Credit Letters

This topic discusses the process by which Credit Letters are maintained, sent and selected. It discusses the selection and printing of the letters and also attachment of statements to add detailed support to the letters.

The Credit Letters routine is built around a Credit Chase Letters selection form which in principal is similar to the production of Statements, By selecting various sequences, ranges and masks you can choose from many different combinations in order to print highly specific batches of letters. Credit chase has been introduced to allow for a customized program based credit chase facility.

Warning: This option requires the use of a printer. You should check the available printer before selecting this option and ensure that this printer is suitable for printing chase letters and statements .

Production of Credit Chase Letters

Upon selecting the Credit Letters option from the menu you will be presented with a selection form titled Credit Chase Letters. The rationale for such a form is to allow the user to customize the amount of letters to be printed, by selecting on specific fields. The fields to consider are discussed in Tab sequence order

Branch mask:

This field allows the user to narrow down the scope of the letters to be generated, by either typing in the branch required, or Click the Ellipsis

button to select an appropriate branch code.

Tip: This facility also allows a mask to be used. If the user wanted to select all records with debtor branch codes that start with 00 they simply would type in 00** and all records that match this wild card mask would be selected.

Note: This field is only available if Branch Analysis is switched on in the Nominal Ledger System Parameters

Account:	These fields are the from [start] and to [end] Sales Ledger accounts to which you wish to restrict your chase letter selection. Again the user can either type the account codes in if known, or Click the Ellipsis button and utilise the Short Name search or the Word Search to select the appropriate accounts.
Short Name:	These fields are the from [start] and to [end] Sales Ledger short names to which you wish to restrict your chase letter selection. Short name are used on the Sales Ledger Accounts as an alternative identifier to the account code.
Analysis Code:	These fields are the from [start] and to [end] Sales Ledger Statement Analysis codes to which you wish to restrict your chase letter selection. Statement Analysis codes are a user defined code that is held on the Sales Ledger Accounts (Other details Tab) as another means of grouping account codes together for selection and identification purposes.
Area Code:	These fields are the from [start] and to [end] Sales Ledger Area codes to which you wish to restrict your chase letter selection. Area codes are a user defined code that are held in a table which is maintained through the Sales Ledger Miscellaneous Options Menu. These codes are another means of grouping account codes together for selection and identification purposes.
NL Account Code:	These fields are the from [start] and to [end] Nominal Ledger Control Account codes to which you wish to restrict your chase letter selection. Nominal Ledger Account codes are the Control accounts in the Nominal Ledger to which each Sales Ledger Account is controlled. Enter the codes you require or Click the Ellipsis button to perform an Account Code search for the relevant codes.
Currency:	This field allows you to further restrict your selection by Currency Code of the Accounts to which you are going to send your Credit Chase Letters. Click on the Drop Down button to perform a Currency Code search for the appropriate code.
Category Codes:	This field allows you to further restrict your selection by Category Code(s) of the Accounts to which you are going to send your Credit Chase Letters. The ellipsis button allows you to toggle more than one category code at a time by double clicking each code you wish to include in the field. Click on the Ellipsis button to perform a category code selection of the appropriate code(s).

Note: The Letter Selection criteria have to be satisfied on all counts before a document will be selected for chase letter. In addition to these selection criteria there is one overall criteria which has to be met, that is, the Due Date on documents has to be in the past in relation to the date when you are running Chase Letters and the document still has to be outstanding as a debt.

Options menu

At this point the user can process the selections as they are or choose to attach statements to send with the Chase Letters. To attach statements click the Options menu at the top of the form to display the menu items. Click the Statements menu entry and this will enable the Statements fields at the bottom of the Credit Chase Letters form.

If no statements are required, the top four items on this menu can be ignored. However the remaining items on this menu you can use at this point if required.

Reset:	Selecting this option or Clicking on the Reset button will reset the Selection Criteria set on the Credit Chase Letters form.
Process:	Selecting this option or Clicking on the Process button will select the accounts and documents that match the selection criteria set.
Help:	Selecting this option or Clicking on the Help button will give you access to the online help facility.
Exit:	Selecting this option or Clicking on the Exit button will terminate the Credit Chase Letters facility and return you to the menu.

Attaching Statements

By selecting the Statements item on the Options menu the statement fields become enabled. The user can further increase/decrease the content of attached statements and the letter selection criteria by using the three items that follow the Statements item.

Consolidated letters/statements	Selecting this item is actually acting as a further selection criteria as it will not only attach statements but will also restrict the associated letters to accounts that have a Statement Account Type set on the Account record.
Include accounts with zero balance	Selecting this item will cause zero balance statements to be included.
Include accounts with credit balance	Selecting this item will cause credit balance statements to be included.

Statements fields

Statement sequence:	This field controls the order in which the Statements print. Click the Drop Down button to select the appropriate order.
Transaction sequence:	This field controls the order in which the documents will print on the Statements printed. Click the Drop Down button to select the appropriate order.
Ageing date:	This field controls which date field on the transaction you want to use for ageing purposes on the Statements printed. Click the Drop Down button to select the appropriate date.
Credit:	This field controls the Credit Terms you wish to use in the ageing of documents printed on the Statements. Click the Drop Down button to select the appropriate code.
Standard message:	This field allows you to enter a message that you would like to print on all statements that are classified as being within your credit terms.
Overdue message:	This field allows you to enter a message that you would like to print on all statements that are classified as overdue.

Once you are sure that your selection criteria and statement attachment parameters are correct if you click the Process button this will invoke a Process form which will enable you to further hone your chase selections before printing the chase letters.