Accounts receivable automation has matured significantly over the past five years. Products like Xero's built-in debtor chasing, MYOB's AR management modules, and dedicated tools like Chaser, Upflow, and EzzyBills handle invoice delivery, automated reminder sequences, payment portals, and reconciliation. For many businesses, these tools have meaningfully reduced the administrative burden of AR and shortened the time from invoice to payment for compliant customers.
The key phrase is "compliant customers." Automation works well for customers who intend to pay and simply need reminders. It is largely ineffective for customers who cannot pay, who are disputing the invoice, or who are deliberately avoiding payment. Understanding that distinction is critical to calibrating your AR investment correctly.
Where automation adds genuine value
- Invoice delivery and confirmation: automated delivery with read-receipt tracking ensures you have evidence that the invoice was received, which is relevant in any later dispute about whether the debtor had notice.
- Reminder sequences: consistent, timely reminders sent automatically outperform manual chasing in most environments, simply because they are not subject to staff workload variability. A debtor who would have been chased on day 35 gets chased on day 7, 14, and 21 instead.
- Payment portals: removing friction from the payment process — allowing a debtor to pay by card or BPAY directly from the invoice email — increases payment rates for willing payers.
- Reporting and ageing: automated AR systems produce real-time ageing reports, DSO calculations, and collection rate metrics without manual data entry. This makes management visibility easier and more timely.
Where automation falls short
Once a debtor has not responded to two or three automated reminders, the situation has moved beyond what automation can resolve. The debtor either cannot be contacted, is disputing the invoice, is in financial difficulty, or is deliberately avoiding payment. All of these situations require human judgment and often human conversation.
Automated systems also tend to treat all debtors the same. A long-term customer with a single late invoice and a chronic late payer with a disputed debt receive the same escalating reminder sequence. This is inefficient and, in the case of the good customer, can damage the relationship.
The hybrid model
Most businesses benefit from a hybrid approach: automation handles the routine reminders and payment facilitation for the first 30 to 45 days after an invoice is due, and human intervention — either internal staff or an external provider — handles anything that does not resolve through automation. This concentrates human effort where it adds most value, rather than on routine tasks.
If your current AR automation is running reminder sequences past 60 days without escalation to human contact, you are probably leaving recovery value on the table. Speak to Merion about where external engagement adds most value in your specific receivables profile.