If you are like most IT Service Providers you rely on your monthly Profit & Loss Statements (P&L) to do a deep dive into your financials but P&Ls are usually delivered a few days after month end. The problem with this approach is the potential negative impact to your cash flow from having too many invoices outstanding. But rather than having to wait until the end of the month you can now have access to these key metrics in real time.
A simple visual like the one above gives you a quick snapshot into which customers have the largest outstanding balances across your entire customer base. Typically your largest customers have the largest outstanding balance, however, by understanding the total amount and how it compares to others is important to make sure it’s not over weighted to any one particular customer. And when you target your invoice collection follow up you can start with the ones that will make the biggest impact.
See how easy it is to keep Accounts Receivable data at your fingertips
Another popular view for Accounts Receivable is to break them up by amount of time past due to see which customers are the biggest violators of your terms. The goal should be to keep as much as possible current, meaning they are still within their terms of payment. However, just about any business will still have a lagging payment here and there and using an Aging Detail report will allow you to quickly spot any problem customers that might have slipped and are now past due.
Now that you know which customers are past due and what their balances are, it’s easy to follow up with your customers to get paid. With our Outstanding Invoices Details you can quickly see each individual invoice that’s outstanding and all the necessary details about each to properly follow up.
Cash is the oxygen of any business and understanding where your outstanding balances are is a critical metric to track on a regular basis. Remember that “regular basis” doesn’t mean waiting until the end of the month because then it might be too late to make the changes that will impact your bottom line. Instead, by leveraging our QuickBooks Desktop integration you’re able to see this information in real time and deliver to the appropriate team member to follow up.
