When it comes to Accounts Receivable Management, delayed collections, higher DSOs, bad debts, inaccurate or uninformed manual forecasting methods, spreadsheet errors, and lack of 360o visibility are an unfortunate reality that many companies are forced to live with. The AR Teams in these companies have to meander through tons of Excel sheets that make the already complex AR function more tedious, mundane and prone to human errors. Moreover, they are stuck and are forced to spend a more than significant amount of their time doing repetitive manual processes that are error prone. The result – the AR Teams keep doing this each and every day and are not able to devote much tome to focus on value-driven data analysis.
AR Automation Software Solutions, such as Inebura from TanServ, can change all that and bring about a transformative change to this already complex process. By implementing such solutions, businesses can shorten the invoice-to-cash cycles, reduce costs, improve process visibility, get intelligent analytics, track key AR metrics, release additional liquidity and above all boost productivity, reduce inefficiency, expedite the payment process and contribute towards maintaining a healthy cash flow with predictable, highly accurate payment cycles. In this blog, we will guide you through the various steps businesses can take to automate the AR process – a sort of Hitchhiker’s Guide to AR Automation. Let’s dive in…
STEP 1: TALK TO ALL PARTIES INVOLVED:
The first step is to have a discussion with everyone that is involved in the Accounts Receivable Process to acquire a complete and thorough understanding of the workflows. This discussion is crucial as it will help decide the required level of customization of the AR Automation Software to meet your business’ specific requirements. Moreover, it will also help build in specific functionalities that your business will need – such as, dispute management, automatic invoice submission, GRN functionality, CN/ advance etc. Apart from the AR Team, you might also want to bring in your IT Team and other colleagues for the discussion. Additionally, you might even think of involving your customers to get their inputs as well.
STEP 2: CLEARLY STATE THE OBJECTIVES OF AUTOMATING THE AR PROCESS:
The 2nd step is a precise statement of what you are hoping to achieve when you transform the entire AR Process with AR Management Software. This is crucial specially when people are wary and concerned that implementation of automation and AI solutions can take away their jobs. So a precise articulation of the objective becomes so very important – the objective could be that the organization is eyeing the next phase of growth and implementing such a solution is absolutely essential; or, the organization wants to give their finance teams greater responsibilities and make a strategic impact; or, the organization wants to take away the load of mundane, tedious, and time-consuming manual jobs in order to achieve a better work-life balance; or…
STEP 3: INTEGRATION OF ERP:
The next step is to integrate your existing Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) with your choice of AR Automation Solution. And to ensure/p that this happens smoothly and efficiently, you would need to involve your IT and AR Teams so that they can sit together and finalize the various nitty-gritties of the integration. This integration will form the backbone of your financial structure and will assist in the arrangement and coordination of your existing AR Data with the new integrated system.
STEP 4: DEVEOPMENT OF COMMUNICATION TEMPLATES:
Once the integration is complete, you would have to get your AR Team to sit with the AR Software Team and build the communication system – emails, notifications, templates including WhatsApp templates etc. that would be used for efficient management.
STEP 5: AUTOMATING PAYMENT REMINDERS
The key objective of AR Automation is collection of payments or should we say, timely collection of payments. And one of the key steps to ensure that this happens is the setting up of an Automated Payment Reminder System that, not only informs, but also reminds the customers of upcoming payments. Do note that with an AR Automation Solution, you can customize this system and send out reminders that matches with your workflow. An efficient Payment Reminder System helps the AR Team to save a lot of time and allows them to focus on strategic, value-added initiatives.
STEP 6: RECONCILATION & REPORTING
An automated system of Accounts Receivable Reconciliation will spare you from embarrassment of bothering and/ or confusing your customers with payment reminders or already paid invoices.
AND, LASTLY…
You can connect with us to see how an AR Automation Software, such as Inebura can help transform your entire AR Process by making it more productive and efficient. You can visit our website www.inebura.com or write to sandeep@inebura.com to book a demo.
ABOUT INEBURA:
Inebura, a cutting-edge SaaS platform to manage your Accounts Receivables, helps you stay on top of your collections process, ensures consistent cash flow and lowers bad debts. It comes API ready, SFTP-ready and also comes preloaded with multiple customizable dashboards, innumerable functional modules, and customizable templatized AR inputs. Further, it also has an Email-integrated Dispute Tracker Module, Customized Screens for Customers, Pre-loaded Schedulers, WhatsApp & Email Templates, and One-click Bulk Reconciliation of Invoices. It can seamlessly integrate with your existing ERP and easily help you take complete control of your receivables, lower the cost of funds, ensure a healthy working capital situation and much more.
Inebura comes from the pioneers of B2B AR Management in India – TanServ Business Process Pvt. Ltd. – and is a result of their 12+ years of experience in managing AR for many Fortune 500 companies.