How to plan collections: agenda, collector and route

What is it for?

It helps you organise who collects what and when: each customer has a collector, each contact is recorded and the next action appears in an agenda. Whoever collects on visits prints a sheet with the customers to visit.

None of this is sent to the customer or changes the invoice: it is only recorded.

When to use it?

• You share the overdue customers out among collectors.
• You spoke to a customer and they promised to pay on a date.
• You are going out on collection visits.

Where to find it?

• Accounting › Record › Collection agenda and My collection route.
• Accounting › Record › Customers, on the customer's record: the Collector field and the Register collection contact button. The button also exists on an overdue invoice.
• Accounting › Review › Collections history.

Before you start

• The profile is Accountant. The steps were done to the end with that profile.
• The customer must have overdue invoices to be in the route.

How to use it

Choose the customer's collector

Open the customer, go to the Sales & Purchase tab, choose the Collector and save.

Record a contact

1. On the customer's record, click Register collection contact.
2. The window opens with Phone and No answer. Choose the Channel (Phone, Email, Letter, Visit or Other) and the Result (No answer, Promise of payment, Dispute, Says it is paid or Other).
3. If there was a promise, fill in the Promised date and the Promised amount. In Next action on, say when you will contact them again.
4. Click Register.

Follow the agenda

Open Accounting › Record › Collection agenda. Each line has the Summary, the Document, Assigned to and the Due Date, with the Reschedule and Done buttons. In the example, the contact produced two lines: Payment promised and Collection: contact.

Print the route

1. Open Accounting › Record › My collection route. Anyone who can see other routes chooses another Collector.
2. Click Recalculate to get today's figures.
3. Read CUSTOMERS TO VISIT: Postal code, City, Customer, Address, Collector, Overdue, Invoices, Oldest due date and Days late. After the visit, click Register the visit on the line: the same window opens, with the Channel set to Visit.
4. Click Print the route. It downloads the Collection route PDF, with a Result of the visit column to fill in by hand.

Expected result

• When you register, the screen shows “Payment promised for 20/11/2026 : €1,000.00”. The contact is kept in the Collections history, with the date, the author and the customer.
• The route gives 1 customer and €4,847.43 in Overdue in the route, and 17 Days late for a due date of 19/10/2026 seen on 05/11/2026.
• The PDF says “Internal document, not a fiscal document.”

Important notes

• A promise is not a payment. The amount owed does not change: the debt only goes down with the receipt.
• The route only has what is overdue. A customer with invoices not yet due is not included, even with a collector chosen.
• The route figure is the one from when you recalculated. Check the date in Computed on.
• Written reminders to the customer are something else. See How to send collection notices to overdue customers.

Common problems

“Nobody to visit in this route”

• Symptom: the route shows “Nobody to visit in this route. A customer is in the route when it has overdue invoices and this collector chosen on its card (field “Collector”). To fill the route, choose the collector on the customers that owe, or recalculate the route.”
• Cause: no customer with overdue invoices has this Collector.
• What to do: choose the collector on the record of the customers who owe and click Recalculate.

The agenda is empty

• Symptom: “No collection actions scheduled” appears.
• Cause: there are no recorded contacts with a next action yet.
• What to do: record the contact on the customer's record or on an overdue invoice.