Screening accounts

When you receive a list of account in the Screen state, your task is to evaluate each account for reasons to dismiss the case. These reasons could include closed business, incorrect NAICS code, unusually short business hours, small building, multiple accounts serving premises, lessor/lessee accounts, inconclusive data, and so on. While screening is very important, from an analyst’s perspective, it might make more sense to send an investigator without screening. Though screening accounts takes times, it improves your success rate because you avoid many false positives. It is up to you as an analyst to decide how much time you want to spend screening accounts.

If you do spend time screening, use all the resources available to you. Customer Information is a good resource to indicate what kind of account you are screening. Also, Operations Optimizer software provides links to various online mapping services, reverse phone and address lookup, publicly available real estate information, Yellow Pages information, and neighboring account information. You are encouraged to use other resources at your disposal and use the provided area (Notes widget) to keep notes about any information you discover. A formal note‑taking system helps organize your work and improve communication between other analysts and field personnel. The note-taking process is described in further detail in this section.

As your understanding of an account improves, your analysis could change. The data and your analysis could indicate a very strong case but uncovering another account for the same premises that is addressed on a cross-street might double the consumption of the business and change your entire outlook. Vigilance in screening improves the success rate.