Running Debt Manager? Versions, upgrade paths and what a migration involves

Where Debt Manager stands today

Debt Manager is a long-established enterprise collections and recoveries platform, embedded in banks, lenders and debt collection agencies in the UK, the US and elsewhere. It manages customers and accounts in arrears through configurable strategies, work queues and decision rules, from early collections through to recovery.

C&R describes Debt Manager as a cloud-native collections and recoveries platform, available as SaaS through the C&R Cloud on AWS infrastructure. Its capabilities include FitAgent for the agent interface, FitAdmin for configuration, a Configuration Data Loader for transferring configuration between environments, and FitLogic for decision management, simulation and champion/challenger testing. C&R also offers complementary AI and digital communications products.

arum supports clients that run versions of Debt Manager from DM2 through to the latest SaaS solution.

Which path: optimize, upgrade or move to SaaS?

For organizations retaining Debt Manager, there are three broad options. These can be combined: improving collections strategies and processes may be worthwhile whether you remain on the current release, upgrade or move to SaaS.

• Optimize the current release. Where the application and its underlying technology remain adequately supported, and the release can meet foreseeable business needs, targeted improvements may offer a strong return. Priorities could include refreshing treatment strategies, reducing manual workarounds, improving data quality and rebuilding confidence in reporting. Confirm that the constraints sit in configuration and working practices, rather than capabilities the release cannot provide.
• Upgrade while retaining responsibility for hosting. A move to a newer supported release may provide additional capabilities and address support or technology constraints. The benefits depend on the target release, licensing and infrastructure requirements. Treat the upgrade as a delivery project: assess configuration compatibility, interfaces, data conversion requirements and operational changes, with proportionate testing and a controlled cutover.
• Move to Debt Manager SaaS. C&R's SaaS offering changes responsibility for hosting, platform operations and updates. It can reduce the internal infrastructure burden, but the migration still requires assessment of data, configuration, integrations and service continuity. Confirm the division of responsibilities for testing and release acceptance, alongside security, data residency, resilience, service levels, exit arrangements and whole-life cost.

The decision should reflect your organization's technology strategy, the condition of the existing estate and the business outcomes you need. Compare each option against confirmed support arrangements, required capabilities, delivery risk and whole-life cost. Establish which capabilities are available in each proposed release and deployment model, which require additional products or licenses, and which remain roadmap commitments.

What a Debt Manager migration involves

Whether the move is to a newer release, to SaaS, or into Debt Manager from another system, the same areas decide how smoothly it goes. Most clients underestimate the implementation effort required to move from one version to another, even when it is the same vendor.

• Mapping each entity. Customer and account data, security, plans, transactions and diary or historic events each need their own mapping. Designing the mapping entity by entity, and iterating, stops one rushed area undermining the rest.
• State-to-state mapping. Copying an account's old status is not enough. Every data item that drives treatment has to be set so the account behaves as though it had always been in the new environment and continues on the right path, with regulatory and policy requirements met throughout.
• Documentation. Out-of-date or scattered configuration documentation is one of the most common causes of delay. A single, maintained record of configuration and mapping from day one saves weeks later.
• Legacy usage. Processes and action codes that have no equivalent in the target release, and the accounts sitting in them, need a decision before migration rather than during it.
• Controls, testing and readiness. Migration controls, data validation and reconciliation need planning from the start. Testing should run normal business batches alongside the migration test suite, and operations teams need to understand what migration weekend means for them.

Done well, the result can be very clean. For a UK retail bank's divestment, arum migrated more than 60,000 accounts in a single weekend, with 99.8% migrating successfully.

What to fix before you move

A future upgrade or move to SaaS is not a reason to leave today's estate as it is. Before any move, review and optimize collections processes so that outdated practices, unnecessary complexity and manual workarounds are addressed rather than carried into the new environment. The one thing to avoid is redesigning strategies in the middle of the migration itself: decide what to keep, improve and retire at the start, so the migration carries a design the business has already agreed.

Next step

If you run Debt Manager, arum can give you a clear view of where your estate stands and what to do next: a full system assessment against strong operations, the value of the latest capabilities including cloud, FitAgent and real-time APIs, the open issues worth closing, and a prioritized plan tied to your commercial goals. Book a conversation with a senior Debt Manager specialist.