Access to the Collections Window is provided when you click on the COLL tool bar item which is located on the Primary window we reviewed last month. The body of the window contains five distinct areas.

• Student - ECSI has provided the capability to send an invoice statement to any address that exists in the Windows version of SAL. This area identifies demographic information pertaining to a borrower and all addresses that have been flagged to receive a bill. Examples of the above are parents, business organizations, etc. The prior or next record will display when you click on the left and right arrow keys.
• References - All loan cosigners, employers and references will display in this area.
• Special Memo - This area allows you to input, display and delete a memo you want to display each time the borrower's account is accessed. Notations such as "do not call before 3:00" and "works for the IRS" would be input in this area to alert the collector to take a specific course of action.
• Loan Summary - This area contains specific details for each loan and a "total" line at the bottom which summarizes all dollar fields. A numeric value appears below BAC to indicate the (B)illing address, (A)CH data and (C)osigner data that is associated with a loan. The loan status, payment distribution priority code, collector code, special code, original loan amount, balance, payoff and total amount now due are also displayed when you access the borrower's account.
  
  This window allows you to use the Scroll Bar to view additional loan data. In the DOS application, this information had to be summarized due to a restriction of 80 characters per line. We now have included the display of each due fields that may be accruing (interest, agency, letter, in-house, etc.) and the attributes that are currently displayed in the loan information section of the Account Information Screen such as the last credit bureau reporting status, interest rate and last payment date.
• Memos - All comments that were input by a collector are displayed in this area. When you click on Add Memo, a window displays descriptions for 24 types of comments you are allowed to enter. You may input as many lines as you wish after you select the type of memo you want to add.
  
  The Scroll Bar located on the right side of the window is used to display additional lines of text that exist. If more than 50 lines of text exist, the Next Memo button will be highlighted. The next 50 lines will display when you click on the button. Prev Memo is highlighted whenever the remaining number of text lines is less than 50. This button will allow you to view the previous 50 lines which were displayed. Our memo area can hold up to 9999 lines of memos.
  
  The third line on the screen, which is called the Tool Bar, contains push buttons which allow you to access other windows while you are in the Collection Window. The features you can access are:
• Left Arrow - Displays the account that is prior to the one which is currently being displayed in the window.
• Srch - Allows you to locate a borrower by name, maiden name, social security number, student ID number and prior student ID number. You may also find a cosigner by name or ID number and identify accounts that have been archived.
• N/A - Is the button you will push to perform name and address changes. This button also displays all previous address changes, references, cosigners and employers.
• History - Provides a summary of all payments that were posted in date order. When you access History from the Primary window, you can see the amount of a payment that was applied to each individual loan. This window contains a Scroll Bar which allows you to identify the amount of the check that was applied to principal, interest and each fee field in summary form for all loans.
• Forms - Is used when you want to print account and collection profiles, exit interviews and Form 553.
• Review (tickler file) - Displays accounts in a pre-determined order which requires additional follow-up. Accounts are displayed only for the collector or operator code you input when you initiate the review process.
• Rn/Rs/Forecast - The reschedule (Rs) or temporary payment plan allows you to revise the amount a borrower pays for a specific number of months. When you renegotiate (Rn) a repayment plan, a window appears which allows you to determine the amount and number of months that will be required to pay interest and fees, past due monies and to pay a loan in full. The forecast feature allows you to input the date you expect to receive a payment and the system computes the amount the borrower will be required to pay, and/or the payoff for that day.
• Setup/Assign - Provides the capability to add, change, delete and display collector attributes and assign, change or delete accounts to in-house collectors or outside agencies.
• Letters - Allows the collector to generate and print collection letters. The capabilities are similar to the ones that currently exist in the Document Writer screens.
  
  The Collection Window probably ranks second in terms of the most frequently used component of the SAL system. The procedures employed to collect monies due on delinquent accounts vary by school and, as a result, ECSI has added several enhancements over the years to accommodate user requests. The window you see here has proven to be a valuable tool in assisting schools to meet their debt reduction goals. However, we view the release of the new Windows system as an opportunity to implement additional features that have been on the drawing board for quite some time. Some of the ideas under consideration are:
• Allow the user to input a value in the phone code field which will automatically assess a charge for the telephone call.
• Identify the number of accounts that are in the review file each day for a collector by category (promise to pay, bad address, etc.) and allow the collector to choose which category he/she wants to review.
• Allow users to reschedule/renegotiate a specific loan.
• Sort daily review accounts in various orders: dollars due, months delinquent, social security number or alpha order.

New Internet Services

Since the User's Conference in April, ECSI has been working on several fronts to enhance communications with our clients. Many of the efforts have focused on additions to our Internet services.

The ECSI web site (www.ecsi.net) has been completely redesigned. We have added technical issues, contact pages, newsletters, a new beta program and more. Several pages of links to other sites are now available including the Year 2000 pages which we promised at the conference. All of the technical pages contain a survey so that you can tell us how useful the information was to you. Keep an eye on the Updates section where you will find all of the recent modifications to the site. Also, don't miss the Open Letter from ECSI management which explains why the web site was redesigned.

We've installed a new Internet server which is capable of serving more users concurrently than our previous software. The FTP now supports resumed transfers. If a transmission fails in the middle, the transfer can be restarted where it left off, thereby saving you time.

Our new server enables us to use varying levels of security. Each client should have been contacted by now and assigned a User ID and a Password which is required to access the download areas. This protects your data from being misappropriated or, even worse, modified or erased by unauthorized parties. We can all sleep better now that your data is more secure.

We are working on several additional services that will facilitate communications with our clients. A Conference Server (or NetNews server) will be beta tested next month. It will allow many threaded discussions to take place. The best feature is that these discussions are recorded and can be made available to others. Hopefully, everyone can benefit from our shared experiences.

Some of our more technically-savvy clients have asked about on-line communications to ECSI in the form of NetMeeting or IRC. NetMeeting is a Microsoft product that facilitates real-time conferencing. It has some of the features of Remotely Possible but much more. IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat and is known for the "chat rooms" that you hear so much about. It is just a means for two or more users to communicate over the Internet in real-time. Each of these are being evaluated.

In this article we've tried to give you a brief look at the changes and additions to our Internet services. More details are available at our web site. As new features and resources become available, you can read about them in full detail on the web site. Happy Surfing!

Site Map

When you access the ECSI Home Page on the Internet, you are provided with a list of links on the left side with names such as Home, Products, Students, etc. This set of links is synonymous to the chapters of a book. And, just like a book (I'm talking about a real book... not the kind you can finish in 3 hours) there may be several topics contained within a chapter. If you are looking for some specific information on our web site, such as "Common Printing Errors", it may take you a while to figure out the chapter in which this topic is located. An easier approach is to click on the "Site Help" link and then click on "Sitemap" to locate your topic.

Account Access on the Net

ECSI is pleased to announce the availability of a new feature for our service clients after the billing calc is performed on August 31, 1998. All billing statements and coupons will contain information that will allow a borrower to access the status of their account via the Internet. The type of data that appears on a page is the borrower's name, address, telephone number and date of birth. Also shown for each loan is the original loan amount, balance, current amount due, payoff amount, months delinquent, last payment information (date, amount, check number) and account status (grace, repayment, deferred, etc.). The student loan database is updated every morning at 4:00 am.

Our primary concern before we undertook this venture was security. Other servicers use a student's demographic information as the method to validate a student's login ID. We rejected this approach because anyone who knows you well enough would also know your address and birth date. ECSI has elected to use a more secure method of access to a borrower's financial information by assigning a Personal Identification Number (PIN). The PIN is located on the part of the bill that is kept by the borrower. To successfully access the information a borrower must provide a school code, account number and the PIN number.

As more and more borrowers gain access to the Internet we hope they will use the student loan database, instead of the phone, to answer questions they may have regarding the status of their account. We are already thinking about future uses for this site such as allowing borrowers to request forms (deferment, postponement, forbearance, etc.) and the display of an amortization schedule for all loans. Of course, regardless of the procedures we have implemented to ensure the site is secure, we anticipate we will receive requests from some borrowers to remove their information. ECSI will accommodate these requests.

Is Windows 98/NT in your future?

The most widely used operating system for personal computers for many years was a product called MS-DOS. Then, in 1996, Microsoft released two new operating systems called Windows 95 and Windows NT. The windows operating systems allow you to open several applications at the same time which, in turn, leads to increased productivity.

The version of SAL you are currently using is an MS-DOS product. Microsoft still allows you to execute a DOS application even though you are using the windows operating system. Each time they release a new product upgrade, they eliminate some of the functions that work in DOS. When this occurs, ECSI must modify its software so that it will continue to work when you install a new operating system on your computer.

Windows 95 required only a few minor programming changes. If, however, you are thinking about purchasing a Windows NT workstation (computer) you will need a new set of programs from ECSI. Also be aware that you can only use one version (95 or NT) of the software in your environment. This means that ALL workstations must either use the 95 or the NT operating system.

To summarize, we request any client considering an upgrade to Windows NT on their workstation to contact ECSI prior to the upgrade. We will be happy to provide you with the software you will need to make your migration as smooth as possible. One of our service clients has upgraded to Windows 98 and has not encountered any problems. We are currently testing the 98 version and we recommend you notify us before you switch to this operating system to see if we have any negative results to report.

The Want Ads

Three months ago one of my co-workers placed a two-page document on my desk and asked me to review it. It was the first draft of a monthly newsletter we were going to start sending to our clients to keep them abreast of the progress we were making on the Windows version of our software. I read it, did some editing, made some suggestions on things we should add... and now all of a sudden all the e-mail you send to our staff asking when the next newsletter will be available are being forwarded to me!

Heard it on the Street

At the COHEAO mid-year conference, which was help on August 9-11 in Chicago, the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 generated a lot of discussion. IRS regulations have not yet been finalized, however, an issue relating to the student loan interest deductibility is creating much concern for student loan administrators.

As you know, the deduction is allowed for interest paid during the first 60 months of repayment. And, that period would be extended for any months a loan was deferred. Since the borrower continues to pay interest during a hardship deferment, it would seem logical that this deferment type would not extend the 60-month period and the interest paid during the tax year would be reported.

Well, under the proposed regulations a hardship deferment would also extend the 60-month term but any interest payments that were made during the hardship period would not be deductible. Imagine trying to explain to a borrower why $200 of the total $700 interest payments she made was during the hardship period and, as a result, she does not qualify for the deduction because the $500 she is allowed to use is less than the $600 threshold!

From the Programmers Desk

Cohort - In prior years you have been able to identify whether a borrower is in this or next year's cohort by analyzing the principal begin date. This is no longer the case. Federal regulations require us to provide the borrower with a new grace period whenever a student deferment interrupts the original grace period. The true principal begin date that is used for cohort computations is the end date on a 9-month "GD" transaction which follows the deferment.

Deferment transactions are analyzed on a Perkins loan when you change the separation date, post or delete a new deferment and exit a borrower to determine the current principal begin date for cohort purposes. Loan types are displayed in "green" and "yellow" on the Account Information, Cash and Collection screens to identify whether it belongs in this or next year's cohort. When these colors are displayed and the principal begin date does not fall within the range used for cohort (7/97 - 6/98), the stop cohort field contains a value which provides the reason. A "C" code indicates a student deferment was posted in a prior year which interrupted the original grace and now the account belongs in this year's cohort calculation. On the other hand, when you see a value of "D", this means a deferment interrupted the original grace and caused the account to be removed from this year's cohort calculation.

Deferment After Postponement - Federal regulations allow monies due that accrue during a period of postponement to be deferred on loan types "PER23" and "PER24". In addition, the borrower is also entitled to a six-month post-deferment grace period. ECSI allows you to fulfill this regulatory requirement by changing the end date on postponement. Suppose, for example, in July you posted a 15% teacher cancellation postponement for the period 7/98 - 7/99. Then, in December you are notified the borrower is no longer teaching. Using the F3-Change feature on the DEF/CANC/POST screen, you would change the end date on the postponement to 1/99. The system will automatically post a post-deferment grace transaction from 1/00 to 7/99, which would make the next payment due in July, 1999. You will also be prompted to remove "dues" when you use this procedure.

Look vs. Notepad - All Windows 95 and NT workstations provide the capability to display and edit text files using an application called Notepad. Currently when you view a report on-line, we show it to you using a software application called Look.com. Look may not display the last line of a page, and it only shows you 20 additional characters when you have to move to the left or right on a page. Some of the differences between Notepad and Look are 90 characters of text are displayed instead of 80, 34 lines of a page are displayed instead of 23, and scroll bars allows you to move left, right, up and down. Both applications highlight the item you are seeking when you perform a search.

We began to investigate Notepad as an alternative to Look when we learned that Windows NT users could not load and view the monthly reports we send to them on a diskette. Notepad solved this problem, and we are now making this functionality available to any user who wants to view their special diskette and reports you execute from the Monthly Runs Menu with this application. A field with the label "View Option" has been added to the first page of the School Profile screen. Enter NOTEPAD in the field, log off, and then log back on to SAL to activate this feature.

E-Mail - As we expand our Internet offerings, it becomes much more important that we have an e-mail address for at least one person at each school. Please ensure that ECSI has current e-mail address information for all SAL users.

Your Response is Requested - The regulations for accounts being placed with a collection agency are very clear. The account must be closed and returned after 365 days and placed with a second agency unless it is paid, in the process of paying or litigated. A collection agency code stops all billing and if the collection agency is not collecting on the account, it will probably never pay.

ECSI is concerned about the number of accounts that are being left with a collection agency way beyond the 365 day limit. So, we looked at one of our larger service schools and found there were 513 accounts which had no activity in a year or more. You can perform your own analysis by looking at your Report 9 (RPT-9.RPT). It identifies the date the account was placed, number of days since it was placed and the date and amount of the last payment.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. Which e-mail address should I use depending on the question or problem I have?
A. Following is a list of all e-mail addresses and their associated area of responsibility.

Beta test users for Windows version

Questionnaire

On page 6 we mentioned to e-mail Jim McDonald about the collection agency issue that was discussed. For our customers who do not have the capability of e-mail, please fill out the questionnaire on the following page and return to ECSI. Thank you. (ed. only included in the hardcopy version of the newsletter.)