Question 1/6

Technological modernity affects the entire financial organization, albeit in different ways. In more advanced AR organizations, individual contributors have less manual work and can focus on providing better customer service, managers have better insights into their teams’ work, and CFOs / VPs of finance can more effectively implement their policies throughout their organizations. Everyone in the organization has the opportunity to move finance forward.
Digital invoices lead to lower DSO and reduced labor costs. But digital channels come with their own challenges. Setting up a convenient billing portal and promoting it to your customers requires work and expertise. And, for your customers that use AP portals, automating invoice delivery either requires a big IT lift, or a third-party solution with broad integrations.
Digital invoices are a goal in and of themselves, because they’re faster and easier to keep track of. Digital payments are usually faster than checks. But they still require processing and credit card payments come with fees. It’s important to automate payment processing to speed up cash flow and reduce labor costs, and digital payments are easier to automate.
Cash application is the part of O2C that has the most potential for automation. Once you’ve got payments and remittance data, how fast you match tends to depend on your tech stack. Manual matching is slow, automated matching is fast. And the use of AI can even help exception handling.
Collections is rightly compared to the sales function. It requires customer knowledge and relationship skills. Collectors benefit from tools that track customer contacts, suggest actions and allow teammates to tag-in. Better tools for collectors leads to lower DSO.
Strong finance teams focus on being productive – even when their technology isn’t completely modernized. Lean into productivity by building a culture of continuous improvement, ensuring that your team is educated about and hands-on with tools and tech, and always keeping an eye on optimizing performance.