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Accounts Receivable Dashboard: Examples And Benefits

"Navigating the jungle of accounts receivable? A dashboard is your trusty map to uncover the treasure trove hidden within your financial data!"

An accounts receivable dashboard serves as a powerful visual tool for managing, analysing, and monitoring accounts receivable operations efficiently. This dashboard offers real-time insights into the company's receivables status, providing key performance indicators (KPIs), summary data, alerts, and trends. Integrated with the organisation's ERP or billing systems, it pulls real-time financial and operational data, offering a comprehensive overview of all A/R activities.

This purpose-built software is designed to streamline finance and sales teams' efforts in managing customer relationships from invoice to cash, ensuring faster payments and a hassle-free process.

With the ability to customise for different roles within the company, users can gain deeper insights into outstanding balances across regions and easily drill down into individual account details for strategic decision-making.

Key Questions to Identify the Most Critical Metrics for your Accounts Receivable Dashboard:

  1. Who will be using the dashboard? Determine the intended audience to tailor the data, interactions, and graphs accordingly. For instance, financial analysts may require complex ratios, while non-financial departments benefit from simplified numbers.
  2. What are your business objectives? Align the critical metrics with your organisation's goals, whether it's enhancing productivity, reducing costs, maintaining cash flow, or other strategic priorities.
  3. How do you prevent metric overload? Striking a balance between too many and too few metrics is crucial. Collaborate with teams and leaders to identify the most important metrics that should be featured on the dashboard to effectively track progress and make informed decisions.

Key Metrics (KPI’s) to Include in Accounts Receivable Dashboards

Key Metrics (KPI’s) to Include in Accounts Receivable Dashboards

An AR dashboard provides a visual workspace of key AR performance metrics that show the state of invoice payments and department performance.

  • Total Invoices Due

This metric shows the total number of invoices sent to customers which are due. They can be further broken down into open, overdue, and paid. It enables companies to order their collection efforts according to customers or invoices.

  • Days Sales Outstanding (DSO)

DSO measures how quickly or slowly your company collects payments, and how quickly your customers are paying the bills (it calculates the average number of days it takes you to get paid). A high DSO means it takes a long time for customers to pay. A low one means people pay quickly, so your company has a steady cash flow coming in. 

DSO Formula
  • Average Days Delinquent (ADD)

Average days delinquent measures how far behind customers typically fall on payments and the average number of days a customer takes to pay their invoice after it’s due. Specifically, it is important since it helps to predict when bad debts may become an issue and high risk. The two performance metrics should most often work in tandem- ADD and DSO, to help you assess whether collections efforts are trending in a positive or negative direction.

ADD Formula
  • Write-off Ratio

Your write off ratio is the percentage of accounts receivable that you actually write off as bad debt. It is one of the key metrics for your AR team to track because failure to collect payments from high risk customers will limit growth opportunities and could potentially lead to the company's closure.The key is to make sure that the ratio doesn't get too high, you need better accounts receivables management or that you are taking on clients who are likely to default on their payments.

Write off ratio
  • Ageing of Accounts Receivable

Ageing of Accounts Receivable metric shows a breakdown of invoices by time period. This chart provides the percentage of overdue customer receivables for specific time intervals. It helps you to prioritise collections. It is used as a gauge to determine the financial health and reliability of a company's customers. For example, the accounts receivable for a customer is $5,000. The amount that is current is $2,500, while the other $2,500 is over 30 days past due.

  • Current Accounts Receivable

Current Accounts Receivable metric shows the total amount of money currently owed by customers and any variation from the previous period.

  • Cash Summary

Cash Summary metric shows the cash received from customers during a specific period, broken down by invoice type.

  • Collection Effectiveness Index (CEI)

Collections Effectiveness Index, or CEI measures in percentage the ability to get funds from customers within a given period duration, directly correlating to how much money is lost to bad debts. It's typically calculated monthly, although you can choose to track it over any period. The closest this percentage is to 100%, the best. Using automated accounts receivable softwares helps most.

CEI formula
  • Accounts Receivable Turnover Ratio

Accounts receivable turnover. This metric assesses how quickly you are receiving revenue from the goods or services sold on credit. This KPI calculates how quickly your customers are paying their invoices or bills. A high turnover rate indicates a healthy business and efficient collections.

turnover ratio
  • Billing Cohorts

 Billing cohort tracks groups of invoices that were issued in the same month. The fundamental idea behind billing cohort analysis is to compare different billing cohorts with one another. A billing cohort is usually represented by a matrix and read in left-to-right or bottom-to-top manner. Thus they serve as the best way to improve the cash collection method.

By incorporating these KPIs into your AR dashboard, you gain valuable insights to improve collection efficiency, reduce risks, and optimise cash flow.

Benefits of an Accounts Receivable Dashboard

The AR dashboard enables managers to improve cash conversions and expenditures by helping them identify slow-paying customers, prioritise collection efforts, and make better decisions when extending payment terms or taking other actions.

  1. Real-time Visibility into Your Accounts Receivable: An accounts receivable dashboard provides up-to-the-minute insights into your AR health. No more waiting for reports or manual calculations. This real-time visibility empowers you to identify potential problems early on, before they snowball into significant cash flow issues.
  2. Accurate Financial Data for Informed Decisions:  Your AR dashboard eliminates the risk of outdated or inaccurate information.  With constantly refreshed data, you can make informed financial decisions with confidence.
  3. Deeper Insights through Granular Data Analysis:  AR dashboards go beyond basic figures. They allow you to drill down into granular details, uncovering patterns and trends within your accounts receivable data. This deeper understanding empowers you to optimise your collection strategies and identify areas for improvement.
  4. Improved Performance with Data-Driven Adjustments:  Quick access to actionable data means you can react swiftly to changing circumstances.  By analysing key metrics on your AR dashboard, you can identify areas for improvement and adjust your collection strategies accordingly, leading to overall performance gains.
  5. Motivating Your AR Team:  AR dashboards can be a powerful tool for motivating your team. By highlighting top performers and showcasing progress towards collection goals, you can create a culture of ownership and accountability within your AR department.
  6. Enhanced Cash Flow Management:  One of the most significant benefits of an AR dashboard is its ability to help you identify slow-paying customers.  By prioritising collection efforts for these accounts, you can accelerate your cash flow and improve your overall financial health.

Strategies for Effective Performance Reviews

Strategies for Effective Performance Reviews

Strategies for effective performance reviews in accounts receivable involve tracking activities by collectors to gauge productivity and effectiveness. Additionally, measuring the average collection cycle time provides insights into process efficiency, while evaluating customer satisfaction levels helps improve overall experience.

The Collection Effectiveness Index (CEI) serves as a crucial metric for assessing collections success, comparing collections to outstanding receivables. Understanding the cost of the accounts receivable process is also essential for optimising resources and identifying potential cost-saving opportunities.

By incorporating these metrics into performance reviews, organisations can enhance cash flow management and streamline their accounts receivable operations effectively.

Choosing the Right Automated Accounts Receivable Software

Accounts receivable software is crucial for businesses aiming to streamline their receivables management. It automates tasks like invoicing, payment processing, and collections, ensuring accuracy and timeliness in invoicing to maintain positive customer relationships.

Additionally, it helps prioritise collections efforts and identifies issues early with features like ageing analysis reports and deduction management. This automation leads to increased efficiency and productivity, allowing finance teams to focus on strategic tasks like credit and collections strategies, ultimately improving the bottom line.

  • Identify critical specifications for operations and money management: Determine key operational and financial requirements such as invoicing, payment processing, collections prioritisation, and reporting capabilities. Ensure the software can handle complex operations efficiently.
  • Ensure compatibility with current and future systems: Evaluate the software's compatibility with existing systems and its ability to integrate seamlessly with future technologies. Confirm that data synchronisation and transfer are smooth across platforms.
  • Select a trusted software provider for support: Choose a reputable software provider that offers reliable technical support, regular updates, and comprehensive training resources. Consider factors like vendor reputation, customer reviews, and industry certifications when making your selection.

To choose the right accounts receivable software in 2024, begin by gathering inputs from your team and clearly defining your goals. Research and evaluate different software options based on your specific requirements.

Shortlist solution providers and take demos to assess usability and functionality. Ensure the software can scale with your business and integrate seamlessly with existing systems. Prioritise solutions with intuitive interfaces, positive user experiences, and robust technical support for a smooth implementation process.

Tratta stands out as an exceptional software solution leading in 2024 to provide the best accounts receivable dashboard with a comprehensive platform of tools and services in this AI and software augmented world.

Examples of Major Accounts Receivable Dashboard Components

  • AR Ageing Bucket Charts displaying ageing of AR for the last 13 months

Visualise the distribution of your outstanding receivables across different age categories (e.g., current, 1-30 days past due, 31-60 days past due, etc.). This provides a quick snapshot of your collection performance and identifies areas requiring immediate attention for your accounts receivable dashboard. 2024 accounts receivable dashboards can leverage AI to automatically identify trends and predict future payment behaviour based on historical data. This allows for more proactive collection strategies and improved cash flow forecasting within your accounts receivable dashboard.

  • Drill-Down Features for Detailed Data Analysis

Empower users to delve deeper into specific data points within the dashboard. For example, clicking on a particular age bucket in the AR Aging Chart could reveal a detailed list of invoices within that category. This allows for granular analysis of your accounts receivable data. 2024 accounts receivable dashboards offer advanced filtering options. Users can now filter data by specific customer segments, invoice types, or date ranges, built on traditional drill-down functions.

  • Graphical Representations such as colour-coded graphs and tables for easy Data Interpretation

Leverage colour-coded charts, graphs, and tables to simplify data interpretation within your accounts receivable dashboard. Visual elements make it easier to identify trends, patterns, and outliers within your AR data. Moving beyond static charts and graphs, 2024 Accounts Receivable dashboards like Tratta, are embracing interactive visualisations that allow users to manipulate data in real-time. This fosters deeper engagement with the information and empowers users to uncover hidden insights within their accounts receivable data.

Conclusion

While manually tracking accounts receivable data can be tedious and error-prone,  Accounts Receivable dashboard software automates these processes, saving time and ensuring accuracy. This centralised system provides a single source of truth for your financial data, eliminating discrepancies and delays.  Furthermore, accounts receivable software like Tratta streamlines metric tracking by automating dashboard creation and report generation, allowing you to focus on strategic analysis rather than data collection.

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