Accounts Receivable Questions

What this category covers

This category covers reducing days sales outstanding through payment workflow rather than through collections calls. The answers are written to give you the structure of the decision - what has to be true, who decides it, and what to get in writing - rather than a single number that stops being accurate the moment your volume or card mix changes.

Where an answer depends on your own account, it says so and points at the statement line that would tell you. A page cannot know your effective rate, and any page that claims to is guessing.

Why it matters operationally

Every day of DSO is working capital, and most of it is lost to workflow rather than to customers paying late.

The cost of getting this wrong is rarely dramatic. It is a few basis points on every transaction, every month, which is exactly why it goes unexamined for years.

Where operators go wrong

• Chasing payment by phone when the obstacle is that paying is inconvenient.
• Storing a card on paper because the system cannot hold a token.

1 question in this category

• How do we move customers from cheques and cards to ACH?

  Terms work where persuasion does not. Offer an early-pay discount for ACH that is smaller than the interchange you would otherwise pay, so you keep the difference and the customer gets a genuine benefit. Make ACH the default on new trade account applications rather than an option to opt into. For predictable repeat volume, autopay removes the collection step entirely.

  Updated September 30, 2026

This category is still being built out. We keep it linked from the questions hub, but hold it back from search listings until it carries at least 3 published answers — a page with nothing to list is not worth anybody's click.

What to read next

/b2b-payment-processing covers workflow; the rail guide covers which method to steer customers toward.