Metro II Credit Reporting

Introduction

DeskManager’s Credit Reporting System uses Metro II which is a standard format to Report customer credit activities to all credit bureaus that integrate this information as a reference for further contracts or loans.

The Metro II Format was developed as a standard for the credit reporting industry and accomplishes the following:

• Provides one standard computer layout to be used for reporting accurate consumer credit information.
• Meets all requirements of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), the Fair Credit Billing Act (FCBA), and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA).
• Meets the requirements for reporting dates in the year 2000 and beyond.

The Metro II Format was designed to allow reporting of the most accurate and complete information on consumers’ credit history. It is imperative that all accounts are reported on a monthly basis and that they are reported with a final status code when they are ultimately paid or closed.

The dealership should make a file, sometimes referenced as media in documentation, at the end of each report cycle and upload it to the bureau sites.

To access Metro II Credit Reporting, click the BHPH tab, then click the Credit Reporting button at the top.

Main credit reporting window consists of three sections:

• Control Buttons – These buttons will let user to Generate, Manipulate, and Submit Credit Reports based on stored information in DeskManager database.
• Generated Reports – User can see a list of generated reports.
• Reports Overview – User can see an overview of each report by selecting desired report and clicking on ‘Show reports Overview’ or ‘Reload’; Also user may want to filter overview’s results using Filter section.

Control Buttons

1. Generate Report – By clicking on this button program will give user an option to select Billing date.
   • This will cut-off all of the accounts information as of Billing Date.
   • Usually users have a constant Billing Date as first of each month, or 15th of each month.
   • However, this is not mandatory and user may select any date but not greater than date of creating report.
   • Clicking on Generate program will launch report generator and it will go through all of the deals and add qualified ones to report.
2. Check Error – This will check selected report for possible errors.
   • It is not a complete and comprehensive error checking system and users are still responsible for auditing reports.
   • Program will populate Review field of each accounts in this process.
   • If any account has error, program will put True value in Review field of it, otherwise it will put False.
3. Edit Report – Allows user to edit selected report. Users may want to edit and/or audit generated reports.
   • If user needs to edit specific account, it is better to use Report’s Overview section to filter accounts.
   • On the other hand, if user wants to take a look at all of the accounts he can directly click on Edit Report.
4. Submit – Allows user to submit selected report.
   • Save Local file… – This will save report in a Text file in computer so user can upload it to Reporting Agency Website.
   • For example, Experian, Equifax, and Trans Union. Other options will let user upload report directly to reporting agency.
5. Delete Report – Will delete selected report.
6. Add To Archive/Remove From Archive – Archive is a report which is already audited and user wants to generate new reports based on it.
   • Whenever users submit a report to credit bureau they should add that report to archive.
   • The reason is that there are some fields in report which are based on values within last report submitted to bureau.
   • Also, it will decrease data-entry-redundancy.
   • It means if user changes statuses and information in archive report, those will import to newly generated report.
   • As a result, only users with high-accessibility should be allowed to change/Add/Remove archive reports.
   • *Note – To generate base on any archive report user can click on ‘Generate report’ then click on ‘Change’ to select any desired report.

Generated Reports

This list will show all of the generated reports. This information is shown in list for each report:

• Date Created – date which report was created.
• Billing Date – all of the accounts information will be as of this date.
• Seq# – Unique key assigned to each report.
• Archived? – whether this report is added to archive or not.
• Based on Archive Seq# –

Reports Overview

This list will show all of the accounts for selected report and only will be populated if user clicks on ‘Reload’ or ‘Show reports overview’ buttons. User may use Filter section to search within accounts. This will be useful if user wants to edit specific account with desired account number, stock number, name and etc.

If user double-clicks on any account in this list, Edit window will popup contain selected account’s information.

Edit Report

Clicking on ‘Edit’ button on main screen will launch credit editing window.

Here is a brief description of this window:

• Edit button – Users are not able to change information unless they click on ‘Edit’ button. Once they have done changes they should click on ‘Apply” to store changes in memory. NOTE: information is not saved in database yet.  Users should click on ‘Save Changes’ once they finished working with all of the accounts to store all of them into database.
• Save Changes – Saves all of the changes into database.
• Search – will let users to quickly locate desired account knowing its Account number or stock number.
• Regenerate – Only available in Edit mode. This will regenerate accounts information using current information in DeskManager. NOTE: if you want to edit report it is better to do your changes directly inside DeskManager then Regenerate that specific account to reload latest changes. This will guarantee that you have most up-to-date information in both DeskManager and Credit reporting interface.
• First, Previous, Next, Last – helps user to navigate between accounts quickly. NOTE: these buttons are different than buttons in Error Checking Window. These buttons will simply navigate between accounts in report. While those buttons in error checking window will navigate between errors. As a result, don’t expect by clicking on these buttons you can reach next error in report.
• Reported? – By un-checking this check box you tell DeskManager to omit this account from report.