# Collections & Accounts Receivable: done-for-you AI automation by BufferSol

> A done-for-you collections automation is an AI agent that works your accounts receivable aging every day. It sends reminders in your tone before and after the due date, reads customer replies, logs promises to pay, routes disputes to the right owner, and matches incoming payments and remittances to open invoices. BufferSol builds it and connects it to your ERP, inbox and bank feeds. Your credit team approves holds, payment plans, write-offs and anything sensitive.

- Canonical: https://buffersoltech.com/done-for-you/automations/collections-ar
- Industries: Logistics & Transportation; Manufacturing & Distribution (Wholesale distributors); Professional Services; Home & Field Services
- Provider: BufferSol Technologies (New York; serving the US, UK, Ireland, Canada and the EU)
- Timeline: live in 3 to 6 weeks
- Pricing: quoted after a short scoping call

## Overdue invoices followed up daily, disputes routed and payments matched

**Who it is for:** Finance and credit teams at B2B companies with hundreds or thousands of open invoices, mixed payment terms and too few people to follow up on every account.

### Signs you need it
- The aging report is reviewed weekly, but only the largest balances ever get a call.
- Reminders go out from QuickBooks or the ERP when they work, and nobody checks whether they landed.
- Payments arrive by ACH or wire without remittance, and unapplied cash sits for days.
- Disputes about pricing or short shipments live in one person's inbox.
- Sales learns a customer is on credit hold only when an order gets blocked.

## Business outcomes
- **Every overdue account gets a touch.** Small and mid-size balances get the same steady follow-up as the top accounts, so fewer invoices drift into the oldest aging buckets.
- **Disputes reach the owner the same day.** A pricing, delivery or PO question is routed with the invoice and the customer's message attached, instead of waiting for the next aging meeting.
- **An aging report you can trust.** Payments are matched to invoices as remittances arrive, so the aging shows what is really open and nobody chases a customer who already paid.

## How it works today
1. A collector exports the aging from the ERP into a spreadsheet each week and sorts it by balance.
2. They write reminder emails one at a time, copying invoice numbers and amounts from the ledger.
3. They call the biggest accounts, leave voicemails and note promises to pay in a spreadsheet or the CRM.
4. Customer replies with remittances, disputes and requests for invoice copies land in a shared inbox and get worked when someone has time.
5. Unmatched bank deposits are researched by searching emails, customer portals and bank files for the invoices they cover.

Hidden costs:
- Cash arrives later than it should, which squeezes payroll and supplier runs and pushes the business toward its credit line.
- Collectors spend the day on reminders and lookups, so disputes and strategic accounts get less attention than they need.
- Customers who already paid get chased, which irritates good customers and strains the relationship sales has built.

## How it works done for you
1. Each morning the agent reads open invoices, credit limits, terms and payment history for every customer from your ERP and CRM.
2. It picks the next step per account from the cadence finance approved: a friendly pre-due note, a firm reminder, a statement, or a call task for a person.
3. Emails go out from your collections address in your company's voice, with the invoice PDF and a payment link attached.
4. It reads every reply. Promises to pay are logged with a date, requests for copies or tax forms are answered, and disputes go to sales, operations or billing with the full thread.
5. As payments and remittances arrive from bank feeds, lockbox files and customer portals, it matches them to invoices and proposes the cash application for posting.
6. Credit holds, payment plans, write-offs and any message to a strategic account wait for approval from a named person.
7. Every message, promise, dispute and match is logged on the customer record, so anyone can see the full history in one place.

## What changes for the team
- **Collections specialist.** Today: Copies invoice details into emails, leaves voicemails and tracks promises in a spreadsheet. Done for you: Calls the accounts that need a person, negotiates payment plans and clears disputes.
- **Cash application clerk.** Today: Searches inboxes and bank files to work out what an unreferenced payment covers. Done for you: Reviews proposed matches and handles short payments and deductions the agent could not place.
- **Controller or credit manager.** Today: Learns about problem accounts in the weekly aging meeting. Done for you: Sees promises, disputes and at-risk balances daily and approves holds and write-offs with the context in front of them.

## KPIs we measure
- **Days sales outstanding (DSO):** Calculated monthly from your ERP with your current method, using the twelve months before launch as the baseline.
- **Overdue balance by aging bucket:** Snapshot taken weekly from the ERP so movement between buckets is visible over time.
- **Promise-to-pay kept rate:** Promises logged by the agent compared with payments received by the promised date.
- **Dispute resolution time:** Time from the customer's first message to resolved status, grouped by dispute reason and owner.
- **Unapplied cash:** Value and age of payments not yet matched to invoices, tracked daily.

## Industry data
- 56%: of US small businesses surveyed were owed money from unpaid invoices (2025) ([Intuit QuickBooks](https://quickbooks.intuit.com/r/small-business-data/small-business-late-payments-report-2025/))
- $17.5K: average owed per business from unpaid invoices (2025) ([Intuit QuickBooks](https://quickbooks.intuit.com/r/small-business-data/small-business-late-payments-report-2025/))
- 47%: of businesses reported a portion of their invoices were overdue by more than 30 days (2025) ([Intuit QuickBooks](https://quickbooks.intuit.com/r/small-business-data/small-business-late-payments-report-2025/))

## Systems it connects to
NetSuite, QuickBooks Online, Xero, Sage Intacct, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Salesforce, HubSpot, Stripe, Outlook and Microsoft 365, Bank feeds and lockbox files

## Guardrails
- Cadences, tone and escalation points are written with finance and approved before a single message is sent.
- Credit holds, payment plans, write-offs and final-notice letters always need a named approver.
- Strategic or sensitive accounts can be excluded or set to draft-only, so a person sends every message to them.
- Templates are reviewed for the collection rules that apply to your customers and countries.
- Every email, reply, match and decision is logged on the customer record.

## What teams say about this work
- Small-business owners report setting up automatic invoice reminders before and after the due date, only to find customers never received any, and being told to send reminders by hand while support investigates. ([QuickBooks Community (Intuit)](https://quickbooks.intuit.com/community/transactions-28/automatic-reminders-for-invoices-does-not-work-117384))
- Electronic payments often arrive without invoice references, so AR staff dig through emails, bank files and portals to work out what a payment covers, which delays posting and distorts the aging. ([Cashbook](https://www.cashbook.com/problems-with-cash-application/))
- People in outbound calling roles on credit accounts describe phoning the same customers several times a day as draining, and note very high turnover. ([Glassdoor](https://www.glassdoor.co.nz/Reviews/Employee-Review-Target-E194-RVW237788.htm))
- Small businesses carrying more late payments report cash-flow problems far more often than those with fewer, so slow follow-up turns straight into tight cash. ([Intuit QuickBooks](https://quickbooks.intuit.com/r/small-business-data/small-business-late-payments-report-2025/))

## Delivery: live in 3 to 6 weeks
1. Week 1: discovery, access and a baseline of today's numbers.
2. Weeks 2–3: build the agents and connect your systems, with your rules and approvals.
3. Weeks 3–5: test on your real history, then pilot on live work with your team reviewing.
4. Weeks 4–6: staged go-live, training, dashboards and handover.

## Executive Ask questions for this workflow
- Which customers promised to pay this week, and which of them actually did?
- How much is over sixty days past due, and what is holding up the five largest balances?
- Which disputes have been open longest, and who owns each one?

## Frequently asked questions
### How long does it take to go live?
Collections automations are typically live in 3 to 6 weeks. We start by agreeing your cadence, tone, exclusions and approval rules, then connect the ERP, collections mailbox and bank data. The agent runs in draft mode first, so your team reads every message before it goes out. Once you are happy with the drafts, accounts move to automatic sending in groups.

### What does it cost?
Cost is quoted after a short scoping call. It depends on the number of customers and open invoices, how many ERPs and bank accounts we connect, whether you want cash application as well as follow-up, and how many languages your customers use. You receive a fixed written quote for the design, build, connections, deployment and configuration before anything starts.

### Will customers know they are dealing with an AI?
Messages come from your collections address and are signed the way you choose. Most clients sign as the AR team and are open that replies are handled with automated help. When a customer asks to speak to someone, or the conversation turns sensitive, the agent stops and hands the thread to a named person on your team with a short summary.

### Can it handle partial payments and deductions?
Yes. When a payment is short, the agent reads the remittance and any customer note, matches what it can, and proposes the remainder as a deduction with a likely reason such as a pricing difference, damaged goods or an early-payment discount taken late. A person approves the coding. Deductions with no explanation get a polite query sent to the customer, after your approval.

### Will automated reminders hurt relationships with key customers?
Not if they are set up with care. You decide which accounts get automatic messages, which get drafts only and which are excluded. Reminders reference the right contact, PO and invoice, and stop the moment a payment, promise or dispute is logged, which is usually the cause of annoyed customers in manual processes. Your account managers can see every message on the customer record.