Beam Enhancements - Version 272

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Reginald Rice
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1 Beam Enhancements - Version 272

2 Contents NEW FEATURES BULK REMITTANCE PROCESSING ACCOUNT BALANCE ADJUSTMENTS DEBT COMMANDER / ACCOUNT CENTER ABILITY TO MASS UPDATE ACCOUNT NOTE HISTORY FROM DEBT COMMANDER ADDED THE ABILITY TO SUBDIVIDE PLACEMENTS INTO LOTS ADDED SELLER ACCOUNT NUMBER TO THE DEBT COMMANDER GRID REPORTING UPDATED PAYMENT PROCESSING HISTORY REPORT UPDATED USER INTERFACE FOR STRATIFICATION REPORT OTHER FEATURES SECURITY SETTINGS TO EDIT BEA-MAIL GROUPS ENHANCEMENT TO SETTLE MULTIPLE ACCOUNTS IN THE FIXER ADDED ACCOUNT TYPE TO THE LETTER XML FILE ENHANCE IMPORT OF NCOA FILE BULK UPDATES OF ACCOUNT DATA OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT Table of Contents

New Features Bulk Remittance Processing For debt buyers, credit issuers and servicers using BEAM, we have enhanced the Agency and Attorney Bulk Remittance processing function in Money System.

3 New Features Bulk Remittance Processing For debt buyers, credit issuers and servicers using BEAM, we have enhanced the Agency and Attorney Bulk Remittance processing function in Money System. When BEAM encounters a problem with an individual remittance payment in an Agency or Attorney remittance file, the system will continue to process all of the records but will skip any transactions that have an issue. Basically, if any rows in the remittance file have problems, they will not be processed and will not prevent the rest of the transactions in the Excel spreadsheet from being processed. When the remittance process is complete, BEAM will provide a Microsoft Excel exception file identifying the transactions that were not processed along with an explanation of why each particular transaction failed. The exception file will be in the same Excel layout as the original remittance template but will have an Error column appended identifying why the payment was not processed. For example, if an Agency Remittance reflected a payment date during which the account wasn t outsourced to that collection agency, BEAM would indicate that there were issues with your remittance file: Choosing Yes would prompt you to name and save the exception spreadsheet in the location of your choice. BEAM will skip the particular payment as an exception and continue to process the rest of the transactions. Your saved exception spreadsheet file will indicate the reason that payment was invalid: In the event that your spreadsheet for whatever reason, does not contain the columns normally included in the Agency Remittance Template, the process will abort. 1 P age

4 When in doubt: click the Generate Template button! Account Balance Adjustments We have improved account balance management by enhancing your ability to make adjustments to individual balance buckets. The feature known as The Fixer, has traditionally been used to adjust balances from an Excel template. The enhanced feature is called Bulk Account Operations Balance Adjustments and can be accessed from the newly added Utilities menu in your Web Portal: Click on Bulk Operations. The view defaults to the Adjust Balances tab. TIP! To view step-by-step instructions on how to load a balance adjustment file, expand the File Load Instructions menu by clicking on the + sign. To download the Adjust Balances Template simply click on the Generate Template button. The Excel file named Adjust Balances Template will go directly into your Downloads folder: To utilize the template, you must identify individual accounts by populating the (BEAM) Account ID or the Client Account ID column. If you choose to identify accounts using the Client Account ID you must also specify the Client Name in the corresponding ClientName column. Since Client Account IDs may not be 2 P age

The new Bulk Operations Balance Adjustments feature allows you to increase or decrease a balance bucket by a specific amount.

5 unique in your database, adding the Client Name will ensure that you do not update balance buckets for the wrong account. CAUTION: this is different than the Adjust Balance method provided in The Fixer that allowed you to set the amount of each balance bucket. The new Bulk Operations Balance Adjustments feature allows you to increase or decrease a balance bucket by a specific amount. Each of the balance buckets in the Adjust Balances Template corresponds to the Master Bucket List in your system. TIP! You can even make multiple balance bucket adjustments on a single account and notate each reason for the adjustment. Once you ve updated and saved your spreadsheet template, click on Choose File and upload the template. The Process Adjustments button will automatically appear. ***NOTE*** Downloading the template from the Generate Template button will not work if you re using the Firefox web browser. 3 P age

Debt Commander / Account Center Ability to Mass Update Account Note History from Debt Commander Users can now mass update accounts with a Support, Legal or Media Note.

View under My Organization An Attorney, Client, Debt Buyer, Debt Seller, or Agency or an individual InBeam, OutBeam, or Sale under Beaming Relationships A WatchList under Data Services A Letter

6 Debt Commander / Account Center Ability to Mass Update Account Note History from Debt Commander Users can now mass update accounts with a Support, Legal or Media Note. This can be done from nodes and items in the Debt Commander tree view: Account notes can be added by right-clicking on any of the following nodes or menu items in Debt Commander: A Queue, Folder, or View under My Organization An Attorney, Client, Debt Buyer, Debt Seller, or Agency or an individual InBeam, OutBeam, or Sale under Beaming Relationships A WatchList under Data Services A Letter Campaign under Letters A Saved Global Search, Preview, Portfolio, Lot or Pending Sale under Global Selector Navigate to the node or menu item that contains the accounts you want to update, right-click and select Add Account Note: Choose the corresponding Support, Media or Legal Note type and simply enter your note history: 4 P age

Added the Ability to Subdivide Placements into Lots With the release of Version 265, BEAM allowed debt buyers to group their purchased portfolios into

To assign Lots during a new file import, you must first identify the Lot(s) in your new business import spreadsheet.

BEAM will not automatically define a Lot designation for you. You must do it.

You may want to work and/or track them separately easily in BEAM.

7 Added the Ability to Subdivide Placements into Lots With the release of Version 265, BEAM allowed debt buyers to group their purchased portfolios into pools, tranches or what BEAM can identify as Lots. Now collection agencies can group or segregate accounts from their clients into Lots as well. To assign Lots during a new file import, you must first identify the Lot(s) in your new business import spreadsheet. A Lot in BEAM is an alpha-numeric field that can contain any combination of letters and/or numbers. BEAM will not automatically define a Lot designation for you. You must do it. Let s say you have a new placement from a debt buyer-client that contains accounts from multiple issuers. You may want to work and/or track them separately easily in BEAM. Inserting a column into your new business import spreadsheet will allow you to add the corresponding Lot for each account based on your grouping criteria. Once you have updated your spreadsheet you are ready to proceed with your import. From the BEAM Bar, click on Maintenance> File Convert Wizard to open the File Conversion Wizard: Map the corresponding column from your spreadsheet that you re using as a Lot identifier (1) to the Lot field in BEAM (2). 5 P age

Lot is the last data column in the Debt Commander Grid view.

operators found in Global Search: BEAM allows you to use the same Lot identifier for a Portfolio as well as a Placement.

8 Lot is the last data column in the Debt Commander Grid view. Move the slider bar to the end to view Lot information: You can search for a particular Lot or a group of Lots using Global Search. Click on Search in the BEAM bar. Lot is found in the family of Account search elements in the Global Search window: Users can affect their search for Lot using the normal operators found in Global Search: BEAM allows you to use the same Lot identifier for a Portfolio as well as a Placement. For example, let s say your Lot numbering system is simply 1, 2, 3, etc. Doing so would result in having a Portfolio with Lot 1 as well as a Placement with Lot 1. But that s okay. TIP! If your organization has both Portfolios and Placements that use Lot identifiers that may share a particular Lot identifier, simply add another level of search criteria when looking for a specific Lot: 6 P age

You also now have the ability to update Lot after the initial placement has been loaded. It is important to note that Lots currently can only be designated for an individual InBeam.

9 You also now have the ability to update Lot after the initial placement has been loaded. It is important to note that Lots currently can only be designated for an individual InBeam. You cannot right-click and see the Load Lot File option on anything but an InBeam. For example: currently, when you right-click on a Global Search or a Global Folder, you will not see Load Lot File as an option from the context menu. Simply right-click on the InBeam and select the Load Lot File option. This opens the Lot Importer: Clicking on the Generate Template will allow you to save the import template. Enter the BEAM Account ID s from your placement and designate their corresponding Lot. Lot IDs will be identifed on the bottom left-hand side of the Account Center screen: 7 P age

Added Seller Account Number to the Debt Commander Grid BEAM now offers the option to display the Seller Account Number in the Debt Commander grid.

10 Added Seller Account Number to the Debt Commander Grid BEAM now offers the option to display the Seller Account Number in the Debt Commander grid. Seller Account Number is also now included as a column in Microsoft Excel exports and extracts from Debt Commander. Reporting Updated Payment Processing History Report The Payment Processing History Report has been updated to populate the Credit User column on payment attempts even if the payment was declined. Updated User Interface for Stratification Report We have improved the Report Parameters for the Stratification Report in the Web Portal. The new user interface allows you to specify the type of file (Portfolios, Previews, etc.) to choose from rather than having to scroll through every entry for all of the file types. 8 P age

enhanced the functionality of the Fixer regarding the ability to Settle Multiple Accounts.

11 Other Features Security settings to edit Bea-Mail Groups We have added a Modifier to allow users to manage who can update Bea-Mail groups. To activate this feature, click on the Modifier to the Bea-Mail Entitlement called Create/Modify Mail Groups under General Settings>Roles: Enhancement to Settle Multiple Accounts in the Fixer We have enhanced the functionality of the Fixer regarding the ability to Settle Multiple Accounts. Originally, there were two ways to settle accounts using The Fixer: 1) A single account at a time and 2) Multiple accounts at a time. To settle a single account users would enter the Account ID and choose the Close (Settle) Account option from the Account functions menu: To settle multiple accounts at once, users would look to the Miscellaneous Functions menu and choose the Settle Multiple Accounts option: The new menu for The Fixer no longer includes the Close (Settle) Account option under the Account 9 P age

Functions menu but instead shows a single Close (Settle) Accounts option under the Miscellaneous Functions menu.

checkbox for Adjust non-zero balances to $0.

2) the default selection criteria for your Global Search is now Account ID.

12 Functions menu but instead shows a single Close (Settle) Accounts option under the Miscellaneous Functions menu. To close or settle a single or a group of accounts just click on the Close (Settle) Accounts button: The Close (Settle) Accounts window has 2 differences: 1) the checkbox for Adjust non-zero balances to $0.00 is checked by default if your Org Settings has the When an Account is Settled In Full, automatically add an adjustment to zero out the Account balance turned on. 2) the default selection criteria for your Global Search is now Account ID. And the Consolidated Account History will show which user applied the settlement adjustment. Added Account Type to the Letter XML file Beam has added Account Type and SOL Date (statute of limitations date) to the XML file that gets created when using the Generic Bulk Printer for use with an outside letter vendor. The Account Type and SOL Date are utilized in the logic used to determine state-based disclaimers. 10 P age

13 For those users that rely exclusively on a third-party letter vendor to send letters, the program used to populate data in your XML file will automatically add Account Type in place of Original Product when the Original Product field is null or blank in BEAM. If an account is missing the Original Product, the program uses the Account Type in the Original Product field for the XML file output. For example: you have an account from the issuer Wells Fargo and an Account Type of Credit Card with the Original Product field blank. You might choose to describe your account in a letter referencing "Wells Fargo Credit Card" account. If the Original Product field contained data such as "Gold Mastercard," the XML data file presented to the vendor would result in a letter that read "Wells Fargo Gold Mastercard" account. Enhance import of NCOA File BEAM is now able to import a National Change of Address (NCOA) file from your mail processing vendor that includes 1) letters that have had the address updated due to NCOA, and 2) letters that were not sent as the result of a Moved, Left No Address or Box Closed delivery code. This file must be a fixed field text file that corresponds to the standard COA layout. Bulk updates of account data In an initial effort to give user more control over updating their data in BEAM, we have added a feature to allow certain account-level data fields to be edited by the end user. These fields currently include: Account Elements for Bulk Updates Alternative Date of Delinquency Charge-Off Amount Deletion Date Exclamation Message (Red Ball) Flex Tag Issuer Account Number Issuer Last Payment Amount Isser Name Lot Open Amount Original Product Portfolio Owner Scheduled Report Date Seller Account Number 11 P age

14 Beam plans on adding more fields to this utility in upcoming releases. From your Web Portal, click on Bulk Operations under the Utilities Menu. Click on the Generate Template to download the Account Updates Template directly to your downloads folder. After you have updated and saved your template, click on the Choose File option to upload your file: Click the Update Accounts button to load your file: BEAM will update the data fields with the corresponding entries from your template and notify you when the process has completed. IMPORTANT! You should close the Excel Update Accounts template before you click the Update Accounts button. 12 P age

15 Opportunities for Improvement When processing a refund, the remittance values for Contingency Fee and Net are now reported based on the fee rate at the time of the refund. Fixed a minor issue with the way a checkbox was behaving in Scheduled Tasks in the Web Portal when users tried to select Sunday. Made a change that adds the date and time stamp to a Bankruptcy note instead of just the date stamp. Corrected the + and - sign on NSF records in the Monthly Posting report to accurately reflect the bank fee when there is also an NSF. Corrected an issue so accounts that have been unsold do not incorrectly appear in the original sale. Tweaked the Venture Wizard interface so Venture participation dollar amounts go to 2 decimal places. The use of the Fixer to remove a Settlement on an account will now remove any Settlement Adjustment on the account that might have been created when the account was settled. Corrected a conflict between the values for entitlements Data Services Mail Return File and Display Install Beam Link. Corrected Total Paid when exporting data from Debt Commander. For BEAM users accepting placements from clients, the Total Paid field in the Debt Commander grid represents the total amount of payments on the account during the current tenure of the account at your agency. In the rare situation where you received the same account multiple times, the Total Paid field is zeroed out with each new placement. For Debt Buyers, this represents the total of all payments on the account since purchase. Modified the columns in Venture Center to be click-sorted. Corrected the ability to edit an Economic Deal after a portfolio has been accepted into a Venture. Economic Deal parameters are now locked once a portfolio is accepted into that venture. Fixed an issue with the Generic Scrub File loading when, in the absence of a defined line-type, the line-type would get loaded as a Landline instead of Unknown. TIP! Beam offers a daily subscription service that automatically updates all the line-types in your system as either Landline or Mobile. It also identifies telephone numbers that have been ported to mobile devices. Corrected an error when you attempt to recall Beam-to-Beam accounts on the same day you placed the accounts. Corrected the code sent to Lexis-Nexis from C8 to A6 for the Contact Risk request code. 13 P age

16 Corrected the behavior that prevented a user from saving the Use Constraints in Attributes if present checkbox. Fixed an issue that allows you to create duplicate Global Folders in Debt Commander. This issue caused problems when deleting Global Folders. 14 P age

Beam Enhancements - Version 271

Beam Enhancements - Version 271 BEAM Enhancements Version 271 Contents REPORTING / WEB PORTAL ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 NEW REPORT FOR CALL ACTIVITY ----------------------------------------------------------------------