Collection-Master does not support encryption, nor will it in the foreseeable future. Collection-Master is an “application software”, similar to Word or WordPerfect. Those applications store documents, and Collection-Master stores data.
The application software level is not the best place in the data chain to encrypt data. Encryption should occur at the Server or Operating System (OS) level. Encrypting at the software level only encrypts that single application’s data. Encrypting at the Server or OS level encrypts all the data.
As a Collection-Master user, only encrypt data by using additional encryption hardware and/or software that works at the Server or OS level. Different solutions offer various “types” of encryption. CLS strongly recommends that you consult your local system support company or IT professional to pursue encryption to meet your client’s particular needs.
Software-only encryption solutions will definitely have a negative impact on overall system performance. A server running such software takes time to encrypt/restore all the data. As such, you will likely notice a response time degradation, depending on the software or server. A hardware-based solution such as an encrypted disk, minimizes the performance impact. Consider hardware solutions even though they may cost more.
Because it is impossible for CLS to test every possible encryption solution out there, exercise caution, and ensure that you are fully and redundantly backed up before instituting encryption. You should permanently retire more than one pre-encryption backup. Increase your backup frequency, as well as the number of backups in your rotation soon after you institute encryption.
For your backup solutions, consider a different encryption strategy from that of the server to meet clients “data at rest” requirements.
Finally, Collection-Master uses the local disk in each workstation for storage of temporary data. As such, you may have to encrypt certain files stored on the local hard drive. Another encryption strategy in addition to the Server and the backup strategy may be necessary for the data on your workstations.
CLS and Q-Soft are pleased to announce the signing of a Strategic Agreement to co-develop the next generation of legal case management software. Company Presidents Kurt Sund of Q-Soft and Stevan Goldman of CLS made the formal announcement at the recently concluded NARCA trade show in Washington, DC.
Each company enjoys well-earned reputations as successful solutions providers in the collections industry and the next generation will reflect the “best of breed” from each company’s flagship software systems. While co-development is underway, it will be business as usual for all existing Q-Soft and CLS customers, with no interruption in service, support or ongoing software enhancements.
CLS and YGC hosted their 2013 Summer Picnic on July 9th at Yogi Berra Stadium, which is on the campus of Montclair State University in Upper Montclair, New Jersey. Yogi Berra stadium is home to the New Jersey Jackals, a minor league baseball team in the Can-Am (Canadian - American) league.
Not only was the joint-company picnic a huge success, the Jackals won Tuesday night’s game. Leading by one in the bottom half of the seventh, the New Jersey Jackals piled on four runs to pull away in an eventual 9-2 win against first-place Quebec.
YCG and CLS friends and family enjoyed the camaraderie at one of two private picnic grounds at the stadium. Chicken, fries, hotdogs, burgers, wine, beer and soft drinks along with an entertaining baseball game made for a great time; especially since those “30% chance of thunderstorm” predictions never even threatened to appear. Several of the kids retrieved foul balls and some of them even got autographs too.
Because this evening was so enjoyable, both companies plan on repeating the event in 2014; however, next year’s CLS / YGC picnic will be held on a Saturday to coincide with the fireworks that the New Jersey Jackals put on after every Saturday night home game.
The CLS marketing team traveled to Las Vegas, Nevada for the National Association of Retail Collection Attorneys (NARCA) conference in mid-May. NARCA is a trade association dedicated to serving law firms representing clients in matters relating to legal debt collection. The 2013 Spring Collection Conference featured three days of professional education. Sessions were geared for attorneys whose practice includes the legal collection of consumer debt. The NARCA Collection Conferences provides the forum to meet with qualified prospects in the legal collection field, attend exceptional educational programs and the opportunity to network.
In addition to local, state, and federal laws and State Bar Association licensing and certification, NARCA law firms are required to adhere to the NARCA Code of Professional Conduct and Ethics. NARCA’s mission is to preserve and enhance the integrity and viability of legal collections. NARCA’s values are Professionalism, Ethics and Responsibility.
Congratulations to CLS’s clients who received awards at the NARCA conference, including :
Frederick J. Hanna & Associates, PC
Hull & Associates
Olcese Weber & Olcese, P.L.C.
Gurstel Chargo P.A.
Finkelstein, Kern, Steinberg & Cunningham
Roosen, Varchetti & Olivier, PLLC
Woods Oviatt Gilman LLP
From Machol & Johannes, LLC with CLS’s Luis Gomez are Randy Johannes and Jacques Machol Sr. This is the award they received from Cavalry.
Starting May off on the right foot, three members of our CLS staff - John Currey, Vice President of Application Development, Luis I. Gomez, Vice President of R & D, and development engineer John Bowman – have attended the 2013 Business Rules! Group Conference in Boston, Massachusetts. The Business Rules! Group, Inc., commonly referred to as the BRGroup, is an organization which helps developers of the Business Rules! language accomplish their goals. Business Rules! is the de facto programming language used by traditional programmers in the modern world, encouraging a comprehensive integration between old and new technologies. The BR! Programming Language, like many others, is comprised of Statements, Functions, Commands, Variables, Logic, and Data and is the foundation that Collection-Master is built upon.
CLS recognizes the importance of continuing education, which can better prepare our developers for growing in the future. By expanding the knowledge of our development team, we are then able to fine tune our programming skills and encourage a smoother, more rounded form of productivity. With the new tools absorbed from this conference, CLS will be able to create an even more sophisticated, bug-free program that will transition automatically to your collection needs.
In the new world of security concerns and compliance, our industry is tightening procedures for everyone’s protection, including your office, your employees and consumers alike. For this reason, CLS has tightened our support services.
In the event that your Software is in need of support, we are more than happy to help! However, we must follow the terms of your original Support Agreement. We ask each of our customers to designate Support Coordinators for your safety, as well as the privacy of your clients.
We cannot provide assistance to anyone not listed on your current Support Agreement. If your Coordinator wishes to temporarily authorize us to speak with another employee, we require written authorization from one of the original designated Coordinators.
Remember, the more information that you present to us, the quicker our problem-solving process can assist you. Our objective is that, through customer support, we can assist your needs simply and quickly. We hope that if your designated Support Coordinator(s) needs to contact us, that they receive adequate help as well as customer satisfaction.
Any further questions, please contact our receptionist and we can assist you.
Phone: 800-435-7257 ext. 0 or 973-575-5646
Fax: 781-207-0219 (received through eFax service)
Email: Support@collectionsoftware.com
From May 15 - 17, the state’s legal community will come together at the New Jersey State Bar Association’s Annual Meeting and Convention at the Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa in Atlantic City.
A wide range of prominent legal experts and industry professionals will speak at this event; among them will be Stevan Goldman, President of CLS, who will present the topic of Law Office Automation on May 16. He will explain how law office automation provides more than just speed and efficiency to a collection office; automation software also monitors processes in an effort to keep everyone in compliance with changing laws and regulations as well as client requirements.
This will be the largest meeting in the history of the New Jersey State Bar Association. Roughly, 1,900 judges, lawyers, law clerks and law students are expected to attend.
As of February 15, 2013, our newest CLS product offering is ImageMaster™! This powerful software program, formally available from Fillimerica Inc., converts paper documents into electronic images, maintains an index file of the documents, and once requested, quickly retrieves the document for viewing, printing and/or e-mailing. The ImageMaster™ program is capable of scanning and storing vast numbers of documents quickly and efficiently, thus increasing office productivity, reducing the need for physical storage, and saving both time and money.
More great news is that Thomas (Tom) Filliman, the original creator and developer of ImageMaster™ has joined our CLS development team. With Tom’s expertise and the full resources of our customer support, testing and development departments, ImageMaster™ will continue to be the premier document management solution.
Stay tuned for more information next week.
CLS — Here for the Long Term
Over 35 Years of Evolution
CLS has been partnering with collection professionals for over 35 years. We work tirelessly to offer the best solutions to your problems. The evolution of Collection-Master is astounding. In its first iteration, Stevan Goldman programmed an IBM 5110 mini computer to store all clerk information and then cut cost checks using a dot matrix printer.
Stevan was working in his father’s collection law firm at the time. One of his many responsibilities was to write out the cost checks by hand. In 1977, his father’s checks had five layers. He had to press really hard with a ball point pen to ensure that all five layers were imprinted with the check’s information. At several hundred checks a month, Stevan’s hands began to hurt. He was able to foresee that an investment in technology would greatly decrease human error, free up time, bring higher levels of efficiency to his father’s practice, and most of all, ease his hand cramps. By his own admission, Stevan was trying to make his own job easier.
It was not long after he implemented a new cost check cutting procedure into the office that his full time job became to continuously enhance the efficiency of legal collections and ethical recoveries. It was a revolutionary change. Stevan and his father worked together to create a custom computer system to increase productivity in the office. Once other collection attorneys caught wind of what Stevan was doing for his father’s practice, CLS was born.
Proven Record of Industry Leadership
Since that day, Stevan and the dedicated folks at CLS have constantly been enhancing Collection-Master to meet the ever changing needs of our industry. Collection-Master was the first collection software to fully integrate with WordPerfect, first collection software to be fully functional on Novell Netware, first to provide EDI capabilities, first to support multiple trust and cost accounts, first to be YGC compatible, first to offer fully integrated credit bureau interfaces, first with a point-and-shoot report generator, first with fully integrated document imaging, and continues to stay at the cutting edge of our industry. From check printing to AutoPost, from green bar paper to the Paperless File, Collection-Master is an ever changing product dedicated to solving the problems of the legal collections industry.
Our new Collection-Master 8.1 release is our most exciting yet. As we have done so many times in the past 35 years, we are revolutionizing the collections industry again. We are releasing a suite of features that will have as much of an impact on your office today as the dot matrix printer had in 1977. From EDI Automation to Outlook Integration, we are increasing efficiency, reducing human error, and improving work flow.
Come to the 2012 CLS User Meeting on August 13th and 14th to learn about our new release, hone your Collection-Master skills, collaborate with colleges in the industry, and to celebrate with the CLS staff. Please call our receptionist to confirm your registration!
A Trendy Industry
In recent years, the best practices policies tell us that all debtor interactions must be monitored. This can be a powerful management tool if used correctly. Best practices policies say that we monitor all interactions between the debtors and us in an effort to appraise our employees with regards to their effectiveness, to allow the clients to appraise us in the same light, and to maintain relevant records and evidence in order to protect ourselves. Because the regulators regulate our innovative methods, the attitude towards collections has become increasingly hostile.
It is no secret that the climate of our industry is centered around ever increasing client requirements. Yesterday’s best practices may very well get you and your clients sued tomorrow. The obvious trend is that industry regulation follows innovation. Every time one of us discovers a new, lawful and ethical method for collecting some sort of a delinquent account, the regulators catch wind of it and do what they do best: regulate.
Companies like TriVium Systems, Inc. have created call recording solutions to aid in the monitoring, recording, and archiving of all debtor interactions. They know that information is power and we agree. This is why we have chosen to partner with TriVium to offer an integrative solution between Collection-Master and TriVium.
Let’s face it: without integrating your case management software and your call recording and reporting technology, all you have are thousands of hours of audio recording. For random audits this would suffice, but to really protect yourself, to cohesively monitor all debtor interactions, integration is key!
Integration allows you to find every call on a specific claim. It allows you to find every call for a specific collector, paralegal, client, etc. We know that you need to be able to compile accurate information on any given claim, collector, client, etc. on demand. This information includes every document, every note, every accounting entry, and every record of debtor contact. With call recording and reporting integration, Collection-Master makes this all possible.
We know that Collection-Master, with its ability to retrieve reliable information, must be the centerpiece of your business. Our commitment to you is to always be on the forefront of the tango between innovation and regulation to ensure that you have the best tools available.
Don’t get too excited by the title. Our industry is not trendy because it became “cool” to collect debt, but rather because the cyclical nature of the tango between innovation and requirements, best practices and the law, tends to be repetitive.
Please inquire today about call recording integration.
In recent years, the best practices policies tell us that all debtor interactions must be monitored. This can be a powerful management tool if used correctly. Best practices policies say that we monitor all interactions between the debtors and us in an effort to appraise our employees with regards to their effectiveness, to allow the clients to appraise us in the same light, and to maintain relevant records and evidence in order to protect ourselves. Because the regulators regulate our innovative methods, the attitude towards collections has become increasingly hostile.
It is no secret that the climate of our industry is centered around ever increasing client requirements. Yesterday’s best practices may very well get you and your clients sued tomorrow. The obvious trend is that industry regulation follows innovation. Every time one of us discovers a new, lawful and ethical method for collecting some sort of a delinquent account, the regulators catch wind of it and do what they do best: regulate.
Companies like TriVium Systems, Inc. have created call recording solutions to aid in the monitoring, recording, and archiving of all debtor interactions. They know that information is power and we agree. This is why we have chosen to partner with TriVium to offer an integrative solution between Collection-Master and TriVium.
Let’s face it: without integrating your case management software and your call recording and reporting technology, all you have are thousands of hours of audio recording. For random audits this would suffice, but to really protect yourself, to cohesively monitor all debtor interactions, integration is key!
Integration allows you to find every call on a specific claim. It allows you to find every call for a specific collector, paralegal, client, etc. We know that you need to be able to compile accurate information on any given claim, collector, client, etc. on demand. This information includes every document, every note, every accounting entry, and every record of debtor contact. With call recording and reporting integration, Collection-Master makes this all possible.
We know that Collection-Master, with its ability to retrieve reliable information, must be the centerpiece of your business. Our commitment to you is to always be on the forefront of the tango between innovation and regulation to ensure that you have the best tools available.
CLS’s largest ever NARCA task force touched down in San Diego Tuesday morning. Before we even left the ground in Newark, we ran into customers and prospects; it was a CLS party. Even before the fasten seat belt sign illuminated, we all knew it was going to be a busy week and we could not wait. As we roared down the runway, the CLS Listens team made eye contact across the aisle and rows of the plane, exchanging winks and head nods over our excitement. We’d been anxiously anticipating this moment and it was finally here… CLS Listens had officially begun.
For over 30 years, CLS’s Collection-Master has been the industry standard in legal collections software. We have always prided ourselves on our customer relations, innovative solutions, and our ability to meet your needs with as much speed and efficiency as possible. We attribute much of our success to our communication skills; we think we have done an excellent job representing CLS to the industry and the industry to CLS. As times change, and requirements increase, we are continuing to grow and meet needs as they arise. We came to NARCA with five of our team members to formalize and solidify our commitment to you and the industry; and to listen!
CLS Listens is aimed at increasing our understanding of your business needs so that we can continue to develop software you will find useful and productive. Our new product management team, Isaac Goldman, Chad Hess, and Fred Welles, is tasked with leading this listening initiative.
At NARCA we spoke with 70 of you, learned about where you see the industry heading, identified some of your pain points both within our software and within the industry in general, and attended 12 client meetings. We are now compiling our findings to help us deploy our resources in the most advantageous fashion possible. From attending client meetings, we learned what is expected of you from your clients. We are using this information to offer viable solutions so to continually enhance efficiency across the board.
We were excited to report that over fifty percent of all awards given at NARCA this spring were presented to Commercial Legal Software firms! We are proud of our partners who won this year and expect to increase our winning percentage with our continued support and enhancements.
We are excited and energized. Our industry is changing, but so are we. Our mission is still to continuously enhance the efficiency of legal collections and ethical recoveries, as we have done for over 30 years.
Tara says:
To CHANGE COLUMN HEADERS FROM ALPHA TO NUMERIC in Excel 2007 follow this path.
BIG Excel Button > Excel Options > Formulas > clear the R1C1 reference style.
Got an older version? Try this. Tools > Options > General > uncheck “R1C! reference style.”
Commercial Legal Software, Inc. Employees Work with Habitat for Humanity
Denville, NJ December 29-30, 2011: CLS continues its commitment to giving back to the community by donating to Habitat for Humanity. Additionally, CLS provided three team members to help with the construction of a low-budget, not for profit affordable home. A home that would help a family break the cycle of poverty and contribute to their long-term financial security. Habitat for Humanity’s affordable, no-profit house payments free up money the families can instead use for food, child care, medicine and other necessities.
All of us here at CLS are proud to have helped forge a family’s brighter future. We invite you to join a similar effort in your community. Around the holidays, it’s good to remember that helping others truly is the gift that keeps on giving.
CLS can only accept email attachments that are in a .PDF or .TIFF format. If you are unable to comply, for whatever reason, you can instead upload Excel, WordPerfect, and Word files to the FTP site.
Should you decide to upload to the FTP site, be sure to send an email to Support@CollectionSoftware.com in order to let us know the name of file and where it is located.
Schedule a Task, Program or Process to Start Automatically
The Collection-Master Help Manual documention provides instructions on how to use the Windows Task Scheduler to schedule a [1-9-1] Index to automatically run after normal business hours by accessing a user-defined .bat file that runs the [1-9-1] Index.
By using Task Scheduler, you can schedule tasks for system tools such as the Disk Defragmenter or schedule selected .bat files in Collection-Master to run at a future time. The Windows Task Scheduler starts when Windows starts, and runs in the background. Tasks can be scheduled to run daily, weekly, monthly, or only at certain times (such as when the firm is closed or at Collection-Master startup).
NOTE: If a process or task starts in Collection-Master, all security policies still apply. If the process (start-up command) requires answers to any questions, they will not be automatically answered when the process or task runs.