Direct Pay Set Up - Regional Management DBA Regional Finance

This document discusses the process that applies ONLY to REGIONAL FINANCE settlements.

The following provides an overview of the settlement negotiating process and describes the current procedures required to convert settlement payments from an existing payment type to Direct Pay (Click to learn more about Direct Pay)

Overview:   

For normal ACH/Check by phone payment types, five (5) steps are involved in the negotiation process.  With Direct Pay, the fifth and last step - calling creditors to set up scheduled payments - is no longer needed.

🔺For all REGIONAL FINANCE settlements, please inform your team NOT to call in payments as they can cause duplicate payments with this creditor.   

Scheduling Settlements:

For Direct Pay payments, once you select direct pay as the payment method under the payment terms, the CREDITOR PAYEE DETAILS section (left-hand side of the screen) updates with the Direct Pay Details.

Please copy the REGIONAL FINANCE account number exactly as listed on the settlement letter agreement to ensure the proper consumer’s account is credited when paid. Please note the purple arrow that shows the specific info that should be copied to the creditor reference field. Do not include the consumer’s name in parenthesis; append the reference field with words like File # or Account#, etc. or shorten the reference number field. Failure to adhere to this process may delay or cause the payment file to fail and require manual intervention. Payments could be lost and shown as UNPAID.  

Please, double-check that the entries are correct before saving the settlement.

Settlement Payment Decisions:

IMPORTANT: REGIONAL FINANCE settlements set up as Direct Pay are not viewable on the Decisions Page.   

Why?   

Forth will send funds to creditors based upon the process date for REGIONAL FINANCE settlements, eliminating your daily task of approving each settlement payment. Furthermore, settlement payments will be paid only if the consumer has sufficient funds in their special purpose account. Any shortage in funds will result in the transaction remaining in Low Balance status until funds are available or advanced to the client.  

What about low-balance accounts?   How do I advance if the decisions page is gone?

To help you manage this, Forth created reports enabling you to make advances to address these exceptions.

Forth Reports:

1. Uncollected Settlements - lists all uncollected/unpaid settlements in pending, shipped, or low balance status. (Click here to learn more)
    
2. Low Balance Forecast Report - lists all potential low balance accounts up to 2 weeks out.  Features an "Advance" button to facilitate on-the-fly account adjustments. (Click here to learn more)

At the beginning of each month, REGIONAL FINANCE will send you its own Uncollected Debt Payments report. It is STILL your responsibility to review these reports and manage these missing or late payments directly with REGIONAL FINANCE.  

Questions:

Should you have any questions about this process or need further information, feel free to contact us at settlements@setforth.com.

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