ACE Release Notes - 05/15/2022

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

A few highlights in this issue include a tool to help evaluate restricted accounts, promise plan settlement automation and the ability to load phone logs and text logs by phone number.

Also, be sure to make note of the changes coming for credit bureau reporting.

Attention: We are expecting the downtime for deploying this update to take about 30 minutes to complete, but it could take a bit longer. Please consider this when deploying.

All the best,

Your friends at The InterProse Corporation

Cool New Upgrades 

Cancel a Specific Letter

A specific letter that has been scheduled can now be cancelled via Action Path Workflow. This cancels any specific letter which includes the account identified, regardless of whether the letter was originally scheduled from the specified account or the letter includes other accounts.

Cancel All Letters

There is now an option via Action Path Workflow to cancel all letters scheduled for an account. This cancels any specified letter which includes the account identified, regardless of whether the letter was originally scheduled from the specified account or the letter includes other accounts.

Attach Account Documents to Letters

Account documents can now be attached to local print letters on demand when scheduling or printing the letter. The Output Vendor must be pdf and the documents to be included in the letter must also be of a pdf type.

Automatic Settlement of Promise Plans 

When the final payment in a promise plan settlement is posted, adjustments will automatically post to the accounts associated with the settlement. The Settled Pill will be displayed in the summary for any accounts with settlement adjustments.

This is the same behavior that exists for Secure Promise Plans.

Clearing Cache

Browsers and applications sometimes cache or store copies of information temporarily so the information can be accessed more quickly and both the browser and application operate more efficiently.

Occasionally, when something has been updated or changed while working in an application, the cache needs to be cleared.

You can clear your browser cache locally at your computer.

In the past, support needed to clear cache on customer applications. Now an admin user can clear cache while logged into the ACE application.

Account Workflow for Email and Text

Under Setup -> Workflow -> Account Workflow Actions, there are now options to set Primary Agent, Last Work Date and/or Last Activity date when an account demographic email or text is sent to the consumer.

Phone Logs and Text Message Logs by Phone Number

Phone Logs and Text Messages can already be loaded into ACE from a file via ETL when certain account matching criteria is included in the file with log records to be loaded. Now the data can also be loaded if the only account matching criteria is a phone number associated with the log and the account in ACE.

Please Note: Phone and Text Message Logs will be loaded to all accounts with a matching primary demographic phone number.

Itemization and Cancel / Reactivate

Customers can choose whether or not to include cancel and reactivate adjustments in their itemization data or to exclude both from itemization data.

Totals for "plus Interest", "plus Fees", and "minus Payments and Credits" will vary based on these settings and whether or not a cancelled account has been reactivated.

To exclude both from itemization data, go to Setup -> Compliance -> Itemization Mapping and at the bottom of the page set "Exclude Cancel/Reactivate" to true.

In both cases, a problem with cancels and reactivates causing "Itemization Mismatch" should no longer be an issue.

Please Note: Anytime you make changes to Itemization Mapping, please be sure to Recalculate Transaction balances before generating letters or using the account balance data otherwise.

Itemization with Cancel/Reactivate Transactions Included

The same Itemization with Cancel/Reactivate Transactions Excluded

Post Client Receivables

Accounting -> Post Client Receivables has been updated to reduce the potential for entry errors.

1. If an amount has not been first entered in the "Post Client Receivables" section, it is no longer possible to apply an amount to an open invoice

2. If the amount entered in the "Post Client Receivables" section is removed after entering amounts and attempting to apply them to open invoices, there will be an error displayed; "Please enter a valid check amount"

3. If the amount entered in the "Post Client Receivables" section that exceeds the amounts entered to be applied to "Open Invoices", a dialog box will present the option to post the excess as an overpayment (existing functionality).

Restricted Accounts

It can sometimes be challenging to assess the reason that an account is restricted. To assist with evaluating restricted accounts, when hovering over the "RESTRICTED" pill in the Account Summary section, a dialog box will now be visible.

The dialog box will show current contact details with the number of days being evaluated and the maximum contacts. The number of days and the maximum contacts are identified under Setup -> Compliance -> Settings.

If "Use Bundle Counts" is set to true in Compliance Settings, this dialog box will also include the details for the bundle.

Selecting Bundle Members for Emails

The ability to select specific bundle members for local print letters is now also available for use when scheduling emails.

As long as you have included a bundle loop in the email profile/ELS template associated with a letter, you should be able to manually select from among the accounts eligible for the bundle in the same way you are able to select those accounts for a local print letter.

Take a Closer Look 

Credit Bureau Reporting

Per information provided by the credit bureaus and shared with us by customers, Experian, TransUnion and Equifax are making changes to “Medical Debt Collection Data”.

For more information regarding the changes, please reach out to the credit bureaus.

To meet those changes, the following updates to ACE are now in place.

1. As of July 1, 2022, medical debts will be excluded from Metro2 files if they are not at least 365 days from the “Date Opened Field” selected in Credit Reporting Vendor settings. Prior to 7/1/22, this number of days continues to be 180.
2. As of March 30, 2023, medical debts will be excluded from Metro2 files if they do not meet a minimum threshold of $500.

ETL Import Clients Load Method

Several updates have been made to improve the fields that can be mapped to and loaded via the Clients ETL Load Method.

After deploying this release, under Help -> Layout -> ETL Fields, you can download an up to date copy of the ETL field layouts including Client profile fields.

Making Things Right

Fixes or enhancements have been applied in the following areas:

• There is now a Dialer Caller ID that is distinct for the LiveVox API vendor
• The View Letter Log "Returned Date" column is now populating
• ETL Payment loaders can now be used to load zero dollar commission (please note: any other specific commission amount cannot be loaded in this way unless the spread is identified)
• The handling of notes related to debts & demographics has been streamlined and therefore the notes may appear differently
• Account mixing icons will no longer be displayed for customers using a reflection package
• Server restarts for customers with both a QA & Production Server will now be distinctive (restarting one will not restart the other)
• Dispute and Legal Case ETL Fields data (from Help -> Layout) is now correct
• Unspread transactions can now be respread with zero commissions
• New LiveVox API vendors being setup are now saving as expected
• When a demographic email address is changed from upper to lower case or vice versa, notes are no longer generated
• When additional validation notices are scheduled within the validation period, validation notice dates are now re-evaluated
• A failed letter in a letter vendor file will no longer cause the entire letter file to fail, the failed letter will be excluded from the file and will not be identified as sent; if the entire file fails, there will be a warning and the letters in the file will not be identified as sent
• Blank lines will be ignored for phone log import job tasks
• Accounts no longer need to be refreshed to show last sent text date and last sent email date in the account summary
• Accounts sent for Intelitech enrichment are now correctly marked as sent