Maksuvahti

What is Maksuvahti?

Maksuvahti is a reminder and debt-collection service integrated into the Procountor software with automatic tracking of payments. With the service, you can collect your outstanding receivables efficiently and easily without damaging the customer relationship in spite of temporary payment difficulties. With Maksuvahti’s automatic payment tracking, you can automate payment reminders. Up-to-date reminders help ensure that the receivables are paid as quickly as possible.

The service is provided in cooperation with our partner Kravia Finland Oy and it is available directly through Procountor.

The full pricing and terms and conditions of Maksuvahti can be found here.

 

Information required before setting up the service

Before the set-up process of Maksuvahti, please ensure that:

• The following information has been added to the Management > Company info > Basic info -page:
  • Company ID
  • Street address (if a P.O. box is used, enter it in this field)
  • Postal code and city
• The following information has been added to the Management > Company info > Bank account information -page:
  • Active bank account
  • All active bank accounts have a BIC

 

Set-Up

1. The set-up starts in Procountor by selecting Maksuvahti (Kravia) from the collection partner menu under Management> Company info > Debt collection settings > Collection partner settings > Collection partner.

2. After this, start the set-up of Maksuvahti by clicking on the Save button at the top. In the set-up process, remember to read and accept the adding of API user (kravia.api) and the terms of use and fill out the requested company information, contact person information and customer identification information that Procountor automatically sends to Kravia Finland Oy.

You can also add your accountant information by activating a checkbox saying Add accountant?. This allows you to enter the name, company number and email address of the accountant, who will receive an invitation to access Kravia's portal in order to manage the debt collection cases.  

You can specify the company’s representative or, for example, the accountant as the contact person. This person does not have to be set up as a user of Procountor. More information about the importance of the contact person is in the following paragraph.

Know your customer questions can be skipped during the onboarding process, and answered later when the contract is signed. 

When completing the onboarding flow of Maksuvahti, the user is able to choose, whether they want to take the automatic transferring of overdue invoices into use at the same time.

3. When the information has been sent from Procountor, Kravia will continue the set-up. The contract person specified during set-up will have admin rights to Kravia’s customer portal, and Kravia will send them the agreement for signing.

The signature requires strong identification. If the contact person is not authorized to sign on behalf of the company, they must forward the agreement sent by Kravia to an authorized signatory. The contact person may also invite other persons, such as the accountant, to use the Kravia customer portal, in which case the accountant can manage debt collection on behalf of the company. If the accountant was specified as the contact person during set-up, they will gain direct access to Kravia’s customer portal without separate invitation.

4. After signing the contract, you can transfer invoices to Maksuvahti. If invoices are transferred to Maksuvahti before signing the contract, the invoices must be separately approved in Kravia's customer portal so that reminders and collection measures are initiated for the invoices in question.

5. If you wish, you can turn on automation to transfer unpaid invoices to Maksuvahti. See below for more information.

 

Reminder and acceptance settings in Maksuvahti

In Maksuvahti, you can decide whether to send one or two payment reminders for your unpaid invoices, as well as determine which steps require your separate approval before the process can proceed. By default, Maksuvahti sends one payment reminder and your approval is always required before any legal collection measures are initiated. If you wish, you may modify these settings.

To set your reminder and approval settings, go to Management > Company info > Debt collection settings > Collection partner settings > Payment reminder and additional settings for Maksuvahti. The section is shown, after the set-up of Maksuvahti. The onboarding of Maksuvahti takes a couple of minutes.  

Showing additional info on the payment reminder letter

• A setting Include additional info and product info to the payment reminder letter defines whether additional information and product information of the original invoice is shown on the payment reminder letter. 
  • When the setting is on, the additional information of the invoice as well as the names and comments of first ten products will be shown on the description of the payment reminder letter. Please note that only the first 1000 characters are shown on the letter. 

• A setting Include external invoice number to the payment reminder letter defines whether to include external invoice number to the payment reminder letter. The setting is on by default.  

Payment reminder and additional settings for Maksuvahti

• Send additional payment reminder: By default, Maksuvahti sends one payment reminder before a possible transfer to debt collection (= sending a debt collection letter). You can choose to use this option if you want Maksuvahti to send another payment reminder before a possible transfer to debt collection.
• By choosing Start cases straight from debt collection if enough reminders have been sent for the invoices from Procountor -option, the case for the overdue invoice is started from debt collection instead of payment reminder, if there have been enough reminders sent from Procountor for the overdue invoice, depending on, whether additional reminders have been taken into use or not. Therefore, if additional reminders have been taken into use and only one reminder has been sent from Procountor, the case will start from reminder and then continue to debt collection, if necessary.
• With the option Approve cases before sending payment demand, all receivables will be subject to your approval before a debt collection letter is submitted for the receivables. Kravia will send an email notification when the receivables are awaiting approval. By default, the email will be sent to the client’s specified contact email address. The approval is given in the Kravia customer portal.
• With the option Approve cases before starting legal collection, all receivables will be subject to your approval before legal collection measures are initiated for the receivables. Kravia will send an email notification when the receivables are awaiting approval. By default, the email will be sent to the client’s specified contact email address. The approval is given in the Kravia customer portal.
  • If you want to approve cases before starting legal collection, you must have Admin -rights in Kravia customer portal. The contract person specified during set-up will have admin rights to Kravia’s customer portal.

 

The settings can also be adjusted in Kravia's customer portal, in which case the information will also be automatically updated in Procountor.

When user enters Kravia’s portal, the language of the portal is the same as it is for Procountor, when it’s Finnish, English or Swedish. If the language of Procountor is some other, then the language in Kravia's portal is English. The language of Kravia's portal can be changed from the bottom left corner. 

 

Use of Maksuvahti

 

Automatically transferring invoices to Maksuvahti

To enable automation in Maksuvahti’s automatic collection settings, go to Management > Company info > Debt collection settings > Collection partner settings > Settings for automatic transferring to Maksuvahti > Use automatic transferring to Maksuvahti.

In Maksuvahti's automatic collection settings, you can configure Maksuvahti's automatic settings:

• The Use automatic transferring to Maksuvahti option determines whether automation is enabled or disabled. By default, the invoices of all customers are transferred automatically. If you want to disable the automatic transfer of invoices for some customers, you can do this in the Prevent automatic transferring section (see below).
• In the Minimum invoice amount field, you can enter the desired minimum amount for an invoice. Any invoices exceeding the amount fall within the scope of automation.
• In the Waiting time after the due date in days section, you can set a time limit for how soon after the due date unpaid invoices are automatically transferred to Maksuvahti from where the payment reminder is sent. You can specify a different period for receivables from companies and consumers. Receivables from companies are payments by customers whose invoice contains a Finnish, Swedish or Danish business ID. Receivables from other customers are treated as consumer receivables. By default, the fields contain minimum values in accordance with the law and good practice. When the automatic transfer is enabled, the invoice date does not affect the waiting period, unlike in manual transfers where the waiting time is calculated from the invoice date.
• In the Prevent automatic transferring section, you can select a business partner group whose invoices you do not want to transfer automatically to Maksuvahti. You can use an existing business partner group for this purpose or set up a new group. If you need to prevent the automation for several business partner groups, you can use a main group.

Only the invoices with a due date on or after the date on which the automatic transfer was enabled will be transferred automatically to Maksuvahti. Invoices that fell due before the automatic transfer was enabled must be manually sent to Maksuvahti using the payment reminder function. These invoices will not be automatically transferred to Maksuvahti.

EXAMPLE: The automatic transfer to Maksuvahti is enabled on September 20. The automatic transfer does not cover invoices that fell due on or before September 19. If you specified seven (7) days as the waiting period for receivables from companies and fourteen (14) days for receivables from consumers, the receivable from companies that are overdue on September 20 will be transferred to Maksuvahti on September 27 and the receivables from consumers on October 4.

When automation is enabled, invoices are automatically transferred to Maksuvahti when the conditions defined in the automation settings are met. Kravia takes care of payment reminders and the collection of the payment with regard to the transferred invoice. Kravia starts the collection process by sending a payment reminder. If the debtor does not act after receiving the payment reminders, the debt is sent to collections; in other words, Kravia sends a debt collection letter. You can monitor the progress of the debt collection in the Kravia customer portal.

Only invoices with the status Sent or Partly paid are covered by the automatic transfer. Financed invoices won't be sent to Maksuvahti by the automation. They can be sent manually if necessary.

Invoices for which you have sent a payment reminder in Procountor are not transferred automatically to Maksuvahti. However, you can transfer a receivable manually from the Payment reminder function to Maksuvahti for debt collection, even if you have already sent a payment reminder from Procountor.

Receivables that have been transferred to a different collection service provider are also not covered by the automatic transfer. This prevents targeting multiple collection measures at the same debtor.

 

Transferring invoices manually to Maksuvahti

A sales invoice can be transferred to Maksuvahti when:

• 14 days have passed since the invoice date and 7 days since the due date in intercompany invoicing
• 28 days have passed since the invoice date and 14 days since the due date in consumer invoicing

Receivables from companies are payments by customers whose invoice contains a Finnish, Swedish or Danish business ID. Receivables from other customers are treated as consumer receivables.

The overdue sales invoice is transferred to Maksuvahti in Procountor's Maksuvahti service view. The view is found from Receipt search > Payment reminder and collection > Maksuvahti service. 

You can also access the Maksuvahti service from the sales invoice by selecting Edit > Maksuvahti service.

• Next, select the invoices you want to transfer to the Maksuvahti from the checkbox to the left of the invoice. Invoices that are on a yellow background, are not possible to transfer to the Maksuvahti. By moving the cursor over such an invoice with a yellow background, the system will indicate the reason for blocking the transfer.

• When you have selected the invoices, click on the Transfer to Maksuvahti button.

• Procountor will ask you to confirm the transfer to Maksuvahti. The window shows how many invoices are being transferred to the service. The transfer is approved by selecting Confirm. 
• Seller's note is not transferred to Maksuvahti. The new note will replace any existing seller's notes on the invoice. If there are many invoices selected, the same seller's note is added to all of them.

After the transfer, Kravia takes care of payment reminders and the collection of the payment with regard to the transferred invoice. Kravia starts the collection process by sending a payment reminder. If the debtor does not act after receiving the payment reminders, the debt is sent to collections; in other words, Kravia sends a debt collection letter. You can monitor the progress of the debt collection in the Kravia customer portal.

However, if you transfer an invoice to Maksuvahti after sending a payment reminder from Procountor, the process always starts with the sending of a debt collection letter. Information of the debt collection expenses related to previous payment reminders are sent to Kravia, and Kravia continues to collect the collection costs related to these previous payment reminders. In this case, the collection cost limits regarding the previously sent payment reminders must be taken into account. The cost item is created in Procountor on the basis of the collection cost product:

• EUR 12 for intercompany receivables.
• EUR 5 for consumer receivables.

An invoice can only be transferred to Maksuvahti if the collection costs related to earlier payment reminders do not exceed these limits. These limits represent the total of costs that would be transferred to Maksuvahti with the invoice. The number of reminders is not limited.

EXAMPLE 1: Two payment reminders have been sent to a company from Procountor, and the collection cost in each was EUR 5. When this receivable is transferred to Maksuvahti, the collection costs total EUR 10, which does not exceed the collection cost limit specified for intercompany receivables (EUR 12). If the collection cost per invoice were EUR 8, the total of costs would be EUR 16, which is above the limit. Kravia cuts the costs from this receivable in accordance with the collection costs limit.

EXAMPLE 2: Three payment reminders have been sent to a consumer from Procountor without a debt collection fee. This receivable can be transferred to Maksuvahti, because the total of debt collection costs is EUR 0, and the cost limit for consumer receivables (EUR 5) is not exceeded.

 

Channels for Sending Payment Reminders and debt collection letters

Kravia sends reminders for business receivables based on the following logic:

1. If the debtor’s e-invoice address is included with the invoice, the reminder is sent as an e-invoice.
2. If there is no e-invoice address, the reminder is sent by email, provided the email address is on the invoice.
3. If there is no email address either, the reminder is sent by post.

In Kravia’s collection system it is possible to configure the system to skip step 1 and force the reminder to be sent by email or post. This setting can be activated through Kravia’s customer service.

Payment demands for business receivables are always sent by post to ensure they reach the debtor (e.g., if the reminder was sent as an e-invoice, but the e-invoice address is no longer in use). 

For consumer receivables, the debt collection law requires that reminders and debt collection letters be sent by post. However, the consumer debtor can give written consent to the collection agency to use electronic delivery methods, but the consent is valid for a maximum of 12 months, after which it must be renewed.

For business and consumer receivables, an email notification will also be sent to the debtor regarding the first payment demand sent by mail, provided that the debtor’s email address is known to Kravia.

 

Things to consider when transferring invoice to the Maksuvahti

• Invoices with missing address information cannot be transferred to the Maksuvahti. Address information is required for debt collection, as some debt collection letters must be sent by post. The recipient of the invoice should be added to the customer register along with the address information.
  • If the invoice does not have the address information, the invoice recipient’s information must be added to the customer register. The invoices can then be targeted to the customer in question, in which case the customer’s address information will be transferred with the invoice. Instructions for allocating invoices to a business partner can be found here.
• If an overdue invoice has attachments that combined with the invoice image exceed the limit of 30 MB, only the invoice image is transferred to Maksuvahti. If the invoice image happens to be over 30 MB, the invoice image is not transferred at all. Kravia will contact the creditor if the invoice image or relevant attachments are missing from an invoice, so that they can be imported to the debt collection case in their portal later. 
  Even if an invoice has large attachments (over 30 MB), the invoices get transferred to Maksuvahti, but without the attachments.  
• If a new due date is given to an invoice in the invoice's Special situations -view, that will be transferred to Maksuvahti instead of the original due date of the invoice. Please note that the due date cannot be changed after the invoice has been transferred to Maksuvahti.

 

Monitoring of receivables transferred to Maksuvahti and performing actions

After activating the service, you will receive an email from Kravia with instructions for registering in Kravia's customer portal. In the customer portal, you can monitor the status of receivables transferred to Maksuvahti and perform actions on the receivables. For example, you can stop or suspend debt collection and accept the initiation of legal collection for the receivables in the customer portal. Later, we will develop additional features that make it possible to see the status of receivables and the measures taken directly in Procountor.

Kravia will send an email notification when your approval or other measures are required. You can perform the required actions in Kravia's customer portal.

You can log in to Kravia's customer portal here.

Instructions for using Kravia's customer portal can be found here (in Finnish).

 

Maksuvahti service view

• Maksuvahti service view is found from:

  • Receipt Search > Payment reminder and collection > Maksuvahti service.
  • Under Seach > Maksuvahti service.
  • Button on the Cash and ledger tracking widget.
  • Button on the Open sales invoices widget.

• You can also access to the view directly from the sales invoice by selecting edit > Maksuvahti service:

• All these options will display the same invoices that you would find in the Open sales invoices search navigation view with these exceptions:
  • Only invoices with a positive sum are displayed.
  • Only invoices whose due date has passed are shown. 

Please note that due to these exceptions, there might be invoices in the Open sales invoice widget that aren't shown in the Maksuvahti view. 

Maksuvahti service view:

• View shows, which overdue invoices have not yet been transferred to Maksuvahti and what is the debt collection status of the invoices that have already been transferred. Read here how to transfer invoices to the Maksuvahti.

Invoices transferred to Maksuvahti

• Table shows the basic information of the invoice (name, company ID, invoice no...)
• Open amount - column tells about the latest information about the open amount. The information is updated with the account statement.
• Transferred to Maksuvahti -column tells the day when the invoice was transferred to the Maksuvahti service.
• A red mark indicates a situation where you are required to take action in Kravia's portal.
• In the Debt collection status -column, you can see at what stage the debt collection is progressing. By pressing the invoice collection status, the info view opens.
• If user has transferred an invoice to Maksuvahti and it turns out that an invoice with the same invoice number is already found from Kravia’s portal, the Debt collection status of the invoice mentions this by saying: There is already a case found for the invoice number from Kravia’s portal. This situation can be caused by the same invoice being entered to Kravia's portal manually. 

 

Debt collection status info view

• The Debt collection status info popup opens by selecting the debt status of the invoice that has been transferred to Maksuvahti.
• The popup shows for example the invoice actions from Procountor and the debt collection actions from Kravia.
• There is also a direct link to the debt collection case for an easier navigation to Kravia's portal, if the case for example needs an approval.  

 

Please note regarding Maksuvahti

• In the Maksuvahti set-up process, Procountor automatically creates an API user named kravia.api under Management > Users and user rights (new). As the kravia.api user is required for the use of Maksuvahti, please do not delete the user.
• You can send invoices to Maksuvahti with all currencies. 

• Invoices that have been transferred to Maksuvahti cannot be changed to the unfinished state.

• If an invoice has been sent as an e-invoice, this information is sent to Kravia when that invoice is transferred to Maksuvahti. 
• If an invoice that is transferred to Maksuvahti has been created in an external system, then the original number of the invoice will be show on the payment reminder letter. 
• Invoices that are over 3 years old can be transferred to Maksuvahti, but the cases won’t be started automatically. Kravia’s customer service will contact the customer about too old invoices. Invoices that are over 6 years old cannot be transferred at all.

• In case a payment has been mistakenly allocated to an invoice, which has already been transferred to Maksuvahti, and you wish to remove that payment, you must also contact Kravia's customer service about it. Removing the payment from Procountor doesn't get informed to Kravia.

• If the open sum of the invoice that is transferred to Maksuvahti is less than 1 EUR, the case is not started for it automatically, as the sum is so small. The invoice can be started manually from Kravia's portal. Small invoices can be used for combining multiple cases for the same debtor.  

• Kravia handles business receivables as consumer receivables if the transferred invoice to Maksuvahti doesn't hold information of debtor's business id. Consumer receivables' timelines for reminder- and collection actions are longer than for business receivables. Hence, collecting the debt will be slower. It is recommended to add the business ids of your customers to the Customer register and create invoices by including the information from the register to ensure that the collection of business receivables is done within shorter timelines.

 

Processing credit notes

Credit notes for invoices transferred to Maksuvahti are created in the usual way and the information does not need to be submitted to Maksuvahti separately as Procountor automatically sends the information to Kravia.

 

Batch payments

Users of Maksuvahti can start using batch payments feature from Kravia.  

• This means that Kravia marks the invoices paid on the same day as they're paid to them, so that users don't need to wait for the bank statement to arrive to see the overdue invoices as paid. 
• This is useful for those, who use for example monthly bank statements, so they don’t need to wait too long to see the invoices getting payments. 

Kravia sends the information about the paid invoices as daily journals. 

• Kravia try to detect the correct accounts for the payments that were made for the invoices by matching the payments with the transactions of the original invoices.  
• The daily total will be added to a default account of 1719 Myyntisaamiset, perintä. 
• PDF attachments is added to the journal to give clarity of the different payments that the batch contains. 

The incoming bank statements can be matched with the accounting by using the Bank statement posting defaults. 

• The new default posting for bank statements can be done on the name "Kravia Finland Oy" and the default account can be a new account "1719 Myyntisaamiset, perintä" 
  • If you want to use some other default account, you must update it for the company also in Kravia's portal in Clients > Edit > Payment and bookkeeping > Bank deposit. 

 

Payments to forwarded invoices

If unpaid sales invoices that have already been sent to Maksuvahti are subject to payment transactions in Procountor, the payment information will be automatically sent to Kravia.

 

Settlement of reveivables paid

Kravia settles the cash transactions received for its assignments as reference payments, and these will be automatically allocated to the invoice in Procountor’s accounts ledger.

 

How to terminate the service?

You can stop using Maksuvahti by changing the collection partner to Ropo or by leaving the collection partner field empty. 

• An agreement on the use of the service is made with Kravia Finland oy. Termination of the service is done by terminating the agreement with Kravia by contacting Kravia's customer service.
• If you have any open invoice cases sent to Maksuvahti, it is highly recommended to remove the API, Maksuvahti (kravia.api) user only after the cases are closed to avoid manual handling of cases. 
• You can remove the API, Maksuvahti (kravia.api) user from the Management > Users and privileges. After the user is removed, the Maksuvahti wont't be able to update information for invoices in Procountor. 

You can return to using  the Maksuvahti by selecting it again as a collection partner in the Collection partner settings. 

• During the re-onboarding Maksuvahti, it is checked that all the necessary technical requirements, such as API key, are either found or created, if not found.  
• You don't need to go through the full onboarding flow, when re-enabling Maksuvahti, so if some information, such as company name or bank account number, has been changed, be in contact with Kravia's customer service to update that information.