A more versatile Dunning solution for NetSuite

Background

NetSuite is a great product and has a lot of native solutions to both common and advanced business needs. With some things though, the native solution is just not the right fit. Therefore, we developed a dunning solution with capabilities fit for the specialized needs of our customers.We already have a great bundle with improvements over the standard dunning solution, however, we are also developing an even more versatile and user-friendly version, which we will tease in this article.Let us get to it then, what have we improved upon the standard dunning solution?

Feature Overview

Better overview of the dunning status on the customer record – we think the default dunning subtab could benefit from some additional relevant information, like the overdue balance and the dates of former letters sent. Below in orange is the standard dunning subtab. Below in blue is our dunning subtab with additional information.

Choose which dunning letter to send to a customer with higher dunning level – At the time of go-live of the dunning solution, a customer might find themselves directly in level two or three. With the standard dunning solution, they would get a letter worded for someone who already got the previous letters and warnings. This can be extremely detrimental to customer relations, say if they go about their merry ways, and out of the blue get a letter warning of lawyers and whatnot. We do not want that. Our bundle makes it possible to ease into this, by sending lower level letters first.Considering unapplied credit memos at the customer level - The NetSuite Standard Dunning does not consider unapplied credit memos when evaluating the customer’s overdue balance, and by extension also their dunning status. This can lead to major errors, such as the dunning of customers with a credit balance, that has yet to be applied to specific invoices. Novutech Dunning, on the other hand, takes them into account to precisely compute the overdue balance.Dashboard View – We provide dashboard shortcuts to easily get an overview of all customers in the dunning cycle, and shortcuts to initiate overdue balance calculations, the sending of letters, etc. This is not the case for the Standard dunning solution.

Custom customer statement - A custom customer statement is provided with the Novutech Dunning bundle. The Standard Dunning solution can only draw upon the account’s default statement template. However, this is often tailored to other needs, and is not specifically designed for dunning. Novutech’s Dunning bundle utilizes a custom statement template, which as a communication tool to customers, should be clear and concise on overdue balances and invoices.No need to create contacts to define dunning recipients - In NetSuite, if you want to define more than one email address to receive dunning letters, you need to create contacts and then set them as dunning recipients. Novutech Dunning allows you to just use email addresses in a string, separated by semicolon, just like on your email client.Consolidated statement in case of customers with parent-child relationship - The Novutech Dunning allows to send a unique Dunning Letter to a customer for the parent company and its children. However, the Consolidated Payments feature must be enabled.Attach the parent's and children's invoices and credit memos to the Dunning Letter - The Novutech Dunning allows to attach the parent's and children’s invoices and credit memos to the Dunning Letter. However, the Consolidated Payments feature must be enabled.Easy reporting of customer status - NetSuite Standard Dunning doesn’t provide a Dunning Overview page to track the dunning status of all customers in one place. We provide such a list, with filters to select relevant subsets of the dataset, based on primary subsidiary, dunning level, date of letter sent, and much more. All there, available on the dashboard.

What’s coming?

We are continuously working on further developing the Novutech Dunning bundle. Currently we are working on exciting new features, like:The ability to exclude a specific invoice from the dunning process. This will exclude the invoice from both the calculation of the days overdue and the overdue amount for the customer. Continuous updates. As we are developing the package and adding new features and usability in the future, our customers should of course receive updates and release notes to go with it.Configuration is done at the subsidiary level – How neat would it be, to be able to set all relevant settings on the subsidiary form directly? This feature grew from the fact that many of our customers are multi-national and have different needs for different countries where they naturally have different subsidiaries in place. We therefore utilize the natural company structure, to segment customers into their primary subsidiary.Our goal is to make it so easy that everyone would be able to set this up themselves. Providing top notch user guides, tips and tricks, and moving complexity from something the user will have to comprehend, to something the code handles intelligently and will dynamically import settings in all the relevant places like saved searches, mass updates, workflows, and scripts.All configurations will be set on the subsidiary form. This allows for a one-stop-shop for all configurations, which include:

• Date ranges for dunning levels (three levels per subsidiary by default).
• Languages (up to five per subsidiary by default).
• Selecting the appropriate email template.
• Printer email address, so for the few customers you want to send an actual snail mail to, you can do so easily.
• Enable/disable different features, e.g. to use a fallback language or enabling inserting the email letter text in the statement, or attaching the overdue invoices in the email alongside the statement.

To sum up, our pack already offers:

• Better overview of the dunning status on the customer record
• The ability to choose which dunning letter to send to a customer with higher dunning level
• Overdue amount is considering unapplied credit memos at the customer level
• An easy to use dashboard View
• Custom customer statement
• To easily add more recipient emails on the customer record. No need to create contacts to define dunning recipients
• A consolidated statement in case of customers with parent-child relationship
• The ability to attach the parent's and children's invoices and credit memos to the Dunning Letter
• Easy reporting of customer status

In Q1 of 2023 we are releasing version 3.0 with features such as:

• The ability to exclude a specific invoice from the dunning process.
• Continuous updates
• All settings are done on the page for the primary subsidiary of the customer
• The ability to have unique dunning thresholds, languages and email templates per subsidiary.

So all in all, we have a great product that already offers a lot over the standard and competitor’s dunning solutions, and we are committed to continuously listening to market demands and improving the feature list.Get in touch if this is something you could see leveraged in your company and let us have a talk about the possibilities.