Global Credit & Collections for All Economies

Global Credit and Collections for All Economies
Michael Puccinelli, VeriSign Tim Graham, Oracle
Anil Madhireddy, VeriSign Julia Baeva, Oracle

The following is intended to outline our general
product direction. It is intended for information
purposes only, and may not be incorporated into any
contract. It is not a commitment to deliver any
material, code, or functionality, and should not be
relied upon in making purchasing decisions.
The development, release, and timing of any
features or functionality described for Oracle’s
products remains at the sole discretion of Oracle.

Agenda

• Credit and Collections Challenges Today <Insert Picture Here>

• Oracle • VeriSign
• Operations Snapshot • Credit & Collections
• Process Before and After Suite Overview
• Challenges • Credit Management
• What We Gained • Advanced Collections
• What We Gained
• Q&A
• Conclusion

Financial Crisis – One Year Later

• Zero % fed funds rate
• Calls for new regulations • Trade credit instead
and more government of bank credit
oversight of financial
industry • “Quiet” bankruptcies
• Multi-billion bailout • Trade credit fraud

Oracle Advanced Collections

Customer
Automated Segmentation, Prioritized and Comprehensive
Administrative Scoring, Automatically and Transparent Management
Processes Strategies, Scheduled Customer Reporting
Filters Work Items Interactions

Real time customer Real time payments
balances

Oracle Receivables Oracle Payments

Oracle Credit Management

Credit Policy
Manual and
with Credit Credit Risk
Automated
Automated Analysis and Management
Credit
Scoring and Decisions
Applications
Checklists

360°
360° Customer View

Oracle Financials Dun & Bradstreet ®

<Insert Picture Here>

Global Credit and Collections
Management

Some Background Information
• Oracle’s Business Model
• Global Sales Teams
• Oracle Support, 24/7 services
• Oracle Consulting Services
• Oracle University
• Oracle’s Customers
• Fortune 50 to Small Business
• Partners and Alliances
• Vendors
Founded in 1977. Headquarters in Redwood Shores, • Operations Scale and Scope
CA.
• $23.2 Billion Annual Revenue
• > 320,000 total customers • 231,000 Credit Accounts
• > 86,000 employees • ~ 260 Credit & Collection
Employees
• 71 Operating Units
• AR Balances up to $7.2 Billion

Global Credit & Collections

Romania SSC
85 C&C analysts
Tim

HQ

India SSC
Costa Rica SSC 128 C&C analysts
27 C&C analysts

Project Goals
Update Oracle’s Credit & Collections Systems

• Replace Oracle Receivables’ Collections Workbench
with Oracle Advanced Collections
• Move to a Risk-based Collections Model
• Manage Customers by Credit Lines
• Automate credit processing (holds, scoring, reviews)
with Oracle Credit Management
• Simplify, Standardize, Centralize & Automate

Old Paradigm: Focus on Transactions
and Manual Search for Work
Collections Process

Our Approach to Collections
Utilize Advanced Collections to automate our Risk-
Based Collections Process
• Include risk factors in collections’ scoring and strategies
• Replaced manual processes with automation
• Use Work Queue to push assigned work to collectors
• Automate dunning
• Integrate with Oracle Payments for automated payment processing

Track and meet KPIs
• Corporate DSO
• Cash Targets
• Aging % over 90 days

Risk Based Scoring Model -
Collections
Data Point Relative Weight

% of Account > 30 Days Past Due 25%

Weighted Average Days Paid Late 30%

Total Amount Past Due 25%

Write off History 10%

Weighted Average Days Past Due 10%

Collection Strategies
$ Amount Owed

Pre-Del 1 - 15 16 - 30 31 - 60 61 - 80 81 - 120
Hard (0-45) Medium (46-75) Soft (76-100)
Days PD Action Days PD Action Days PD Action
Invoice Date 1 Call #1
15 Call #1 15 Dun #1
+20, 5 Dun #1
>$100K = 15 Call #2 25 Dun #1 30 Call #1
Courtesy 20 Dun #2
30 Restrict LC 45 Restrict LC
Call 25 Call #3
30 Restrict LC, Call #4 35 Call #2
60 Call #2, Sup/Cr Hold
40 Call #5 45 Dun #2
75 Call #3
50 Dun #3
60 Call #3, Sup/Cr Hold
60 Call #6, Sup/Cr Hold 90 Dun #3
70 Call #7 70 Dun #3
120 Final Demand/Legal
80 Final Demand/Legal 90 Final Demand/Legal

New Paradigm: Focus on Delinquent
Customers and Automated Processes
Collections Process

Old Paradigm: Manual and Time
Consuming Processes
Credit Process

Our Approach to Credit
Utilize Oracle Credit Management to automate the credit
workflow and systematically enforce our Global Credit
Policy
• Single global scoring model
• Automate credit limit usage and credit holds
• Single customer case folder contains all information analyst requires
to make credit decision.
• Integration with D&B datapoints

Expected ROI
• Increased TAT in credit requests
• Reduction in bad debt write off’s
• Manage growth with existing resources
• Increased Global Operational Efficiency

Credit Scoring

Scoring:
• Customer Financial Data
• Internal Metrics
• Payment history, high credit, current account aging, disputes
• Sales forecasts
• External Data
• D&B, S&P, Moody’s ratings
• Media reports
• Country Risk Ratings

Credit Limits
• Based on score

New Paradigm: Automated and Systematic
Credit Policy with Reduced Workload
Credit Process
Order exceeds
customer credit
New Account Annual Credit limit (from OM,
Created Review Inititated
New/Periodic Account Review

OKS, PA)

AR Credit
Check
External Data Process puts
Entered Via order on hold
Checklist

Order on Hold
Credit file created
Automated Credit
Scoring

External Data
Credit Entered via
Classification checklist
Assigned

Order released,
Automated Credit
Credit Review
Scoring
Credit Limit date set
Assigned
- Automated Process

Credit account - Manual Process
New Credit
established, Credit New Credit
Classification
Review date set. Limit Assigned
Assigned

Project Challenges
• Moved to Regional SSC Model
• Romania in 2006
• Costa Rica 2008
• Teaching ‘Old Dogs New Tricks’
• Fundamental shift in credit & collection processes
• Global Training
• ~ 260 Credit & Collection Employees
• Operational restrictions
• AIT resources
• Close period restrictions
• Patching schedules

And the Results So Far…
• Global DSO
• Q4 2007 - 62
• Q4 2008 - 63
• Q4 2009 - 58

• Global Aging % > 90 Days
• 2007 – 3.09%
• 2008 – 4.16%
• 2009 – 2.48%


Man with a Vision

About Us
+ VeriSign, Inc. (Nasdaq: VRSN) is the trusted provider of Internet
infrastructure services for the networked world. Billions of times
each day, our SSL, identity and authentication, and domain name
services allow companies and consumers all over the world to
engage in trusted communications and commerce.

+ VeriSign, Inc. credit collection organization consists of shared
service centers
▪ @ Mountain View CA, covering the Americas
▪ @ Geneva, Switzerland, covering EMEA (Europe & Middle East)
▪ @ Sydney, Australia, covering the Asia Pacific Region

Building Blocks for Effective Credit Management

+ D&B Data
▪ Paydex, Commercial Credit Score, D&B Rating & Financial Stress
Score
+ Internal Data
▪ No of years customer did business with VeriSign & Weighted Average
Days Delinquent (WADD)
+ Credit Limits & Payment Terms
+ Credit Review Cycle
▪ Quarterly, Semi-Annually, Annually & On Demand
+ Risk Profiles
▪ High/Low/Moderate
+ Sales Order Credit Checking
▪ Customer Credit Exposure vs. Credit Limit

Types of Credit Assessments
+ New Customer Reviews
▪ Review customer based on D&B data
▪ Credit Limit, Risk Profile & Review Cycle & Payment term assigned
to the customer based on review
+ Sales Order Reviews (Credit Checking for Orders)
▪ Orders credit checked comprehensively for the following 4 criteria
i. Standard Credit Check (customer exposure < credit limit)
ii. Payment Terms on the order = payment term assigned to the
customer
iii. Amount 91 Days Past Due (if any) is not more than 10% of customer
outstanding
iv. A credit review for the customer is not past due

+ Existing Customer Reviews
▪ Customer Accounts are automatically selected for credit review
based on the review cycle & last review dates

Case Folder Data points (Credit Management)

Credit Analyst Recommendations

Integration with Advanced Collections (Custom)

Building Blocks for Effective Collections Management

+ Customer Scoring
▪ Helps score customer accounts to determine the nature & extent of
the delinquency
+ Collections Strategies
▪ Determine the collections strategy to be used based on the severity
of the delinquency
+ Work Items
▪ Work Items get assigned to the Collection Analyst for Review and
Follow-up with the customer
+ Collector Assignment Model
▪ Help route strategy work items to collector based on assignment rules

VeriSign Collections Scoring Model
+ At VeriSign, Collections Customer Scoring forms the foundation for
collections Activities. Collections Strategies & Work Items are
assigned to collectors based on Scoring.
+ Customer Accounts are Scored on the following components:
1. Delinquent Amount on Account
– Open Invoices, Debit Memos, Chargeback and Guarantee transactions is
included in the calculation of Delinquency Amounts.

2. Account Days Past Due
– Highest Days Past Due of transactions on Customer Account.

3. Number of Delinquencies on Account
– Number of Delinquent Items on Account (Invoices, Debit Memos,
Chargeback & Guarantee Transactions are included in this determination)

Score – Strategy – Work Item Mapping
+ Pre-Delinquent Accounts are
Score Strategy managed by Pre-Delinquency
process

90 Pre-Delinquent + No Work Item is generated for
Early Stage Delinquencies (grace
period for customer to pay)
40-89 Early Stage Delinquent + Work items are generated for
Delinquent, Seriously Delinquent I
& Seriously Delinquent II
26-40 Delinquent strategies. Collection agent
options include:
▪ Call Customer/ Send ‘call me’
20-25 Seriously Delinquent I letters/ 5 day demand/ 10 day
demand/ final notice/
assignment of cases to
1-19 Seriously Delinquent II collection agency

Pre-Delinquencies – Key to DSO
+ Pre Delinquent transactions are not delinquent transactions but however needs early
stage collector review and a customer call given the high dollar amounts.
+ At VeriSign, a Transaction is considered Pre-Delinquent if the Transaction Amount >
25000 USD and Days Since Creation is > 7 Days though within Due Date.
+ Pre-Delinquent Transactions are identified by Oracle Collections and a work item gets
pushed to the collector prompting the collector to do one of the following and close
the work item
▪ Call Customer to check if they have received the Invoice & if they are all set to
pay on the Due Date
▪ Send Pre-Delinquency Dunning Letter
+ There has been a number of instances of prompt payments as a direct effect of Pre-
Delinquency follow-up process
▪ We recently identified an invoice for $1.55M which had a problem and talking to
customer early helped prompt payment. But for this process, we would have
known this issue a month later
▪ Average savings of around 1m$ a month which would have otherwise gone
delinquent

Pre-Delinquent Work Items Overview

Real-time Credit Card Authorizations
+ VeriSign has enabled Advanced Collections Integration with Oracle
Payments that has real time Integration with BEPs like PayPal,
Paymentech, Citibank etc
+ Thanks to the above Integration, Collection Agent can process real time
credit card authorizations from Advanced Collections and process payment
immediately

What VeriSign Gained?
+ Implementation of Oracle Credit & Collections Suite led to better
credit risk management, collections efficiency as well as Productivity
gains
+ Productivity Gains helped reallocation of resources towards dialing
for dollars to help collections & cash flows
+ Cash Flow Impact:

91 Days Past Due Amounts reduced by 93% from the levels in
2004

Current & 1-30 Days Past Due Amounts as a % of Total
Receivables increased from 62% in 2004 to 92% in 2009

Bad Debt Write off dropped from 5.9 million USD dollars in 2004
to 2.1million USD in 2008


Q&A
Michael Puccinelli, VeriSign
Anil Madhireddy, VeriSign
Tim Graham, Oracle (Credit and Collections)
Julia Baeva, Oracle (Development)

Global Credit and Collections for All
Economies
Why Oracle Credit Management? Why Oracle Advanced Collections?

1 Adjustable Automation 1 Centralized Collector’s Work Queue

Improved efficiency and STP Improved collections results

2 Consistent Credit Policy 2 Segmented Strategies

Improved portfolio risk Tailored customer
messaging

3 360° Customer View 3 Configurable Scoring

Best practice Best practice

Participate and Learn More

At Oracle OpenWorld On the Web Among Peers

• Oracle Financials Strategy
DEMO http://blogs.oracle.com/financials
grounds
• Oracle Mix
http://mix.oracle.com
Receivables and Revenue AR, Credit and Collections SIG
Management: Demo Pod S052 • Release Content Document for
(Moscone South) 12.1: Metalink Note ID 561580.1 Group Leader: Cathy Cakebread
cathyc@cathycakebread.com

For More Information

search.oracle.com

Credit and Collections

or
oracle.com
mpuccinelli@verisign.com amadhireddy@verisign.com

Re-Engineer Your Cash Flow Cycle with Oracle Credit &
Collections Suite - A Case Study

Anil Madhireddy
Michael Puccinelli
VeriSign Inc

VeriSign Inc is the trusted provider of Internet infrastructure services for the networked world.
VeriSign brings Trust to the Internet with domain name and authentication services allowing
companies and consumers all over the world engaged in trusted communications and commerce.

Introduction

The objective of this white paper is to present a case study of how VeriSign was able to use the
Oracle Credit and Collections suite (Credit Management, Advanced Collections & Dun &
Bradstreet toolkit) to re-engineer its credit and cash cycle and improve cash flows. The first
section of this paper offers a case for automation of credit assessments based on internal and
external data and an overview of a comprehensive scoring model that helped determine
customer credit terms i.e., payment term, credit limit and credit classification and manage credit
risk. The next section of this paper will discuss building blocks for collections scoring and
strategies that help credit become cash faster and how they were automated using Oracle
Advanced Collections. While both Credit Management & Advanced Collections are independent
applications within the Oracle E Business Suite, the key to successfully implementing this suite is
the know-how to integrate them into an effective tool that offers functionality gains substantially
greater than its parts. The last section of this paper highlights the specifics of this integration.

Besides, the paper strives to present the above concepts with a balanced blend of functional and
technical flavor (supported by discussions in Appendix A & B) that provide insights to both
business managers & implementation consultants on possibilities with an implementation of
Oracle Credit & Collections Suite.

VeriSign Credit & Collections Suite

VeriSign implemented Oracle Advanced Collections first in 2004. VeriSign was one of the first
customers to implement Advanced Collections in 2004 when the product was at the nascent stage
with considerable functionality gaps. In 2007, VeriSign extended the credit and collections
footprint by implementing Oracle Credit Management with Dun & Bradstreet toolkit integration.

VeriSign re-implemented Advanced Collections in 2008 taking advantage of the offerings of the
latest 11i IEX.H Rollup 5 patch that helped replace extensive customizations with standard
offering. As part of this implementation, VeriSign also leveraged on out of the box advanced
collections integration with XML/BI publisher to automate customer correspondences that
collection analysts were to manually.

COLLABORATE 09 Copyright ©2009 by Anil Madhireddy Page <1>

VeriSign Credit Review Process

Credit is essential to conducting business. The ability to manage credit risk is the key to
managing credit to cash cycle and has a direct effect on the organization’s quality of receivables
and its cash flows. This calls for a credit review model that runs through the all stages of the
customer relationship lifecycle and not just a one-time activity.

Following are the three types of credit assessments that are integral to the Credit review process
at VeriSign:

1. New Customer Reviews: Every new customer needs to be reviewed based on external
credit data to determine the risk profile of the customer that helps assign appropriate
credit limit & payment term. Customers will need to be classified in terms of credit risk &
an appropriate review cycle assigned to the customer record.

2. Sale Order Reviews: Once a credit limit is established for the customer, there needs to a
process that ensures that the assigned credit limits and payment terms are not breached.
Credit checking functionality in Oracle Order Management offers an automated
framework to implement this control. This will be discussion in detail in the later part of
paper.

3. Existing Customer Reviews: Existing customers will need to be reviewed periodically
for any updates to their credit file. There may events happening external to the
organization that may impact customer credit worthiness and an effective credit
management model should provide for periodic reviews based on a pre-defined criteria.
Customer Accounts may be automatically selected for credit review based on credit
classification & review cycle.


A system is as good as the parts that make them. It is important then to understand the building
blocks that make up an effective credit management model. This section of the paper lays out the
seven building blocks and discusses each of them in detail. The objective here is to provide
readers appreciation of the seven essentials for a good credit management system and how
Oracle Credit Management with its standard integration with Oracle Order Management, Oracle
Receivables & D&B toolkit help tie these blocks into a well integrated system.

1. External Credit Data
2. Internal Credit Data
3. Scoring Model
4. Credit Limits
5. Payment Terms
6. Credit Classification & Credit Review Cycle
7. Sales Order Credit Checking

External Credit Data: Credit Data forms the base for credit assessments and both internal and
external data is required for an effective assessment. While internal is available within the
company, external data requires data integration with credit agencies. Oracle Credit Management
has a standard real-time integration with Dun & Bradstreet which helps download external data
in credit management application ***Note: This real time integration with D&B was temporarily
withdrawn in 11i due to issues with SSL certificates at the time of writing this whitepaper. It was restored
a few days later. You may check with Oracle on their guidance to use this integration. R12 customers will
require additional patch 7047848.


Credit Analyst can also download data into Oracle using DNB Bulk Import process instead of
real time data download. It is to be ensured that this data is updated regularly to maintain the
integrity of the credit review process.

Tip: There may be other agencies that provide the credit data similar to D&B. This calls for a custom
integration with credit management so data can be downloaded into HZ_PARTY_INTERFACE,
HZ_FINANCIAL_REPORTS & HZ_CREDIT_RATINGS tables.

Internal Credit Data: Internal credit data is relevant for existing customer reviews and sales
order reviews. Past billing information and payment history is available in receivables system
and it is left to the implementation team on how best to use this data for credit analysis.

Tip: Collections information like Customer Account status, Customer (collections) score or collections
metrics like Weighted Average Days Delinquent or Weighted Average Day Late as appropriate can be
considered for Internal Data analysis.

Scoring Model: Implementation consultants could build scoring models that analyze key
external customer data along with internal data to help determine credit decisions. What data
points to be used and the weights to be assigned may depend on the nature of business and the
credit agency providing the external data. The following screenshot presents a snapshot of the
scoring components and weights that make up the VeriSign composite scoring model.

Tip: You may define Additional Data Points within the credit management application to display the above
data points on the case folder along with the Composite score. This will provide credit analyst with an
overview of the customer external and internal credit record and help submit credit recommendations based
on their credit analysis.


Customer Credit Limits: While credit data forms the basis for analysis, credit decisions are
implemented using credit recommendations submitted by the credit analyst as part of each case
folder. Assignment of credit limit and payment term is one of key decisions of credit analysis.
Organizations may chose to maintain credit limits at customer account level or bill to level or
party level. Again, maintaining in one currency or multiple currencies is another complex
implementation decision.

Tip: There are issues around maintenance of credit limits at multiple levels (party, account or bill to) and
maintenance in multiple currencies for the same customer and it is suggested that credit limits are
maintained at one level (either customer account or bill-to) and in single currency only to keep the design
simple. Oracle has global exposure functionality that converts multiple currency exposure to the currency
of the credit limits at the time of credit checking.


Payment Terms: Besides credit limit, payment term is another key determinant of customer
credit. Inappropriate payment term may result in customer getting better terms of credit than
deserved. Interestingly, Oracle Credit Management does not provide a mechanism to assign or
update customer payment terms as integral part of credit review process. It is therefore essential
that payment term determination and assignment is integral part of the new customer review
process even if this update can only be done manually. Besides, there needs to be control
mechanism that prevents payment terms from being overridden at the order/transaction level
without authorization. You may set your customer profile not to override payment terms. Tip:
Alternatively, you may also build this control into sales order credit checking process. This will be
discussed later in this section.

Credit Classification & Review Cycle: Customers will need to be classified in terms of their risk
profile and an appropriate review cycle assigned. Credit classification & Review cycle go hand in
hand as they form the basis for periodic credit reviews. Customer with a higher risk classification
may need to be reviewed more often than a customer with a low risk profile.

Tip: Though updates to credit classification and review cycle can be done by credit analyst from credit
management, Oracle update does not include the logic to update review cycle automatically if credit
classification changes. We at VeriSign built this logic as part of credit management workflow
customization wherein, customer classification is changed from moderate risk to high risk, the review cycle
changes from half-yearly review to quarterly review.

Tip: Credit Management keeps record of credit review dates – Last Review Date & Next Review Date.
Credit Review Dates are stored in Customer Standard -> Profiles Tab -> Tools -> Credit Review Dates.
However only reviews generated by Periodic Review Program update the credit review dates on the
customer standard. You may consider customizing the credit management workflow (ARCMGTAP) to
include updates to review dates as appropriate.


Sales Order Credit Checking: This is probably the biggest element of credit review process. Its
one thing to determine customer credit limit and have this assigned to customer account, what’s
more important is to ensure that the credit limit and terms assigned at the account level are not
breached at the order/transaction level. Credit checking functionality in Oracle Order
Management offers a framework where sales order amounts are credit checked against customer
exposure. Orders will be placed on hold if they fail credit check and a case folder is generated
and routed to a credit analyst. Credit Analyst may release the order based on review or the order
may remain on hold and eventually cancelled by the order entry team.

Which brings us this question: what makes up customer exposure? Customer exposure needs to
include both OM & AR exposure. Besides, the amount of the order calling the credit check
process, it is recommended that OM exposure be set to include orders in credit check failure hold
and also any un-invoiced orders. AR exposure includes all open receivables balance. There are
other exposure calculation options (like inclusion of tax, shipping etc) available in the credit
check rule configuration but the above discussed elements need to be the bare bones of customer
exposure calculation.

Tip: The standard credit check rule only checks for customer exposure against assigned credit limits.
Interestingly, this may be not be comprehensive enough for a complete order review. You may want to
check if payment terms assigned to account were overridden and customer provided with a term not
beneficial to the company. You may want to check if the customer account has not been reviewed for a long


time that even the assigned credit limit may not be reflective of current conditions. Or check if there is a
balance that’s significantly aging but within the credit limit. VeriSign built credit check process to operate
on 4 criteria (standard + 3 custom) by customizing the standard credit check process.

Tip: You may want to consider how credit checking would work for subscription/service contract billing if
these contracts are entered as orders in Order management before they are created as contracts in Oracle
Service Contracts.

Tip: You may want to check if orders paid by credit cards are required to credit checked. If they need to be
exempt from credit checking since credit cards are already authorized, you may consider assigning these
orders with a credit card payment term which is switched off for credit check thus exempting the order from
credit checking against limits.

Tip: You may want to add an additional data point(s) on the case folder to display the % of credit limit
used. That would help credit analyst to calculate should-be credit limit if the order were to go through.

Besides the above, there are other questions like how do you route case folders to credit
analysts, how to do you set credit usage rules in a multi currency environment which
the implementation teams may need to consider. There are standard routing rules
within credit management which help case folder routing based on a number of
parameters. Credit usage rules work in the background to map the credit limit currency
to checklist currency.

Tip: Oracle has limitations on managing credit usage rules. The assignment rules work well for
single currency environment but you may require some custom extensions to make this work
seamlessly in multi currency environments.


VeriSign Collections Process

Cash is the lifeline of any business venture. The ability of a business to manage its credit to cash
cycle determines its solvency and long term survival. It is one thing to offer credit but collection
is at the heart of every organization’s cash flow. An efficient collection process is the key to
manage an organization’s account receivables and cash flows.

VeriSign uses Oracle Advanced Collections to manage Pre-Delinquencies, Delinquencies &
Severe Delinquencies. This section of the document will discuss the highlights of collections
management at VeriSign.

Customer Scoring: Besides scoring customers for credit review purposes, VeriSign scores
customers for collections purposes. This scoring is based on factors specific to collections and
only considers internal AR specific data. The objective of collections scoring is to determine the
nature and extent of the delinquency and express this in terms of a score that could help
collections agent prioritize work and apply collections strategies relevant to the delinquency.

VeriSign Customer collections score is determined based on the following factors:

1. Account Status – Whether the Account is Current, Delinquent or Pre-Delinquent. An
Account is:
a. Current if there are no transactions on account that is pre-delinquent or
delinquent.
b. Pre-Delinquent if there are no delinquent on account but has one or more
pre-delinquent transactions.
c. Delinquent if there are one or more delinquent transactions on account.

2. Delinquent Amount on Account - Open Invoices, Debit Memos, Chargeback and
Guarantee transactions are included in the calculation of Delinquency Amounts.
3. Account Days Past Due – Highest Days Past Due of transactions on Customer
Account.
4. Number of Delinquencies on Account – Number of Delinquent Items on Account
(Invoices, Debit Memos, Chargeback & Guarantee Transactions are included in this
determination)

Higher the collections score, the better the account is. Low score would mean a delinquent
account. An Account which is current gets a score of 100; Pre-Delinquent Accounts are given a
standard score of 90. A score < 90 denote a Delinquent Customer Account. Lower the score, more
severe the delinquency and higher the collection priority.
Delinquent Accounts are further sub-categorized into the following depending on the delinquent
amounts, days past due & number of delinquencies:

• Early Stage Delinquent (score of 41 – 89)
• Delinquent (36-40)
• Seriously Delinquent I (20-25)
• Seriously Delinquent II (< 20)


Collections Strategy & Work Items:

Customer score only denotes the account collections status and severity of the delinquency. The
question is how a score translates into collection strategies and actionable work items. Score –
Strategy mapping helps work item determination and assignment to collectors.
Following is the snapshot of how a score translates into a strategy so that a work item is assigned
to the collector for review and follow-up.

A standard ‘VS Account Review’ work item is assigned by the system for all the above strategies.
A collector is required to review the account and based on review, select the appropriate action
ranging from sending a reminder letter or telephone follow up to sending demand notices.
Tip: Customer Scoring Engine will be set to run as a nightly process. Oracle Advanced Collections will
keep pushing work items to collectors until the delinquency is cured even if the collector already worked on
the some of the work items and customer is promised to pay. This may distort the collectors work item
queues. One workaround is to configure a few follow-up work items with Pre-wait period so that system
will wait for the timeframe set for that work item before populating a new work item.

Tip: You may automate Advanced Collections to send automatic confirmation of payments, promise to pay,
disputes, adjustments, and demand letters to customers. This will be recorded as part of customer’s
correspondence history in collections. Requires upgrade to IEX.H for existing 11i customers.

Pre-Delinquencies – Key to DSO

Pre Delinquent transactions are not delinquent transactions but however needs early stage
collector review and a customer call given the high dollar amounts. At VeriSign, a Transaction is
considered Pre-Delinquent if the Transaction Amount > 25000 USD and Days since Creation is >
7 Days though within Due Date. Pre-Delinquent Transactions are identified by Oracle Collections
and a work item gets pushed to the collector prompting the collector to do one of the following
and close the work item

▪ Call Customer to check if they have received the Invoice & if they are all set to
pay on the Due Date
▪ Send Pre-Delinquency Dunning Letter

Pre-Delinquencies management is a key factor to reducing your organization’s Days Sales
Outstanding. It’s a proactive way to manage your receivables instead of letting them age to
follow-up. There have been a number of instances of prompt payments as a direct effect of Pre-
Delinquency follow-up process. VeriSign recently identified an invoice for $1.55M which had a
problem and talking to customer early helped prompt payment. But for this process, we would
have known this issue about a month later


Tip: Pre-Delinquencies are not defined by Oracle in any standard manner. Oracle Advanced Collections
provides flexibility to determine Pre-Delinquencies based on each organization’s requirement. You will
need to create custom scoring components and some custom code to define pre-delinquencies befitting the
unique needs to your organization.

Other Highlights:
Besides above, there are other key features which have been implemented as part of Advanced
Collections application. This includes:
• Automated process to identify customer accounts for assignment to third party
collections agency for follow-up and collections and adjustment of customer balance. Tip:
The Oracle standard functionality to assign and transfer customer accounts to external agency is
available only if Oracle Lease Management is also used. Without Oracle Lease management, you
may need to customize advanced collections to offer this functionality.
• Automation of Collections Correspondence using XML Publisher - Call Me Letters, 5 Day
Demand Notice, 10 Day Demand Notice & Final Notice Tip: Automation of collections
correspondence using XML Publisher is only available for customers on 11i IEX.H or R12.
• Enabling customer level key collections metrics like True DSO, Weighted Average Days
Paid, Average Days Late, and Weighted Average Days Late. These metrics provide
collection analyst a complete snapshot of the customer payment history while reviewing
the customer account. Tip: Configurable metrics may set to run real-time or as a daily update
mode. Daily update batch mode is recommended for better performance while accessing collections
form.
• Process to record customer promises to pay coupled with the Oracle functionality of
recording broken promises if payments are not received within the promise dates.
• Assignment of Work Items to collectors based on Alpha range and reassignment of work
items Tip: With 11i IEX.H, work Items assignment to collectors can be lot more simplified. One
can use the Collector field in customer standard form and once an appropriate collector is assigned
to the account, then advanced collections will ensure that strategy work items are assigned to the
collector on the customer account (Metalink Note: 314374.1)


Credit & Collections Integrated

While Oracle Credit Management & Advanced Collections are independent applications within
the Oracle E Business Suite, one of the key highlights of the implementation at VeriSign is the
custom integration between these two applications so that they talk to each other. This
integration helped integrate credit and collections into an effective tool that offers functionality
gains substantially greater than its parts.

We used the custom tab available in collections form to provide collectors key credit
management information that could be reviewed before they call customers. This includes credit
score, last credit review date; credit data trend and credit limit history for the customer. Similarly,
customer collections history was factored into credit scoring model to ensure that a customer
having a bad payment history is not granted credit more than deserved.

What VeriSign Gained?

Gains for VeriSign from implementation of Oracle Credit and Collections suite are manifold.
While it is easier to discuss functionality gains, productivity and cash flows gains are hard to
quantify. An effort has been made to quantify these gains, however it should be noted not all of it
is attributable to the application or its implementation. After all, Credit Management &
Advanced Collections is just a tool and obviously there are a number of other factors, human and
economic, that made the below even possible:

+ Implementation of Oracle Credit & Collections Suite led to better credit risk
management, collections efficiency as well as Productivity gains

+ Productivity Gains helped reallocation of resources towards dialing for dollars to help
collections & cash flows

+ Cash Flow Impact (as of 31st Dec 2008)
91 Days Past Due Amounts reduced by 85% from the levels in 2004

Current & 1-30 Days Past Due Amounts as a % of Total Receivables increased
from 62% in 2004 to 86% in 2004
Bad Debt write off dropped by 60% from the levels in 2004


Conclusion

There are several factors that contribute to a successful ERP implementation. Perhaps the most
important is the strength of the solution design and to-be process and how this process aligns
with organizational objectives. That is the substance of this case study.

Obviously, there is more technical stuff to Oracle credit and collections than that’s discussed in
this paper. The authors have added Appendix A & Appendix B to address some of the technical
questions you may have and offer some thoughts on how to approach them.

Appendix A is a write-up on some of the frequently asked technical questions related to Oracle
Credit & Collections Suite. Though not elaborate, authors have tried to address some basic
questions and more information could be obtained from the Oracle implementation guides and
user manuals. Appendix B is a discussion on the technical integration between Oracle Advanced
Collections & XML Publisher and setups that are required to for this integration.

About the Authors:

Anil Madhireddy is a Sr. Business Analyst and the IT lead for Order to Cash business process at
VeriSign. He has a combined 10+ years of Accounting, Audit and Oracle Financials ERP
implementations experience.

Michael Puccinelli CCE is the Sr. Manager, Global Credit & Collections at VeriSign. He has 25+
years of experience in credit and collections and the architect behind the Credit & Collections
process at VeriSign as discussed in this paper.

Contributing Author:

Parth Agnihotri is a Senior Developer with VeriSign IT. He worked extensively on the Credit &
Collections implementation. He is the brain behind the Advanced Collections integration with
XML publisher and is the contributing author to Appendix B section of this document.


Appendix A – Frequently Asked Technical Questions

1. Is Credit Management & Advanced Collections Global or Operating Unit specific?

Credit Management resides at a global level and not operating unit specific while Oracle
Advanced Collections is specific to Operating units. The key is in configuration of Check
Lists, Credit Classification & Credit Limit (Scoring Model) currency to implement
different credit policies for each operating unit. Oracle Advanced Collections uses MO:
Operating Unit profile option setting & scoring filters to help drive operating unit
specific scoring and strategies.

2. What are the required configuration elements for Credit Management?

While application specific configuration depends on the specifics of each
implementation, one needs to be aware of the following basic configuration elements.

a. Check Lists
b. Scoring Model
c. Automation Rules
d. Credit Analyst Assignments
e. Additional Data Points

These configuration elements require detailed study and understanding before getting
started on implementation. One may refer to the relevant sections of the Credit
Management implementation and User Guides for details.

3. How do you set Credit Management to work on multi currency environment?

Credit Management provides flexibility around choosing to maintain credit limits in any
currency. And even in multiple currencies. However there is maintenance issues with
credit limits in multiple currencies for same customer and hence discouraged. You will
need to ensure that a unique credit check list is setup for each scoring model currency
and credit classification combination that a one to one relationship is created between
them.

4. What are the possibilities to enhance credit checking functionality in Order
Management?

Credit Checking is a key element of credit management implementation. The standard
credit check rule configuration in Order Management (Setup -> Credit -> Define Credit
Check Rules) offer options around whether to perform credit check at the line level or
order level. Exposure tab provides options around exposure calculations. Besides, as
discussed in the credit checking section in the main paper, you may implement your own
policy like adding additional criteria by customizing the OM credit checking package
and create a new node in the OM workflow immediately after the Book Order Node
which calls a PLSQL procedure which submits new credit application if additional
criteria fails.

5. How does Credit Card Authorizations tie into Credit Check Functionality? In other
words, if credit card orders are authorized in Order Management using iPayments, will
Order Management still perform standard credit check?


If an order is being paid by a credit card and Oracle Order Management is configured to
perform online authorization for credit cards, you may decide not to perform standard
credit against such orders. You may then setup credit card specific payment terms to be
exempt from credit check. There is a check box on payment terms setup which could be
set to exempt from credit checking. You will need to associate all credit card orders with
this payment term.

6. What is the functionality behind Additional Data Points? Why is this required?

Not all the data elements required for credit analysis are captured as part of standard
data points. This configuration provides flexibility to organizations to define additional
data points relevant to credit analysis. Optionally, you may include some additional data
points into your scoring model and configure automation rules to perform to force auto
submission of credit recommendations based on a score range.

7. Are there options to automate setting of credit limits using credit management without
manual intervention?

Maintenance of credit profiles help defaulting of credit limits. You may zero base credit
limit (credit limit = 0) assignments based on credit limits or default a credit limit of say
10K for all customers. (Zero-base is preferred though). You may alternatively set
operating unit default credit limits. Additionally, you may configure automation rules to
auto assign credit limits based on a score.

8. Are Credit Usage Rules required for Credit Management? What functionality does it
offer?

Credit Usage Rules configuration is mandatory. Credit Usage Rules determines what
currency transactions to be included in the calculation of data point values. Besides,
Credit Usage Rules need to be assigned to customer accounts in order to have credit
applications to create without manual touches. There is a lot of thought which need to go
into how you assign to customers either using on Operating Unit based profile or
customer profile classes. You may even consider customizing credit management
workflow (ARCMGTAP) to auto assign credit usage rules at the time of creating credit
applications in the event credit usage rules are not assigned to customers.

9. How does the Periodic credit review process work? What setups are required for this?

Periodic Review Process works off the Periodic Credit Review Program. This concurrent
request is available under this Navigation Setup -> Credit Management –> Submit a New
Request -> Single Request. Periodic Credit Review Program determines which customers
shall be selected for review and generates case folders for the customer accounts selected.
There are number of parameters to define the selection criteria. Most commonly used as
currency, credit classification, check lists and profile class. The Program is available in
three modes – Report only, Generate Review or both. Generally this program is
scheduled for nightly run so that existing customer case folders are generated every
morning.


10. What types of collections correspondences are available for automation with Advanced
Collections? What configuration is required for this integration to work?

Please refer to detailed discussion on Appendix B for answer.

11. How do strategy work items get routed to collectors?

Strategy work items could get routed to collectors in one of the two ways. You may use
territory management setups in CRM Administrator or use Collectors field on customer
standard to help system determine collector assignment to work item. Using Territory
management helps routing collectors by country, state or area code. There are number of
setups required if you use this option and generally maintenance heavy. Using Collector
Fields at the customer account or bill to level is simple and preferred option for assigning
collectors to work items. Once a collector is assigned to an account or bill to, system will
ensure that all new work items get assigned to the relevant collector.

12. When does a strategy work item close?

Strategy work item may be closed manually after the collector has worked on the work
item. If the delinquency is cured, the work item will close. If the underlying delinquency
is not cured (that is outstanding balance still exists), then the work item could return back
to collectors queue when the scoring and strategy engines run the next day. You may use
a follow-up work items with pre-set pre-wait times to prevent (temporarily) an already
worked work item from coming back to the queue until a follow-up date.

13. What standard collections metrics are available in Advanced Collections? Where does it
display? Does it run real time or batch mode?

Oracle Advanced Collections offers functionality to use pre-configured collections related
metrics. These metrics are available for use at whichever level you chose – Customer,
Account or Bill To. Weighted Average Days Late, Average Days Late, True DSO, Annual
Sales, Credit Limit are some of useful metrics. Please refer to Advanced Collections
Implementation Guide for detailed listing of all metric and the formulae.

Metrics get displayed on the collections form – Profile Tab. You will need to set this to
‘Active’ in Metrics tab using Collections HTML Administrator access. You can set it up
to run by Batch model or real time using Profile option: IEX: Metric Calculation Method.
Batch mode is preferred for better system performance.

14. Can I do credit card payments from Advanced Collections? How to enable this in
Advanced Collections? Can I do online/real time authorizations from Advanced
Collections?

Advanced Collections has standard integration with Oracle iPayments and has the ability
to process credit card payments. However, 11i customers need to on IEX.H Rollup Patch
4 (Patch # 5841737) to be able to do real time authorizations when collectors enter a
payment. Following profile options need to set for real time authorization to work: IEX:
Disable iPayment Processing, IEX: iPayment Payee ID, IEX: Enable Credit Card Payment,
IEX: On-Line Credit card Payment & IEX: Credit Card Payment Remittance


Appendix B – Collections Correspondences with XML Publisher

One of the highlights of Advanced Collections (11i IEX.H & above) functionality is the ability to
send customer correspondences directly from Oracle. Collectors need not type up
correspondences using outlook which saves manual effort. Advanced Collections has standard
‘Out of the Box’ integration with XML Publisher (a.k.a. BI Publisher) to send customer
correspondence via E-mail, Fax or Print, when a collections activity is complete or as a part of a
manual or automatic work item in a strategy.

There are broadly two types of correspondences supported by this functionality:

a. Event/Transaction Based Correspondences
b. Strategy Based Correspondences

Event Based Correspondence:

Payment Confirmation Letter, Dispute Confirmation Letter, Promise to Pay Confirmation Letter,
Adjustment Confirmation Letter are event based correspondences available. These
correspondences could be optionally used at the time of performing these transactions. The
application provides flexibility to even direct these correspondences to the customer email
address entered at run time instead of preset customer bill to email address. Or you may choose
not to send correspondences at times.

Advanced Collections provides the ability to have your templates with your own subject text and
have the templates attached to the notification type using the following profile options.

Strategy Based Correspondence:

Strategy based correspondences are available for use when a customer account is associated with
a particular strategy. You may create a work item under that strategy like a 5 Day Demand
Notice or a Call Me Letter and associate a correspondence template (standard or custom) to that
work item. This is done as part of work item configuration. That way the system will know which
correspondence to send when the strategy is invoked by Collections based on a score. However
you need to have collections/dunning contacts setup for the account for this work.

You will need the following pre-requisites setup for an account for strategy based
correspondences to work.

a. Collections Contact to be setup (one-time setup for each account)
b. Dunning should be enabled for the customer account (one-time setup for each
account)

Advanced Collections calls procedure IEX_SEND_XML_PVT whenever a strategy based or
activity based correspondence is triggered. This procedure in turns submits concurrent program
– IEXXMLGEN (IEX Xml Generated and Delivery) - to send the correspondence.


Required Configuration:

Following are the basic technical setups needed to get the correspondence functionality working:
1. Set delivery method from Setup to XML Publisher:

2. Setup profile options used for delivering the correspondence:
i. IEX: Promise to Pay Confirmation Letter
ii. IEX: Adjustment Fulfillment Template
iii. IEX: Payment Confirmation Letter
iv. IEX: Dispute Confirmation Letter
v. IEX: Dispute Confirmation Letter
vi. IEX: Copy Dunning to Collector – Set to Yes if you want CC to collectors
vii. IEX: SMTP host – name of the SMTP host used for sending emails
viii. IEX:SMTP From – from email address of the correspondence
ix. IEX: Print IPP Host – name of the printer host
x. IEX: Print IPP Port – port value for the printer
xi. IEX: Fax IPP Host – IPP host name for faxing
xii. IEX: Fax IPP Port - IPP Port used for faxing
xiii. IEX: Fax IPP Printer Name - IPP printer name used for faxing
xiv. IEX: Fulfillment Send Method – Set to Email

Limitations of Standard Functionality:

Emails generated by Standard Advanced Collections functionality do not have email body in
customer correspondence. XML Publisher PDF attachment is treated as the document and no
email body is added to correspondence.
There is no flexibility in changing the Email subject based on customer correspondence. Text
entered in profile option – IEX: Default Fulfillment Subject is used as email subject.
Attachment files would always have name collections. PDF.


Bug 5594906 (ENH: POSIBILITY E-MAIL TEXT IN BODY (COLLECTIONS STRATEGY
WORKITEM E-MAIL) is in progress to get the functionality to have email body in
correspondence email.

Is there a workaround?

To overcome limitations mentioned in previous section following approach was taken to add
email body to the correspondences. This approach is also flexible enough to allow for change in
email subject or attachment filename.

New executable XXVSXMLGEN has been defined, which calls custom class XXVSXMLDelivery.
This new executable has been attached to Concurrent Program IEXXMLGEN.


Inside the custom Java Class, using Template Helper API PDF file is generated for sending as
attachment. While calling the addAttachment method to Attachment class any name can be given
for the attachment file.

PDF file is added to email message using SMTP_ATTACHMENT: Attachment property of
DeliveryRequest API. In the setDocument method for DeliveryRequest class, email body text
returned by one of Custom PLSQL procedure is passed as parameter. Email will have both
attachment and email body.

Any email subject can be passed to DeliveryRequest API using property SMTP_SUBJECT:String.


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