# Collections 101 > A free two-hour course on how creditor-side debt collection actually works: placement versus purchase, the mailroom, outbound and inbound calls, disputes, suit and judgment, and how the money comes back. - Source: https://academy.ottoforfirms.com/collections-101/ - Publisher: Otto — https://ottoforfirms.com - Updated: 2026-07-30 The life of a debt, from the bank that charged it off to the money going back. Written for someone who started at a collections law firm this week and has never seen how any of it fits together. 8 lessons · about 120 minutes · free, no account Written for: New hires at creditor-side collections law firms — collectors, mailroom and intake staff, paralegals, and anyone who has to understand the process before they can do the job. ## Where the work comes from Two ways an account reaches your firm, and why the difference decides almost everything that follows. - [Where the debt comes from](https://academy.ottoforfirms.com/collections-101/where-the-debt-comes-from/) — Charge-off, placement and purchase — the three events that decide who owns the account on your screen and what your firm is allowed to do with it. (14 min) - [What a placement actually is](https://academy.ottoforfirms.com/collections-101/what-a-placement-is/) — A placement is a contract, a data file and a set of standards you will be measured against. This is what is inside one and what each part governs. (15 min) ## The daily work Paper in, calls out, calls in. Three operations that between them account for most of what a collections firm does every day. - [The mailroom](https://academy.ottoforfirms.com/collections-101/the-mailroom/) — Everything that arrives — post, fax, email, portal uploads — lands here, and some of it has to stop work on an account within hours. This is why the mailroom is a compliance function and not a post room. (16 min) - [Outbound calling](https://academy.ottoforfirms.com/collections-101/outbound-calling/) — Attempts, contacts and conversations are three different things. How an outbound operation is actually structured, and the rules that shape it. (16 min) - [Inbound calls](https://academy.ottoforfirms.com/collections-101/inbound-calls/) — The consumer called you. That changes the tempo, the risk and what has to happen in the first thirty seconds. (14 min) ## When it stops, and when it escalates The two directions an account can go once somebody responds. - [Disputes, and what stops collection](https://academy.ottoforfirms.com/collections-101/disputes-and-what-stops-collection/) — Six things a consumer can do that change what your firm may do next — what each one stops, and for how long. (17 min) - [Suit and judgment](https://academy.ottoforfirms.com/collections-101/suit-and-judgment/) — What has to be true before an account can be filed on, what the court process looks like at volume, and what a judgment is actually worth. (16 min) ## The money Where recovered money goes, and why it is the most tightly controlled thing a collections firm handles. - [The money coming back](https://academy.ottoforfirms.com/collections-101/the-money-coming-back/) — Payments arrive, sit in trust, and are remitted to the client. Every part of that is regulated, reconciled and audited. (14 min) ## About Otto Otto publishes this reference and builds the software underneath it: case management for US creditor-side collections law firms, where a client's written rules run before an action is taken rather than in next month's report. - [Talk to us](https://ottoforfirms.com/#/contact) - [See what it costs](https://ottoforfirms.com/#/pricing) --- This is an informational reference, not legal advice, and using it creates no attorney-client relationship. Limitations periods turn on facts this page cannot know — which state's law governs, the contract type, when the claim accrued, and whether anything tolled or revived it. Confirm against the primary source and your own counsel before acting.