Overdue invoices followed up daily, disputes routed and payments matched
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.
- Live in 3 to 6 weeks
- Works with NetSuite, QuickBooks Online and more
- People approve what matters
Is this you?
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.
- 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.
Today vs done for you
The current way, and the new way
What your team does by hand today, and what the automation does instead, step by step.
How it works today
- A collector exports the aging from the ERP into a spreadsheet each week and sorts it by balance.
- They write reminder emails one at a time, copying invoice numbers and amounts from the ledger.
- They call the biggest accounts, leave voicemails and note promises to pay in a spreadsheet or the CRM.
- Customer replies with remittances, disputes and requests for invoice copies land in a shared inbox and get worked when someone has time.
- Unmatched bank deposits are researched by searching emails, customer portals and bank files for the invoices they cover.
What it quietly costs you
- · 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
- Each morning the agent reads open invoices, credit limits, terms and payment history for every customer from your ERP and CRM.
- 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.
- Emails go out from your collections address in your company's voice, with the invoice PDF and a payment link attached.
- 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.
- 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.
- Credit holds, payment plans, write-offs and any message to a strategic account wait for approval from a named person.
- Every message, promise, dispute and match is logged on the customer record, so anyone can see the full history in one place.
Your people
What changes for your team
| Role | Today | Done for you |
|---|---|---|
| Collections specialist | Copies invoice details into emails, leaves voicemails and tracks promises in a spreadsheet. | Calls the accounts that need a person, negotiates payment plans and clears disputes. |
| Cash application clerk | Searches inboxes and bank files to work out what an unreferenced payment covers. | Reviews proposed matches and handles short payments and deductions the agent could not place. |
| Controller or credit manager | Learns about problem accounts in the weekly aging meeting. | Sees promises, disputes and at-risk balances daily and approves holds and write-offs with the context in front of them. |
The numbers
What it's worth to you
Estimate the time and cost you get back with your own numbers. We baseline the real figures in week 1 and track these KPIs from day one.
Example inputs · change them to yours
The automated share covers reminders, routine replies and payments with clear remittance; calls, negotiations and disputes stay with your team.
Staff time back
64 hours a month
About 0.4 full-time people freed for higher-value work
Capacity reclaimed a month
$2,240
A year
$26,880
An estimate from your inputs only. In week 1 we measure your real baseline, so results are tracked against your own numbers.
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.
56%
$17.5K
47%
Works with the tools you already use
- NetSuite
- QuickBooks Online
- Xero
- Sage Intacct
- Microsoft Dynamics 365
- Salesforce
- HubSpot
- Stripe
- Outlook and Microsoft 365
- Bank feeds and lockbox files
Guardrails built in
- 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.
Why it hurts today
What teams say about this work
Common complaints from operators, reviewers and industry research.
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.
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.
People in outbound calling roles on credit accounts describe phoning the same customers several times a day as draining, and note very high turnover.
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.
Done for you
Live in 3 to 6 weeks
We do the build, the integrations and the rollout. Your team gives us access, reviews the pilot and approves go-live.
- 1
Week 1
Discovery and access
We map the workflow with your team, agree the outcomes and KPIs, measure today's baseline and get secure access to your tools.
- 2
Weeks 2–3
Build and connect
We build the agents and connect your systems, with your rules, approval steps, permissions and logging.
- 3
Weeks 3–5
Test and pilot
We test on your real history, then run a pilot on live work while your team reviews what the agent does.
- 4
Weeks 4–6
Go live and hand over
We roll out in stages, train your team, hand over dashboards and runbooks, and keep improving it with you.
Executive Ask: ask your business anything
One plain-English assistant connected to every system you run: CRM, helpdesk, ERP and accounting, HR, inbox and docs. Leaders get sourced answers in seconds and can trigger actions with approval. It respects everyone's existing permissions and logs every answer.
See Executive AskAsk it, for example
- 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?
Collections & Accounts Receivable: questions
Straight answers to what clients ask us most.
Ask our teamHow 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.
Pairs well with
Finance & Accounting
Invoice Processing (Accounts Payable)
Supplier invoices read, matched to POs and queued for approval the day they arrive
See the outcomeFinance & Accounting
Financial Reporting & Cash Forecasting
Management reports and a rolling cash forecast built from live ledger data
See the outcomeLogistics & Transport
Proof of Delivery & Freight Billing
PODs collected, checked and billed the day freight delivers
See the outcomeSources
- Automatic reminders for invoices does not work. | QuickBooks Community, QuickBooks Community (Intuit)
- Problems with Cash Application Projects – And How Cashbook Solves Them, Cashbook
- Hardest job I've ever had - Credit Advisor Target Employee Review, Glassdoor
- 2025 US Small Business Late Payments Report | Intuit QuickBooks, Intuit QuickBooks
Get Collections & Accounts Receivable done for you
Tell us about your volumes and tools. A senior engineer replies within one business day with scope, timeline and cost.
Live in 3 to 6 weeks · Priced after a short call · Company emails only