ACE Release Notes - 01/16/2022

Below are the updates and fixes we will be pushing out to all of our customers. 

We can’t wait to deliver further improvements to you in the months ahead!

We are expecting the downtime for deploying this update to be ten to fifteen minutes.

All the best,

Your friends at The InterProse Corporation

Regulation F

Check out the "Take a Closer Look" section where we outline the seventh phase of new features and tools in ACE being rolled out with this release to help you manage Regulation F requirements.

UPDATE:

RE: "New Compliance Impact to Credit Reporting" in this Issue of the Release Notes

1. Accounts with a client delinquency date prior to 11/30/2021 will not be impacted by the changes identified below; accounts without a client delinquency date but with an assigned date prior to 11/30/2021 will not be impacted by the changes identified below
2. Accounts previously credit reported will not be impacted by the changes identified below

New Compliance Impact to Credit Reporting

Accounts will be prevented from being credit reported if:

• The Client Profile has "Obey Compliance Checks" set to true and any of the following are true
  1. A validation notice has NOT been sent to the consumer (primary demographic for the account)
  2. The validation notice WAS sent but was also identified as returned prior to credit reporting
  3. The validation notice WAS sent less than 15 days prior to credit reporting

To prevent this from impacting credit reporting for business, you can set "Obey Compliance Checks" to false for client profiles.

Cool New Upgrades 

Regulation F Bonus Development

In addition to the scheduled development we are including in each release, needs continue to be identified and put in place. This release, we've added the following.

Logic Block Update

Multiple "Itemization Date Source" selections can now be included in a logic block statement.

Mail Return Update

Mail returns can now be applied to the specific letter they are associated with. The steps to accomplish this are as follows.

1. From the account sidebar, Letters -> View Letter
2. Select the returned letter from the Letter List
3. Enter the Sent Status
4. Enter the Returned Date
5. Enter the Return Reason
6. If a forwarding address was returned, the Sent To Address can be updated and saved to the account which will be set as the priority 1 primary demographic address
7. Notes will be recorded to the account including the previous address and the new address

Bundle User Note Delete

Previously, user notes could only be deleted from an account in a bundle from that same account in the bundle. User notes can now be deleted from any account in the bundle provided the user has the appropriate permissions and the note is being deleted within the acceptable time frame.

Please note: this applies only to "User Notes".

Duplicate Account Document Management

The Accounts Documents: Transfer From job task now includes an option to replace files of the same name (Overwrite set to true/checked) or, if set to false/unchecked, a new file with the same name as a previously loaded file will be appended with a number for each instance of the file name loaded to the account.

Take a Closer Look 

Regulation F Development - Phase 7

The CFPB's 12 CFR Part 1006 (Regulation F) went into effect November 30, 2021. With that in mind, InterProse is continuing to develop features and tools in ACE to help customers better manage Regulation F requirements. Per documentation shared with customers September 25th and October 1st via email, the seventh phase of this development work will be released on January 16th as outlined in the details below.

Need: Improve postdated secure payment workflow

For secure payment destinations (credit card and ACH), default payment reminder and payment receipt workflow can now be configured.

Attention: any triggered workflow (associated with payment plans or payment receipts) currently in place must be disabled or altered before configuring these new features. Otherwise, there may be unanticipated consequences including duplicate payment reminders or payment receipts. Common triggers that may need to be disabled or have part of action path workflow altered include onAfterPaymentSuccess and onXNumOfDaysBeforeScheduledPayment.

The letter, email and/or text profile(s) for the reminder(s) and receipt(s) will need to be set up in advance of configuring these options in the payment destination. All other required configuration for sending letters, emails and/or text messages will also need to be in place.

These new features are configured under Setup -> Transactions -> Payment Destinations for a selected credit card or ACH payment destination.

For payment reminders, in addition to choosing the appropriate method of delivery, the following options are available to be set.

• # of Days Prior = How many days prior to a scheduled payment should a reminder be sent?
• Min # of Days = If the number of days between the scheduling of a payment and the date the next payment is scheduled for is fewer than this number, don't send a reminder.
  • For example,
    • if this number is 3 and the payment is due 3 days after it was scheduled, don't send a reminder
    • but if this number is 3 and the payment is due 4 days after it was scheduled, do send a reminder

For payment receipts and payment reminders, the preferred contact method identified with the primary demographic will be used as the default (as long as it is matches a configured option in the payment destination). If no method is identified one must be selected from the available options configured in the payment destination.

Need: Additional email log details

An email "Source" and "Location Type" are now recorded when a new email address is added to an account's demographic record.

• The source is automatically defaulted to "Debtor" if a different source is not specified on entry or load
• The location type will default as follows
  • If the email address domain is one of the following, the location type will automatically be defaulted to "Personal", otherwise it will be defaulted to "Unknown"
    • gmail.com
    • yahoo.com
    • hotmail.com
    • aol.com
    • msn.com
    • comcast.net
    • live.com
    • outlook.com

Need: Block accounts from being credit reported (validation notice compliance)

Accounts will be prevented from being credit reported if the Client Profile has "Obey Compliance Checks" set to true and at least one of the following statements is true.

1. 
   
   1. A validation notice has NOT been sent to the consumer (primary demographic for the account)
   2. The validation notice WAS sent but was also identified as returned prior to credit reporting
   3. The validation notice WAS sent less than 15 days prior to credit reporting

To prevent this from impacting credit reporting for business, you can set "Obey Compliance Checks" to false for client profiles.

Need: Account attorney (consumer’s attorney) representation notification (alert)

If an account has an identified Account Attorney in the Debt Information section, an alert is now displayed in the maximized summary section.

Regulation F Associated Development Deferred to a Future Release

• (20) Firewall restriction from campaign files
• (21) Model form template (email)
• (27) Replace method for credit reporting related to grouped accounts per service date
• (30) An undisputed balance for collections
• (31) Account attorney communication without using demographic

*Please Note: 

Due to the evolving understanding of priorities surrounding Regulation F, you can expect development tasks to continue to be rearranged in the schedule.

Whenever possible, we will clearly define the various changes to the originally scheduled development work here in the release notes.

Thank you for your patience!

Making Things Right

- Fixed - Payment plans moved to judgment accounts

- Fixed - Payment on judgment accounts now showing the full spread amount

- Fixed - No longer presenting empty pending bundle lists

- Fixed - TCN user passwords no longer overwritten in user profiles