Satago accounts receivable automation software benefits

Satago offers a full accounts receivable automation software package that can support your business in getting paid up to 72% faster. We also offer a 2 week free trial, register here to get 2-weeks of full access to our award winning AR automation software for free.

There are many areas of business where the right technology can transform a company from inefficient to productive overnight. One such area is accounts receivable automation.

Despite advances in accounts technology, a startling number of businesses haven’t updated their accounts receivable processes within the last 20 years. Many business owners simply invoice customers and hope for the best. If the customer doesn’t pay on time, they spend the next few weeks chasing, becoming increasingly stressed as time goes on.

With several customers and multiple unpaid invoices at any one time, chasing payments soon becomes an admin burden. In fact, according to smallbusiness.co.uk, the average firm spends an hour and a half each day chasing payments. That’s seven and a half hours a week that could be better spent elsewhere. Accounts receivable automation provides a solution to this problem.

What is accounts receivable automation?

Accounts receivable automation (sometimes shortened to AR automation) swaps manual invoice chasing for automated payment reminders. Rather than relying on a human to build a payment reminder schedule and send chaser emails to customers, accounts receivable tools like Satago plug into your accounts package and do the job for you.

The software will automatically send a payment reminder to your customers once their invoice becomes overdue and will continue to send reminders at periodic intervals until the invoice is paid.

You can set a sending schedule that works for your business and customise email templates to suit your tone of voice. Your customers won’t even know they’re receiving automated emails.

How accounts receivable automation can benefit your business

As well as saving you time, accounts receivable automation can have a significant impact on your cash flow. In fact, Satago users reduce their aged debt by an average of 30%.

What’s more, by following an organised credit control process, businesses often find that their customer relationships improve. Invoice disputes are resolved quickly with fewer misunderstandings, and customers are more likely to return to them in future.

• Better credit control processes.
• Less admin.
• Faster payments.
• An average 30% reduction in aged debt.
• Reduced debtor days.
• Better cash flow.
• Improved customer relationships.

How to implement accounts receivable automation  

When investing in accounts receivable automation, it’s important to establish who in your team will be managing the software. If you’re a small company, this can be the business owner or COO. If you’re a larger business, you can hand responsibility to someone in your accounts department. Management will include:

• Creating your payment reminder email templates.
• Setting up the sending schedule.
• Responding to customer invoice queries as they arise.

Once you’ve established who will be looking after your business’ credit control, all you need to do is connect the software to your accounts package and get started.

What makes Satago different?

Although some accounting software providers offer basic automated invoice chasing, Satago provides something altogether more sophisticated.

• Send automated emails from your own email address.
• Send automated monthly statements to repeat customers.  
• Keep track of customer email responses within the platform.
• Add commentary to unpaid invoices and keep track of the invoice payment status.  
• Get on top of debtors long-term, with detailed reports.  
• Credit check customers and review their financial position before setting their credit limit.

The long-term effects of accounts receivable automation

A few months after implementation, you should notice your debtor days start to come down. You may also find that you’ve collected aged debt that would otherwise have been written off. Your cash flow should improve and you should have more money in the bank to invest in your business’ growth.

You can measure the results of the automation by looking at your debtor days report within your accounting software or you can calculate debtor days manually using this debtor days calculator.

To try Satago’s accounts recievable automation for yourself, sign up for a two-week free trial or get in touch with our team to request a demo.