Dunning Emails through NetSuite SuiteApp

Requirement

Our client’s main requirements were: 

1.  Send Dunning Emails to their customers depending on how many days an invoice was overdue. Additionally,  categorize customers as BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) and Non-BPO with four levels of invoice dunning. 

2. A PDF statement should be attached when a dunning email was sent to their customers.

Technical requirements  

Here are the four Invoice dunning levels that our client wanted to implement:

• Gentle Reminder (10/20 days after due date) 

• Reminder (30 days after due date)

• Urgent reminder (45 days after due date)

• Final Reminder (60 days after due date) 

Gentle Reminder

1. A custom field needed to be created on the customer record to indicate if the customer was a BPO or non-BPO customer.

2. If the customer was a BPO, and the invoice was 10 days (first gentle reminder) or 20 days (second gentle reminder) overdue then the following Gentle Reminder Email Template should be used. (Refer image below).

3. If the customer was a non-BPO and the invoice was 10 days overdue then the Gentle Reminder Email Template should be used.

                                                                                        Gentle Reminder image

Note: Our client required 3 more similar reminders to be set up. These reminders varied according to the number of days an invoice was overdue. The content of these email templates was based upon the proximity to the deadlines and would vary according to the urgency. 

Also, it was important to note that the dunning dates varied according to the type of customer (BPO or Non BPO). For instance, refer the above image of the GENTLE REMINDER, the GENTLE REMINDER was set to 10 days or 20 days overdue for a BPO customer whereas it was set to 10 days for a non-BPO customer. The difference in date structure was applicable to all four invoice dunning levels.

Solution

Our development team approached the challenge with NetSuite’s “Dunning letters SuiteApp”. The Dunning Letters Suite App enabled our developers to set up an automated dunning process in NetSuite to help manage the collection of accounts receivable and send reminder letters before payment was due. 

To set up “automated dunning process”, our resources created dunning procedures and assigned them to customers. They creating a custom field to select the type of customer – BPO/Non-BPO. A 5-step process was followed to attain the requirements given by our client.

1. Scheduling the Dunning Evaluation Workflow,

2. Dunning Template,

3. Dunning Level Rule,

4. Dunning Procedures,

5. Assign dunning procedure to the customer.

Our developers solved a range of problems that our client faced including the automation of dunning letters. The system was set up to search for customers, invoices, and invoice groups with overdue amounts and according to the preset dunning levels and procedures emails would be sent. (Dunning levels define the thresholds for overdue amounts and days overdue, as well as the letter templates to use for each level.) We also provided a checkbox for attaching the PDF statement, the user can manually click on the checkbox for sending out PDFs associated with the dunning mail.

Result

The requirements set by the client were achieved with perfection and our developers added custom checkboxes and flows that aligned with the need. Our client now enjoys the seamless service of dunning emails in NetSuite. The implementation was done by certified NetSuite developers at Jobin & Jismi.