Case Exercise: 1. What problems with business processes and information do you feel occur in the current payment processing system at Reliable Finance?

Problems with the current payment processing system include: a. Late and missing payment matters are causing a great deal of clerical overhead. b. About 30% of the payments are made in-person to the Branch, and these payments must be APR’d to the Home Office, causing delays in posting these payments to the Outstanding Loans File in the Home Office. c. About 50% of the payments are mailed to the Branch, and these payments must also be APR’d to the Home Office, causing delays in posting these payments to the Outstanding Loans File. d. The rest of the payments (around 20%) are made to the Home Office, and this creates problems in tracing the loan payment to the appropriate loan account. When payments are made to the Home Office, they need to be APR’d to the branch. Sometimes, unidentified payments are mailed to the wrong Branch, triggering more clerical work and error detection. e. Many clerical people at the Branches are involved in maintaining the local database, pulling voucher copies, recording payments, and making out APR’s. f. The delays in posting payments to the central Outstanding Loans file sometimes cause overdue payment reminders to be sent to customers who have already paid on their accounts. This causes additional clerical work in answering questions and tracing payments. g. It is difficult to follow-up on delinquent payments, since the existing bottlenecks make it difficult to isolate the loans which are legitimately delinquent. h. Bottlenecks and delays in payment processing complicate cash flow, and it is difficult to identify revenues on a timely basis.

2. What changes in process and information flow are needed to improve the payment processing