Bad Risk Customers

A bad risk customer is someone with whom there has been trouble in the past.
The customer could have given a bad check or credit card, or failed to return equipment, or pay a bill. By identifying customers in this high risk file, these customers can be flagged an immediately identified when new documents are entered.

Cash Short:
A record is also written to this file when a Cash customer has insufficient cash and needs to charge an invoice On Account. The "cash short" invoice number is included in the warning record that appears when subsequent documents are entered for that customer.
A record is not written to Bad Risk Customers for credit balance invoices that are changed to "On Acct".
This 'Cash Short' feature is activated by a setting in Company Invoice Parameters.

"Bad Risk" records will be created if the 'Cash Short' feature is activated, when invoices are created and charged on account for Cash customers from Cycle Billing for overdue contracts as well as for cylinder contracts.

Document Entry:
The following document entry programs check for Bad Risk Customers:

• Contracts
• Miscellaneous Invoices
• Reservations
• Sales Orders Invoices
• Rental Quotes
• Order Entry
• Sales Quotes
• Work Orders
• Cylinder Transactions

Allow Activity:
Each customer on the list may be set to allow further rentals or sales, or to disallow any further activity.
A message will display on the screen, indicating why the customer is on the Bad Risk List, so that staff will understand why the customer was targeted.

Identify a Match:
In the document entry programs the following fields are independently checked to identify a Bad Risk customer.

Customer #
Identification
Telephone #
Reference
Customer Name
Driver's License

If a match is made on any one of the items, a warning window appears in the document header as outlined in Bad Risk Customer Warning.

When using the customer names to identify Bad Risk customers be aware that common names will flag all customers with that name.
e.g. JOE SMITH, could be on the BAD RISK CUSTOMER LIST without it being the right person.

Cash Customer:
The Customer # blank is never used to match a Bad Risk record as the blank Cash Customer is the customer # that gets used over and over again for one-time customers which pay immediately for their rental or purchase.
However when the customer's name is entered in the Bill To Name field, the "Bad Risk" file is checked for this name.

• If the prompt Allow Further Activity is set to prevent further business, then the counter staff will NOT be able to proceed - even if it is the wrong customer.
• If the prompt Allow Further Activity is set to allow activity, counter staff may proceed only if they know the password as set in Module Passwords to allow Credit Limit overrides, Discounts and special prices.
  Since only senior counter staff should know the password, this will ensure that counter staff check with senior staff before proceeding with a rental or sale.

Remove Bad Risk Entry:
When an invoice is deleted from the Delete Invoices, Reverse a Rental Return, or Reverse a Cycle Billed Invoice, and the customer is on the Bad Risk file, deleting the invoice triggers the option to also remove the 'Bad Risk' transaction entry.

Setup Bad Risk Records:
The Bad Risk Customer List can be setup as follows by entering identifying information is one or all of the fields:

TRANSACTION NUMBER

Accept the automatically assigned transaction number. This is an internal number used to keep track of the number of entries.

In Change mode, use the Bad Risk Customer Search window to look up existing entries.

CUSTOMER NUMBER

Type in the Customer number of this Bad Guy if the customer has a number, or look up the Customer # in the Accounting Customer Search window.

NAME

Enter the Customer's name.

Note: When looking for a match, JOE SMITH and J. SMITH are considered to be two different people. Several entries can be made when unsure of the spelling of the name.

IDENTIFICATION

Enter the customer's driver's license or other form of identification.

REFERENCE

Enter the customer's credit card or other form of identification.

TELEPHONE NUMBER

Enter the customer's telephone number.

DRIVER'S LICENSE

Enter the license number for the bad debt customer, or select one from the Driver's License Search window.

DATE ADDED

Accept today's date, or type in the date when the customer became a Bad Risk Customer.

ALLOW FURTHER ACTIVITY

Uncheck this box to prevent counter staff from being able to proceed with rentals or sales for this customer.

Check this box to warn the counter staff about a Bad Risk customer, but to allow them to proceed with rentals and sales.

Note: If further activity is allowed, and the CASH CUSTOMER (Customer # blank) is involved, the counter staff must know the password to proceed with rentals and sales for this customer.

Security Roles and the password set in Module Passwords are also used for overrides on credit limits, prices and discounts.

COMMENTS

Enter a note to explain why the customer is on the Bad Risk Customer list.
Additional comments can be added in the Bad Risk Customer Comments window.

This initial comment line also appears on the screen during Contract, Invoicing, etc. and appears on Bad Risk Customer Report.

Finished?

Click ACCEPT to proceed or CANCEL to abort.

ACTIONS:
Additional actions provided by buttons on the Bad Risk Customer screen include:

• Print a List of Bad Risk Customers:
  Click the REPORT button to generate a list customers defined as Bad Risk, as outlined in Bad Risk Customer Report.