After downloading RecoveryPro you should first set up your Preferences. To do this, click on the Preference button on the Main Menu (on the Admin Tab - upper left corner).

The Preference button is circled in red on the screen shot of the Main Menu.

There are 12 letters including demand letter and payment statement. On the left side, you type the name of your letter (keep the name short - 15 characters). Next to that is a check box that 'activates' the letter so it will appear on the Account Screen (the Demand Letter and Payment Statement are already set up for you by default. You will want to review the other Demand and Payment Statement 'Styles' to see which one you will want to use).

Next to that is the number of days before the due date that the letter will print. This is mostly when you have a deadline like a payment statement. You may want to mail the statement 12 days or so prior to the due date. You will want to keep it around the 12 days in case you have a debtor who is paying every two weeks, so the current payment will be up to date.

You then set the number of days between the searches for the search you want to do. You also select if this search will be done for Judgments, Collections or both.

There are also five options for each search: 1) Do Not do search if address is know, 2) Do Not do search if payments are being made, 3) Do Not do search if there is an active execution, 4) Do Not do search if debtor is on welfare, & 5) Do Not do search if debtor is a dead end. These options allow for the software to 'think' and allows you to optimize your searches.

These 'exclusions' are activated in the Account Screen (per debtor).

If you set the default for your most used county, make sure to manually change the fields on the Account Screen when you have a different county. This is ideal for judgment recovery specialist. 

If you are working judgments, make sure to fill in the information on the left of the screen.

On this screen, you set the name of the user who will automatically be assigned unassigned accounts (new accounts, etc). If a user is deleted (employee turnover), their accounts will automatically be assigned to another user that you have selected here.

First, on the bottom left, you can enter up to four (4) State names that require regular updating. When you enter new accounts in the Account Screen, there is a pull down with these State names in it (state associated with judgment). When dealing with a judgment from one of these States, you select the name from that pull down (on the Account Screen). This 'Associates' that account to this State.

You can test your choices by passing your mouse cursor over the 'Save' and 'Cancel' buttons at the top of the screen.

The RecoveryProBK database is an exact copy of your working database (RecoveryProData). If you have another hard drive on your computer, copy the RecoveryProBK database to the second hard drive and use this 'browse' to link to it. When the 'Use Live Backup' check box is checked *, all data changes are done to both databases at the same time.

This is a 'live' backup and not a daily data backup. In this case, if you have a hard drive failure, you have a copy of the database on the other hard drive.

*  If you uncheck this box for some reason and decide later to use it, you will have to make a copy of the RecoveryProData database and rename it to RecoveryProBK in order to start with matching data. If the data does not match when you start, errors could occur. 

If creating a Collection or Arbitration account and you want to use the computer generated account number, you check the appropriate box under the text box (the account will start with the 'prefix' that you set up in your preferences.

You then click 'Add New'. You will then be prompted as to which database you want to place the account into (local database and any online databases that you may have).

If the account number that you are trying to change does not exist, you will be notified of this. If the account number the you are trying to change to already exists, you will be notified of this also.

You can not accidently overwrite an account.

They are Active Debtor/Creditor, Debtors Only, Creditors Only, Judgments, Solicitations, Collections, Arbitrations, Pending BKs, Assigned, Purged, Pending Judgments, and Completed / Satisfied

Besides Active Debtor/Creditor, Debtors Only, and Creditors Only, the other nine (9) are the types of accounts that you can have (or 'Status' as the case may be).

These twelve (12) buttons populate the large white list box at the bottom of the screen (has three red arrows drawn on it in the screen shot on the left). You can set one of these 'buttons' as a default setting in the Preferences Screen. Otherwise, the last one that you select will be the same when you come back to the Main Menu until you select another or restart the software.

The debtor's name is searched two ways. One is by what you typed in the text box and the other is by soundex. Soundex is an algorithm that selects names by sound and similar spellings.

What is Active and InActive status? When there is an active account (all but purged and satisfied) the debtor and creditor are considered 'Active'. Otherwise, they are considered 'InActive'.

The buttons are located on the Daily Tasks tab, Other tab, and Admin tab.

These buttons all go to there own screens and, as stated above, will be discussed individually later.

The first thing to address is that in the upper left of the screen (circled in red) is where you change the 'Status' of the account. To change the status, you click on the button labeled 'Lock/Unlock Status' (used as a security feature to prevent the 'accidental' changing of the status)

You can then select the type of account this is: Judgment, Collection, Solicitation, PendingBK, PendingJudgment, Assigned, Closed/Satisfied, and Purged.

The bottom of the screen has several fields where you can enter a review reminder that you need to do and the date that it is due. The review will appear on the Daily To Do List Screen.

A review that is due will be highlighted in yellow. After completing a review, you can just check the Delete check box next to the date and the review will be deleted when you select 'Save' at the top of the screen.

There are two field labeled 'Scores'. This is so you can apply some scoring system to your debtor to determine if the debtor is worth pursuing. If you determine that your debtor is on welfare or is a dead end, you can check the appropriate boxes on the right side of the screen. By checking these boxes, your searches will be adjusted based on your preferences. Also, there is a check box labeled 'Marked'. This marks the debtor for mail merge. In order to use mail merge, you have to 'Save' the record first.

The Letters that you set up in your Preference Screen will appear here. You can check which letters you wish to send to the debtor (the first one is the demand letter and the last one is the payment statement).

On the right side of the tab, there is a field for the amount of payment that you are requesting (if you are only using demand letters, the full amount due is automatically printed on the demand letter and an amount would not be required here). Next to the Payment Amount field is the First Due Date field. Usually, you would use today's date so the first letter (usually the demand letter) would print right away. Then you select the number of days between payments (or letters as the case may be). You can select monthly or a set number of days.

If you really do not want to do a search for a debtor, you can uncheck the search and it will not appear on your Search screen (not recommended in case you later decide to change your search).

It is not recommended to uncheck the unused searches. Unused searches do not effect the Search screen and if you ever add a new search your debtor will then be set up for the new search.

After doing a search, you need to remember to enter the search date into the date field for the search. This will then remind you to redo the search at a later date based on your Preference settings.

To add an existing creditor, you unlock the pull downs and 'Add New' button just like you did with debtors.

The first field on the form is marked 'Required' and is what your creditor will be known as.

You can set each creditor to receive a % of the creditor's %. Example: Two unique creditors for the same debtor. 50% commission rate. One creditor is entitled to 60% of the what is collected and the second creditor is entitled to 40% of what is collected (out of the 50% of the gross collections).

 This can be used for sales leads commissions or referral commissions.

Under each creditor, there is a box with five (5) selections. These range from 'None' to 'Annual' and is used to determine if update statements are to be sent to this creditor.

There is a pull down labeled 'State Associated With Judgment'. This pull down contains the State names that you set up in the Preferences Screen for States that require regular interest rate updates. This is where you 'Associate' this account with that State so any interest updates that you do will effect this account.

On the right side are a number of dates. Most are used for statistics and should be entered for that purpose. There is a difference between 'Satisfied' and 'Closed/Canceled'. Satisfied is when you get paid and Closed/Canceled is when the account is closed for some other reason. That reason should be typed into the 'Reason for Close' text box (examples: Dead, Discharged in Bankruptcy, Assigned to ABC Recovery, etc). This reason is printed on the creditor summary report.

This is where you put the 'Style' or 'Header' of the court case (Plaintiff vs. Defendant) along with the addresses of record in the case. This is the information that will be printed on legal documents (including assignments).

On the right of the screen is the JC & JD Agreement Names, Statute of limitations, your % and the Creditor's %. These are all fields (excluding SOL) that print on the agreement document.

The JC & JD Agreement Names are required and are used in RecoveryPro to populate list boxes for searches and such.

This works like the debtor letter section of the debtor tab. You check the letters that you want to send to this creditor (primary creditor - Creditor #1). You then select the start date for the first letter and the number of days between the letters (or monthly). You then click on the 'Reset Dates' button. This will set the print dates and the review date for this account.

Of course, you can override these dates by entering your own dates.

You enter the current exam information in the first row. The exam will then appear on your Daily To Do List.

When the exam is done, you check the box 'Done' or 'Cancelled'. In some States, cancelling an exam allows you to apply for another one. By selecting cancel, this account will appear in your Daily To Do List screen as a possible debtor exam.

When you save the Account screen, the exam information will move down to the Old Exams section automatically (if you checked done or cancelled).

By checking the 'Marked' box and saving the account, you can use Mail Merge to create any documents that you may need for this exam.

The arrow is pointing at the manual letters that you set up in the Preferences Screen. You select the letter (document) that you want to print (the name and path will appear in the shaded labels where it says 'Document to Print'). Select the number of copies to print and click on 'Print' button.

At the bottom of the tab, there are four (4) buttons. The left one will print a report to a debtor showing all payments made on the account (you need to populate a Debtor Tab with a debtor. After doing so, the debtor's name appears to the left of this button. Select the Debtor's name to print the report).

This tab is showing the Debtor Payments tab. It shows the last three (3) payments made by the debtor. To see all payments made on the account, click on the 'View All Payments' button at the tab (marked with an arrow).

At the top of the Payment tab (just above the top arrow), there are a number of highlighted labels (look like text boxes). These show you the principal, interest, recovery fees, OJC fees, and court costs that is still owed by the debtor. There is also a field showing the current balance, Per Diem (daily interest due) and the date that interest is paid through. Under these fields there is a field labeled 'Note to Self'. This is were you can enter any notes related to payments (Example: Rebate 50% interest).

This is where you enter the date and the amount of payment made to the creditor. You can also enter payments that the creditor received prior to assignment (red arrow at bottom of tab). The purpose of being able to enter payments received by the creditor prior to assignment is so you can enter those debtor payments in order to keep interest accurate.

At the bottom right of the tab you can print a 'Pay As You Go' creditor statement (prints what is due on the account at the time of print). You can also print a statement for the creditor that shows all payments received on the account. The last one prints all amounts owed the creditor on all the creditor's accounts.

This is where you enter your court allowed expenses.

If you run out of lines, you may have to add up lines and make an entry like: Expenses 2008. If you do this, you should enter a date for the year that you are using so the expenses will be listed properly in your Statistics.

You need to save the record prior to using mail merge (records automatically save when you use the Non Scheduled Letters section of the account screen).

There are 8 'Other' fields on this screen. They can be merged into your documents. Since they are not user defined, you will have to make a note somewhere as to what each 'Other' is to be used for. 

Envelopes and blank letters to the Clerk and Sheriff are included in the 'Forms' folder (c:\RecoveryPro\Forms) that was installed with RecoveryPro. These forms are already mail merged to the Clerk and Sheriff table. You can create any form you want and use mail merge.

* Tip: You can set up a folder on your computer with envelopes and letters with your personal/family name and address for the return address and use this contact screen for personal contacts.

These include: 1) Check Landlord, 2) Late Payments, 3) Reviews, 4) Expiring SOL, 5) Last Date Worked, 6) Possible Debtor Exams, 7) Debtor Exams, 8) Possible Garnishments, 9) Garnishments, 10) Expiring Agreements, & 11) Verify Addresses

Phone numbers are searched only by the last 4 digits. This allows for entry of phone numbers using (555) 555 or 555-555 with or without spaces, dashes, etc. You can also type in a three number area code, etc.

All name searches use soundex algorithms to increase your chances of getting results based on different spellings or similar sounding names.