Managing Accounts Receivable ? A Step-By-Step Guide For C-Suite Professionals
Tracking Accounts Receivable
Accounts receivable is key component of any organizations financial health and staying on top of receivables is vital task for any financial executive. Managing accounts receivable is more of an art than science, however, there are number of technologies at our disposal to help manage the process more efficiently. comprehensive order to cash (OTC) solution is valuable tool for maintaining accurate records, forecasting cash flow, and improving customerservice.
While there?s no single approach to setting up an effective system for tracking accounts receivable, the following steps provide good starting point for C-Suite professionals looking to deploy an order to cash solution in their organization.
Step 1: Outline Your Business Goals
Before you can decide which solution is best for your organization, you?ll need to map out what your business goals are for OTC. Do you need to improve billing accuracy? Reduce DSO? Collect payment faster? Identifying where you?re looking to optimize and which pain points you?re looking to address will help guide the selection process.
Step 2: Evaluate Your Current Process
Understanding the process you?re currently using to manage receivables is key. How is invoicing performed? How do customers pay? What systems do you currently have in place? Taking stock of your current process, as well as any manual tasks you may be performing will help you determine the right order to cash solution for your organization.
Step 3: Select Solution
There are plenty of options when it comes to accounts receivable management software, so it is important to compare systems and vendors to make sure you select the one that best fits your needs. At minimum, look for functions such as automated payment processing, accounts receivable reporting, multiple payment options, and fraud detection.
Step 4: Integrate Your Technology
Once you?ve selected solution, you can begin the process of integrating it with your existing systems. Ensure that the vendor supports connections to your other applications, such as your accounting software. This will help ensure the system functions correctly and saves time and effort when it comes to synchronization.
Step 5: Train Your Team
Adopting new system can be daunting task, so schedule training sessions for all stakeholders. Make sure your staff knows how the order to cash software works and how they can best utilize it on daily basis.
Step 6: Monitor and Optimize
Tracking and optimizing revenue cycle performance is not only time consuming, but it can also be difficult to identify the right metrics to analyze. Look to the software you?ve deployed to monitor KPIs and measure performance. Taking the time to track and adjust operations in your order to cash software can help you identify and correct inefficiencies that can cost your organization money.
Conclusion
Accounts receivable and the order to cash process are critical components of any organization, and relying on manual processes for tracking and managing outstanding payments can slow down cash flow and increase DSO. comprehensive order to cash solution is essential for managing receivables, reducing payment timeframes and ensuring accuracy. The steps outlined here provide good starting point for financial executives looking to deploy such system in their organization.
