how do you link dialer and payment data?

Join on the account ID

Calls live in the dialer and payments live in the collection system, so the two only meet through a key both carry: the account ID. Before trusting any join, check four things:

• The same ID, in the same form. A dropped leading zero, an added prefix or a client reference in one system and an internal number in the other will quietly leave payments unmatched.
• One consumer, several accounts. Decide whether a payment posted to one account counts for calls made on another account belonging to the same consumer.
• Dates and time zones. Call times and payment posting dates may be stored differently. Line them up before you look for the call that came before a payment.
• Unmatched rows. Count the payments that found no call and the calls that found no account. A count that jumps from one month to the next is worth tracing back to the exports.

BestPair’s data guide asks for the same account ID and the same agent ID in every file for exactly this reason: so calls, payments, accounts and agents join without guesswork.

The rules floors use to credit a payment

We found no single industry rule. Four choices come up, and each answers the question differently. The right-hand column is our view:

Some collection software builds rules like these in. The documentation for Interprose, a collection software vendor, describes a primary collector who receives commission on payments and keeps the account until an expiry date the agency sets, extended to a promised payment date if that falls later. A payment that matches the promised amount on or before its date is credited to the collector who took the promise; one that does not match goes to the primary collector, who also gets commission on all payments taken under a payment plan.

An insideARM piece on incentivising collectors from 2007 (author not named) argued for schemes driven by results rather than collector actions, counting only payments received in the same billing period against the balance due at its start, and treating full instalments differently from partial ones.

Late payments and reversals

• Payments that land weeks later. An arrangement pays over months, and a consumer may pay long after the call that settled it. The rule has to say whether that payment still belongs to the collector, and for how long.
• Reversals. Returned payments, bounced cheques and chargebacks take money back after it was credited. Under Nacha’s rules, as its page on unauthorized return reasons sets out, a consumer debit returned under reason code R11 (an entry that does not match the authorization) has a 60-day return timeframe. Take a reversal back off whoever got the credit, and decide in advance whether it hits the month it happens or restates the month of the payment.
• Payments with no contact. A consumer who pays online after a letter may be credited to an owner who never spoke to them, or to nobody. Decide which, and say so on the scorecard.

Why the rule matters for scorecards and tests

Scorecards. Change the rule and the ranking changes with it. A promise rule moves collectors toward promises, an ownership rule toward holding accounts, and a last-contact rule toward the last call. In our view collectors learn the rule quickly, so pick the behaviour you want and publish the rule. Rankings also mix the collector with the accounts they were given. What a fair collector scorecard measures, and how kept rate is worked out.

Tests. A test of a routing change should not depend on any crediting rule. Split accounts at random, and credit every payment on an account to the group that account was assigned to, whoever took the call and whether or not the routing was followed. BestPair’s published case study counted that way: each reached account stayed in its half, and cash was counted for 30 days after its first real conversation. How to prove a routing change worked.

Sources

• Interprose documentation, Primary Agent Logic A collection software vendor’s rules for crediting payments and commission to a primary collector or the promise taker.
• insideARM, Incentivizing Effective Collections A 2007 trade press article on collector incentive schemes and which payments count.
• Nacha, Differentiating Unauthorized Return Reasons The ACH rule-maker’s page on return reason R11 and its 60-day return timeframe.