Getting paid 13 days faster without hiring a collections person
Days-to-payment is often the most expensive number in a services business. Here is the invoice-chasing system we build and the roughly $44,000 a year it typically frees up.
No client outcome is claimed. The figure below is a modeled scenario; inspect the assumptions before applying it to your business.
- Modeled Year-1 savings
- $44,000
- Days to payment
- −13
- Overdue invoices
- −60%
- Build time
- 6 days
Representative build. This describes a system we build and the numbers typical for it, drawn from published benchmarks and our baseline model. Verified, client-signed studies will replace representative ones as permissions land.
The most expensive number in the business
Ask a services owner their average days-to-payment and watch them wince. Most do not know it exactly, which is part of the problem. Invoices go out when someone gets to it. Reminders happen when someone remembers, or when cash gets tight enough to force the awkward call. In between, money that has already been earned sits in someone else’s bank account.
Nobody wants to be the person chasing. So the chasing is inconsistent, and inconsistent chasing is slow chasing.
What it costs, worked at one size
Take a B2B services firm doing around $3M a year on roughly 45-day terms:
- Slow cash: the biggest line by far. Pulling days-to-payment down thirteen days frees a meaningful slice of working capital the business would otherwise borrow against or do without. The financing and opportunity cost of that runs around $24,000 a year.
- Labor: about five hours a week of someone assembling invoices, checking who has paid, and writing reminders, ~$9,600/yr.
- Errors: invoices sent late, to the wrong contact, or with the wrong PO, each one resetting the clock, ~$4,400/yr.
- Opportunity: the owner drawn into collections instead of selling and delivering, ~$6,000/yr.
About $44,000 a year, most of it not a cost you pay out but cash you are quietly financing.
What we build
- Invoice on completion: the moment work is marked done, the invoice generates and sends, to the right contact, with the right reference, no delay.
- A reminder ladder that runs itself: a friendly nudge before the due date, a firmer one after, each in the firm’s own voice, so the owner never has to be the bad guy.
- A live receivables view so anyone can see, at a glance, who owes what and for how long, instead of reconstructing it from the accounting system each week.
- A clean handoff for the rare account that needs a real conversation, flagged early with the history attached.
Live in about six days on the firm’s existing accounting tools.
What changes
Days-to-payment falls by around thirteen. Overdue invoices drop by roughly 60%, because the reminders are consistent and never forgotten. The owner stops spending Friday afternoons deciding who to call. Nothing about the client relationship gets worse; polite, on-time reminders read as professionalism, not pressure.
Why it generalizes
Every firm bills differently, but “send it, track it, chase it, get paid” is the same everywhere. Once the ladder is built, it adapts fast to the next firm’s tools and tone. If you are not sure what your days-to-payment even is, that uncertainty is usually where the money is. Book a free Savings Audit and we will measure it with you.