Collections Workspace
The Collections Workspace brings together, on a single screen, everything your collections team needs to work accounts receivable without jumping between screens: the full list of open receivable documents, each document's detail, its follow-up comments and emails, the customer's contact details, and a chart of your customers with the highest balances.
What it is and what it's for
Unlike the Account Statement, which is opened from a specific customer's record, the Collections Workspace starts from every one of your open receivable documents (across all customers), and is built for a person dedicated to collections to work through them, document by document, logging the outcome of each follow-up without losing sight of the rest of the portfolio.
Selecting a document in the list updates the rest of the screen to show its details, the comments and emails already logged against it, and that customer's contact information — all without reloading the page, so you can move through many documents smoothly.
How to use it
- Check the top-balances chart (optional). At the top, the Top Customers panel shows a bar chart of your 20 customers with the highest outstanding balance, splitting each bar between what's overdue and what's not yet due, all consolidated to your local currency. Collapse it with the header's arrow to save screen space.
- Sort and filter the document list. The list on the left shows your open receivable documents (with a positive balance). The Order by selector sorts them by Aging (most overdue first — the default), Amount, Customer or Last comment (documents with no recent follow-up rise to the top). The text box filters the already-loaded list by customer name, without querying the server again.
- Select a document. Clicking a row highlights it and loads, on the right, its details, its comments and emails, and the contact details of that document's customer. Overdue documents are shown in red in the list.
- Adjust the estimated collection date if needed. In the document's detail, the pencil icon next to the Estimated Collection Date opens an inline editor to update it — for example, after the customer promises to pay on a date different from the formal due date.
- Log a comment about the follow-up. The New Comment box is enabled once a document is selected; write down the outcome of your call or follow-up and click Add Comment so it stays in the history, visible to anyone who reviews that document later.
- Send a one-off collection email. The Collections Email button (in the detail panel) opens a form to draft and send an email to the customer about that specific document, without leaving the screen.
- Maintain the customer's contacts. From the contact panel you can add a new contact, and for each one toggle whether it can view accounts receivable information or is included in account statement emails, and grant or remove its Customer Portal access.
- Send the customer's full account statement with the Send Account Statement button, when a document's follow-up calls for showing the customer everything they owe, not just that one document.
Collection email with AI suggestions
Opening the Collections Email form pre-fills the To and Subject fields automatically: the recipients include the customer's email and the contacts marked to receive account statements, and the subject picks up the document's number.
If your plan has the AI assistant enabled, you'll also see several buttons to generate or rewrite the message body: draft it in a collection tone from scratch, rewrite what's already written with a more professional tone or a friendlier tone, or simply make it shorter. The suggestion replaces the text box's content; you can always edit it before sending.
The email sent from here is logged as an activity on the document, so it will also show up in that document's Comments and Emails panel.
Sending the account statement with a test mode
The Send Account Statement button opens a window with the send options, reusing the same PDF account-statement generator used by the bulk account-statement mailing screen:
- The Send to me too checkbox redirects the send to your own email (the logged-in user's) instead of the customer's, handy for previewing how it will look before actually sending it; in this mode no contact receives a copy.
- The Subject is suggested automatically with the customer's name, and you can change it.
- You can check which of the customer's contacts with an email address receive a copy (CC); the contacts marked to be included in account statements are pre-checked by default.
- The Optional message field is added to the email body before the attached account statement.
Key fields in the document detail
| Field | What it means |
|---|---|
| Document | The document's number and type; a link that opens the full transaction in a new tab. |
| Subsidiary | Only shown if your plan has Subsidiaries enabled. |
| Date | The document's date. |
| Due Date | Payment deadline based on the document's payment term. |
| Estimated Collection Date | The date you actually expect to collect (editable inline from here); if the document has no estimated date captured, its due date is shown instead. |
| Payment Terms | The payment term assigned to the document. |
| Currency | The currency the document is expressed in. |
| Amount (document currency) | The document's original total amount, in its own currency. |
| Amount (local currency) | The same total amount, converted to your local currency using the transaction's exchange rate. |
| Customer Balance (local currency) | The sum, in local currency, of every open document that customer has — the same total that feeds the top-balances chart, not just the selected document's balance. |
| Reference | Free-text reference captured on the document. |
| Notes | Notes captured on the document. |
Validations when saving
- A comment can't be blank, whether you're adding a new one or editing an existing one.
- You can only edit your own comments; the "Edit" link only shows up on comments you logged.
- The collection email needs at least one recipient in the To field before it can be sent.
- The new estimated collection date must be a valid date before it can be saved.
- The account statement requires a destination email; if the customer has no email on file (and you didn't turn on test mode), the window warns you and disables the send button.
Availability and permissions
- The Collections Workspace is available only on the Enterprise edition, and must also be enabled for your company.
- Opening the screen requires your user group's browse permission over Customer Receivables.
- Logging a comment requires create permission on CRM Activities; editing one requires edit permission on those same activities.
- Adding a contact requires create permission on Contacts; editing its collection flags requires the matching edit permission.
- The detail's Subsidiary field only shows up if your plan has Subsidiaries enabled.
- The AI text-suggestion buttons on the collection email only show up if your plan has the AI assistant enabled.
Tips and common mistakes
Sort by "Last comment" for your daily collections round. That way the documents no one has touched in the longest time rise to the top, instead of always repeating the same customers just because they have the highest aging or amount.
Always leave a comment, even if the follow-up had no result (e.g. "did not answer"). The comment history is what lets any other user pick up the follow-up without calling twice about the same thing.
Don't see the Collections Workspace in the menu? Check that your company has the Enterprise edition and that this feature is enabled; if both are true and you still don't see it, check your browse permission over Customer Receivables.
The customer balance shown in the detail is not the document's balance, it's the sum of all their open documents in local currency. To see the selected document's own amount, use the "Amount" fields.