Experience Reporting
Using the Paper Report
The ERF, or Experience Reporting Form, is the form Riemer uses to collect payment experience and trends on accounts requested by the members of your association. There are two types of ERFs used by Riemer Reporting Service. The first type consists of a list of accounts and a blank reporting form. For each account on which you wish to report, first find the account on the list and enter the account’s ERF number, then fill in your payment experience for the account. The second form contains fields for each account on the list for you to fill in your experience.
The fields themselves are the same on both forms:
- Year Opened: last two digits of the year the account was opened
- Last Sale Month: two digits representing the month that the last sale to this account occurred (i.e., 08 for August)
- Terms Codes: There are two fields for the terms of sale: primary and secondary. Your ERF will come with a page of the three-digit codes used by Riemer
- High Credit: the highest amount the account has owed in the past six months
- Total Owing: dollar amount of all outstanding invoices, whether current, past due, or not yet due; this must equal the total of the next six columns
- Not Yet Due: dollar amount of invoices due beyond the calendar month of the report
- Current: amount invoiced and currently due per your terms
- 1-30, 31-60, 61-90,Over 90: amounts invoiced and past due per your terms and A/R aging; if any of these amounts are disputed, please check the appropriate box
- Comments: write comments such as "new owner," "NSF," "bank error" in this area
- Riemer Number: unique reference number assigned to each account by Riemer Reporting Service; it is eight digits long and always preceded with an "R-"
- Dun's Number: the nine-digit identification number assigned to most accounts by Dun and Bradstreet Corp.
- Pay Manner/Days Slow: D = discounts, P = Prompt, S + # days = number of days slow
- Average Days Pay: if your system calculates a Days Sales Outstanding or similar statistic on the account, please write that figure here
- Special Comments: circle the appropriate letter; these codes are group-specific and the meaning will be listed on the front page of the report and at the bottom of each page
When entering your experience, please do not include cents and be consistent in your use of abbreviations. (i.e., 000, K, or M for thousands and MM or 000,000 for millions)
The list for each form includes all account information, including:
- Name of the account
- Street address, city, state, and country
- If the account submitted is to include payment experience from all branches, “All Locations” will be printed instead of the state
- The account’s Riemer Number
- The Dun’s number, if available
Also shown is the number of the member who requested experience on the account and their reason for discussion, if any. Many groups employ a “Permanent List” of accounts that should appear in every cycle. This will be noted as well.
Submitting Experience Online
You can also use RiemerNet to submit your experience over the Internet. Use the menu bar at the left to go to home page of the group for which you want to submit experience. If your group is currently in the Experience Reporting step in the credit cycle, you will see a link to “Enter/Edit Payment Experience.” The form provides a list of the accounts included in the cycle. Any accounts for which your company has entered experience will be denoted. You can edit or delete the experience entered for these accounts. Accounts that have been submitted for discussion will be denoted with a small icon.
When entering experience online, you will need to type in the dollar amounts for aging; you will not be able to use abbreviations such as K or MM. If you are editing your experience, you will not be able to change the figure date. If you need to change the figure date for a line of experience, delete the experience and reenter it with the correct figure date.
