Collection is the intermediate step between processing invoices and receiving payments. The goal is to manage the invoices after they have been finalized and delivered to a client but before the final payments have been received. For your business, the longer the money remains blocked with your debtors, the more you experience cash flow problems. This reduces the profit margin on the products and services.
Cash flow is directly controlled by two metrics:
- Days between the services were provided and the invoice mailed
- Days between the invoices were mailed and payment received
If you can lower each of these numbers by 15 days, you will experience significant improvements in your cash flow over the next 12 months.
The Invoice Collections screen allows you to view the outstanding invoices and make some systematic collection efforts. You can focus on those invoices that seem to be getting closer to becoming bad debts using the available statistics. This feature optimizes your collection efforts by maintaining the past collection history, allowing you to attach time-stamped notes, displaying metric such as the average number of days it takes a client to pay and so on. So the next time you contact a client, your previous collection notes are automatically displayed for reference. Check CORE Help Center for details on Invoice Collections.