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Finance → Collections → /collections/overview Beta Collections turns debt from a report somebody reads into a queue somebody works:
debt detected → case opened → scored and prioritised → assigned → contacted → commitment recorded → payment monitored → escalated or closed.
The overview console is the module’s landing page. It answers three questions before you open a single case: how much is owed, how old it is, and whether the team is keeping up.
Collections is an orchestrator over the accounting ledger, not a second ledger. Invoices, payments, allocations and balances stay authoritative in the core ledger; Collections manages the recovery process. That is why a case, the debt-aging report and a tenant statement always agree.

What the console shows

Each panel has a How these are calculated disclosure that states the exact definition used, so a number on the console can be reconciled against the underlying report.

How debt reaches the console

The engine sweeps arrears on a schedule (and re-evaluates a single lease immediately when a payment or allocation lands, so cases clear promptly).
1

Balance read

Per-lease balances are read from the ledger with the same semantics as the debt-aging report: gross due, wallet (unallocated cash), net balance, bucket amounts, oldest due date and last payment date — plus a per-service-type breakdown.
2

Entry test

A lease enters collections when it crosses the configured thresholds — minimum balance, minimum age in days, and which debt counts (all, rent only, or utilities only).
3

Case open

A case is opened for the lease and the resolved strategy and thresholds are snapshotted onto it, so later config changes never rewrite an in-flight case.
4

Score

A collectability score (0–100, bands A–E) is computed and stored with the feature values that produced it.
5

Stage the next action

The next step on the dunning ladder is staged, not sent.
Gross due and wallet are always shown separately. Netting unallocated cash into the balance is correct for triggers, but it can mask contractual debt if that is all you look at. The console deliberately shows both.

Shadow mode

Phase 1 runs recommend-only. The engine computes, scores, assigns and stages actions — a human confirms every send, disconnect and fee. Autonomy is earned per branch through the enforcement-mode setting, never by a global switch. This is the same convention the IoT arrears engine and the Boma Yangu dispatcher follow: nothing that touches money or reaches a resident goes out unattended until it has been proven in shadow.

The pieces of the module

Worklist & cases

The ranked queue and the case workspace where the work actually happens.

Strategies

The dunning ladders that decide what happens next, and when.

Promise to Pay

Recorded commitments, instalments, and kept/broken evaluation.

Penalties

Late-fee policies and the assessments they produce.

Legal register

Matters, hearings, parties and costs once a case leaves internal recovery.

Debt aging

The underlying arrears report, by lease and by service type.

Configuration checklist

Before Collections is useful in a branch, an administrator sets:
  1. Feature flag — the collections module enabled for the branch.
  2. Entry thresholds — minimum balance, minimum age, debt scope, exit hysteresis.
  3. Strategy — which dunning ladder applies, resolved through the settings scope chain (lease → unit → block → branch → organisation → default).
  4. Templates — the message templates the ladder’s reminder and demand-letter steps render.
  5. Assignment rules — manual, round-robin, by branch, or by balance band.
  6. Enforcement mode — shadow (default) or autonomous, per branch.
See Settings and Feature flags.

Reading the numbers correctly

  • Net balance = gross due − wallet. Used for triggers and exit tests.
  • Priority ≈ net balance × (100 − score). Big debt owed by an unlikely payer floats up.
  • Delinquency bucket and recovery state are derived from the ledger on read, never stored — they cannot drift from the accounts.
  • Disputed amounts (where enabled) are excluded from collectible balance and from ladder triggers; recovery continues on the undisputed remainder.