Dunning made simple through The Dunning Letters SuiteApp within NetSuite.

Dunning is the process of communicating with customers to ensure the collection of accounts receivable, and because laws in each country regulate the means by which dunning can occur, it is important to have a flexible all-encompassing process in place.

The Dunning Letters SuiteApp within NetSuite provides you with the control of either Customer Level Dunning, Invoice Level Dunning, or Invoice Group level Dunning and includes both manual and automated sending of dunning letters.

Dunning can be paused for a customer to allow additional time for payment before another letter is sent, or to deal with queries regarding an invoice. Dunning can then be resumed to enable NetSuite to run the dunning evaluation workflow for these customers.

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NetSuite has made it easier and faster to get a quick overview of dunning business data with the Dunning overview dashboard that helps you keep track of the current dunning status of all accounts.

The Dunning Dashboard can display a whole host of charts and lists including the following:

Green Bullet USPDunning Overdue Receivables

Green Bullet USPDunning Overdue Receivables by Age

Green Bullet USPDunning Overdue Receivables by Customer

Green Bullet USPDunning Average Time to Pay

Green Bullet USPTotal A/R Overdue

Green Bullet USPCustomers with Paused Dunning

Green Bullet USPInvoices with Paused Dunning

Green Bullet USPRecently Sent/Printed Dunning Letters

In the below easy to follow guide, we would like to show you the basics of how the dunning process works within NetSuite.

Setup Requirements:

1. Email and PDF files to use as your letters

These can be set up by an administrator or an implementation partner. A maximum of 15 dunning levels can be used and depending on the number of dunning levels you will be setting up you will be able to create different content on your email and pdf dunning letters per level.

Example of email template

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Example of PDF Template

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2. Dunning Saved Searches

The Dunning saved search acts as a report that lists all the customers that will be eligible for the dunning process. This saved search is used when setting up the Dunning procedure and the Dunning evaluation Workflow allowing the system to assign dunning procedures to the customers in this list or Saved Search.

Below is an example of a Dunning scheduler workflow where the dunning saved search is selected.

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3. Dunning Level Rules

The Dunning Level Rules are required to add dunning levels to a dunning procedure. This dunning level rule record defines the days overdue and the outstanding amount thresholds. A dunning level rule can be used in multiple dunning procedures.

To create a dunning level rule, you will navigate to Dunning > Setup > Dunning Level Rule > New

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Have a look at the below example of a Dunning Level Rule.

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This rules name is “Level 1 – 1 Day over due date” and has a “Days Overdue” setting of 1, meaning that the level rule will be assigned where an invoice is one day past due for payment.

Here you can also set up the currencies to use. Only currencies included in the Currencies list for your subsidiary are available for selection.

4. Dunning Template Records

This is a custom record that determines which email and PDF files to use per language and dunning level. This is how NetSuite knows what content to add to the body when sending a dunning letter to a customer.

Each dunning level that you add on a dunning procedure, must be associated with a dunning template record. This way you know that the correct letter is sent when a certain dunning level is assigned to a customer.

The Dunning Template is also where you can specify whether you want to include copies of the invoices or statements with the dunning letter.

Have a look at the below example of a Dunning Template Record. This is a template set up for a level one dunning.

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Here we can see that there are both Dutch and French email templates allocated. If the customer language is Dutch for example and Level one is assigned, then the system will look at the dunning template, check the customers language and send the Dutch email to the customer.

5. Dunning Procedures

The Dunning Procedure assists you to automate your dunning process. Before you create your Dunning procedure, you first need Dunning Templates, Dunning level rules and saved searches in place.

On the Dunning Procedure, you define the following.

  • A minimum number of days for sending two consecutive letters for the same customer.
  • A selection between automated or manual sending of dunning letters.
  • The ‘saved search’ that includes a list of customers that will be related to the Dunning Procedure.
  • The dunning levels that includes a Rule and a letter template that is linked to each specific dunning level.

See an example below of a Dunning procedure.

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Here you can see there are dunning levels one to three and a separate dunning letter template attached to each level.

6. Dunning evaluation Workflows

This workflow can be set up by an administrator or an implementation partner and is scheduled to run when required.

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The workflow determines which customers’ needs to be dunned by looking at all customers in the saved search attached to the workflow and dunning procedure, check their overdue invoices, and sends a letter depending on the dunning email template related to the dunning level rules in place.

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If you have selected the option of sending dunning emails automatically on your dunning procedure, the dunning letters will be sent according to the schedule of your dunning evaluation workflow.

If, on the other hand, you have selected the option to send dunning letters manually, dunning letters ready to be sent will appear under the dunning email sending queue after the dunning evaluation workflow runs. You can then manually decide which letters to send.

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7. Set Customer preferences for Dunning

These preferences are set up in the customer record and include the email address to use for dunning letters specifically or additional recipients to include in the mail. Whether you want to pause a customer’s dunning and the pause reasons.

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8. Assign dunning procedures to Customers

Options such as the dunning procedure and whether you want the emailing or printing of dunning letters to be allowed for a specific customer can all be set on an individual customer record, or you can assign these settings in bulk to many customers at once.

To assign dunning procedures in bulk, navigate to >Dunning >Setup >Dunning Bulk Assignment

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To assign dunning preferences to customers in bulk, navigate to >Dunning >Setup >Bulk Update Customer Records

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Dunning Dashboard

Keeping track of the current dunning status of all accounts in one place is possible with the Dunning Dashboard and is accessible with a single click. Hover your cursor over Dunning and click on Dunning overview.

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From here you can see detailed bar graphs showing overdue receivables for the past 12 months, amounts receivable according to the number of days overdue, selected number of customers with the most overdue balances along with the amounts they owe.

There are portlets showing all recently sent or printed dunning letters and you can also see all the customers with paused dunning and the specific reasons, or you can drill down into the customer records themselves.

If you need to do more dunning related setup, instead of following the menu path, you can just use the “Dunning Links” portlet that allows you access to all of the above-mentioned setup in one place.

This article covers only the basics, so if you’d like to know more about how you can leverage The Dunning Letters SuiteApp for your business, feel free to reach out to the Steltix Team!

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