Invoice to Cash

Getting the invoice to the customer and the money into the bank.

Workflow

  1. 01Invoice Transmission
  2. 02Payment Tracking
  3. 03Receipt Application
  4. 04Collections
  5. 05Receivables Clearing

If you change this

It implies 6 topics across 3 modules, including Customer Relationship Management and Supply Chain Management which you might not expect.

See the path ahead →

The workflow

  1. 01

    Invoice transmission

    The invoice reaches the customer in the format and channel they can actually process.

  2. 02

    Payment tracking

    Expected receipts are monitored against terms.

  3. 03

    Receipt application

    Incoming payments are matched to invoices and applied.

  4. 04

    Collections

    Overdue accounts are worked to an agreed escalation path.

  5. 05

    Receivables clearing

    The receivable is cleared and the ledger agrees to the bank.

Most late payment is not a collections problem. It is an invoice the customer could not process — wrong purchase order reference, wrong format, wrong recipient — and it is cheaper to fix at transmission than to chase at day sixty.

What you need in place

  • Customer-ready invoicing: Purchase order references and formats that match how the customer's payables team works, including e-invoicing where they use it.
  • Automated matching: Receipts matched to invoices by rule, with a clean exception queue for the rest.
  • Dunning and escalation: A defined collections path with owners, not ad-hoc chasing.
  • Dispute management: Disputed invoices flagged and worked separately, so they do not distort ageing.

Metrics and KPIs to track

Days sales outstanding

Average days to collect after invoicing.

Aged receivables over terms

Value past due, split by reason.

Auto-match rate

Receipts applied without manual intervention.

Dispute value and age

Value under dispute and how long it has been there.

Bad debt write-off

Value written off as uncollectable.

Alongside this

All of Financial Accounting