Enhanced Direct Debits for Oracle Receivables

• Add-on solution - not a modification.
• Supports direct debits based on variable amounts, fixed amounts and pricing plans.
• Provides ease of viewing - future and historical information.
• Query only access.
• Fully UAT scripted.

Background

Oracle provides a solution for collecting direct debits that is good enough for most clients.

This is based on Automatic Receipts.

It is relatively easy to set up, you just need to put the direct debit (automatic receipt) method against the customer or invoice, set up a customer bank account and Oracle will create the receipts, paying off the customer invoice(s) exactly. You need to have a format program written, and once this is in place, you can run the remittance batch process to create a file for the clearing organisation to process.

The catch is though that for every direct debit payment you need an invoice.

The Problem

So what happens if:

• the amount you need to collect is not the same as the invoice amount, for instance arrears and arrangements?
• you want to start collecting before the invoice has been raised?
• you want to time the direct debit collections differently to the invoice dates?
• you don’t want the difficulties of raising additional invoices for each payment to be collected, for instance standing charges?

The standard solution is to create invoices that reflect the amounts to be collected or create manual automatic receipts. Often it is necessary to change the way invoices are brought into Oracle Receivables, but this can mean expensive work to inflexible “legacy” type systems.

We had a client with all these issues, so we developed an enhanced direct debit solution for them.

The Solution

Setting up a direct debit begins by going into the “generate schedule” screen as shown below. Our client wanted to link all direct debits to a customer call, so we put a zoom onto the customer call screen and built in some validation of the call (making sure that it had the correct reason code for instance) before opening up the generate screen.

This puts us into the generate screen with the correct customer and address.

As the screenshot shows the direct debit needs certain details to set it up. The bank account must be valid for the customer, the frequency must be set and the collection type established: base amount to collect a fixed sum each time, outstanding to collect based on invoice balances (similar to the way Oracle’s standard solution works) and pricing plan to collect a fixed amount each time, but allowing that amount to be maintained centrally.

Then when the generate button is pressed, the schedule of collection dates is created:

These are the dates and amounts that will be collected, so they can be checked and reviewed at any time. The schedule entries can also be updated, so the dates could be fine-tuned to the customer’s wishes. Alternatively the schedule can be regenerated.

From this screen we can also choose to print a letter so that the customer can be informed of their direct debit details.

Existing direct debits can all be reviewed from a direct debit workbench screen:

This allows the past history (letters and collections) and the future schedule to be quickly accessed. References to the cash receipts and invoices (where appropriate) are also shown. The screen is folder based so that different users can create views that suit their own needs.

When all the maintenance activity is complete a super-user can run a “simulation report” that shows what will be collected if the direct debits are on a certain date, effectively previewing the collection process so that checking can be done in advance of the processing date.

Finally the collection process itself is run creating a file for processing by the clearing organisation.

Another time-consuming task that our client had was processing direct debits that the bank rejects. Previously these had to be handled by creating debit notes for each one. We built a screen that quickly allowed the client to create a batch of rejected direct debits with control totals that could be matched back to the bank’s report. This batch was then run through the autoinvoice import process to create the debit memos.

We helped our client carry out a comprehensive user acceptance test scripts, by providing them with a test-plan with over 500 tests.

Technology

No modifications were made to any Oracle components. PCL developed this solution using new forms and tables held in a custom application and used standard Oracle features such as public API’s, zooms, lookups and custom library. This means that when the client upgrades to Oracle Applications 11.5.10 as they intend to do soon, there will not be any impact on standard Oracle functionality and there will not need to be any changes to their enhanced direct debit solution.

Conclusion

This enhanced direct debit solution has enabled our client to improve their own customers’ satisfaction without having to change the processes by which they bring invoices into Oracle Receivables.

If this solution could meet your needs, we could install it for you and quickly give you the benefits of an enhanced direct debits solution.