Invoice Collection Workflow

This workflow turns the Receivables dashboard into controlled collection work. Use Receivables to decide where attention matters. Then use the invoice and customer records to check the context and take the next action.

Prerequisites

• Invoice issue dates, due dates, statuses, customers, amounts, and currencies are current.
• You recorded the payments, credits, and adjustments against the correct invoices.
• Customer contact details and communication preferences are accurate.
• The team has an active recovery policy with at least one step before anyone uses Auto-chase.
• You connected the payment and communication providers for the channels that you plan to use.
• Disputed or relationship-sensitive accounts have a named human owner.

1. Choose the Review Period

1. Open Receivables → Overview.
2. Choose the four-week, three-month, six-month, 12-month, month-to-date, year-to-date, all-time, or custom period that matches the review.
3. Record the current Outstanding, period DSO, all-time Collection rate, and all-time Avg days to pay.
4. Note that only DSO follows the selected period among those four headline metrics.

Use the same period when you move to Receivables → Analytics. This keeps the period-based collection curve, recovery rate, CEI, payment lag, and aging movement comparable.

2. Triage What Needs Attention

Read Do next in severity order:

1. Open the oldest and largest overdue invoices first.
2. Check the failed payments before you send another message.
3. Confirm the risky terms before you send or escalate an invoice.
4. Check broken promises against payment records and customer communications.
5. Confirm the customer authorization before you treat missing autopay as a task.

The alert is an aggregate. It does not always open the exact affected record. Use Invoices and Customers to find and check the source items.

3. Read Aging Before You Contact a Customer

1. Find the largest non-zero AR Aging bucket.
2. Compare DSO, Collection Curve, and Recovery Rate.
3. Open Receivables → Analytics.
4. Read Payment Lag for average, median, and 90th-percentile lateness.
5. Read Aging Movement to see where exposure shifted during the period.

Prioritize invoices that combine high value, older age, failed payment evidence, or a broken promise. Do not use customer profitability or a risk rank alone to justify harsher treatment.

4. Open and Confirm the Invoice

1. Open Invoices → Invoices.
2. Select Overdue, or filter by customer, amount, due date, or status.
3. Open the invoice details sheet.
4. Open the full page when you need complete payment and activity history.
5. Confirm these items:
   • Customer name, email, phone, and billing contact
   • Invoice number, currency, total, and due date
   • Payments received, credits, adjustments, and amount remaining
   • Prior reminders and communication outcomes
   • Dispute, promise, settlement, and team-only note context
   • Whether an active recovery sequence already exists

If the paid status and payment ledger disagree, reconcile them before you contact the customer.

5. Choose the Least Disruptive Valid Action

Send one reminder

Use Remind when one checked follow-up is correct and a sequence is unnecessary.

1. Confirm the recipient and amount.
2. Select Remind.
3. Confirm the action.
4. Check the reminder date and the communication activity.

A recorded reminder does not prove delivery or that the customer read it. Check the communication state before you send again.

Start Auto-chase

Use Auto-chase overdue only for an unpaid or overdue invoice that must follow the active recovery policy.

1. Confirm that Settings → Receivables Controls contains one intended active policy and at least one step.
2. Turn on Auto-chase overdue.
3. Wait for the recovery status to appear.
4. Check the step number and the next reminder date.

The current policy editor's Day values are delays from enrollment and from the step before. They are not absolute days after the invoice due date. Read the dates that result before you depend on the sequence.

Stop Auto-chase

Turn the switch off when the invoice is in dispute, canceled, paid through another path, or must return to manual work. Check that the sequence is no longer active. A job that Eigenn scheduled before can still wake up. It must skip an inactive sequence and not send it.

Offer a settlement

Use a settlement only after you confirm the business decision and the customer context.

1. Enter a positive settlement amount on an eligible unpaid or overdue invoice.
2. Select Offer.
3. Check the amount and the expiration date on the screen.
4. Track acceptance and payment separately.

When you create an offer, Eigenn does not mark the invoice paid.

Correct the invoice status

Use Mark as paid, Mark as unpaid, or Cancel only when the evidence supports the change. A status correction does not automatically repair a bank transaction, provider payment, or external accounting record.

6. Confirm Delivery and Recovery State

After each action, check:

• Current invoice status and amount remaining
• Recovery state, current step, and next action date
• Reminder or communication state
• Customer contact and channel preference
• Payment-provider result for a failed or retried charge
• Invoice activity and communication history

For email, confirm that you set up the workspace email delivery service. For SMS, confirm that the customer has a phone number and that you set up the workspace SMS service. Do not treat a queued record as delivered.

7. Update the Cash Expectation

1. Return to Receivables → Overview.
2. Refresh after you update the source invoice.
3. Check if the invoice stays in Do next and AR Aging.
4. Update the relevant forecast or operating review when the expected payment date changes.
5. Record the owner and next review date outside the customer message itself.

Use the invoice record as the source of truth for status and payment. Use Receivables to understand the effect across the business.

8. Close the Loop

Collection work is complete only when the record shows the intended outcome:

• Eigenn records the payment, and the balance agrees
• The invoice status is correct
• Auto-chase is complete or canceled when it must no longer run
• The communication history contains no unexplained duplicate or failed send
• The record shows every promise, dispute, or settlement decision
• The forecast shows material changes to the expected dates

Important Limits

• The general switches under Settings → Receivables Controls save team preferences. Eigenn does not now use them to enforce recovery delivery, late fees, quiet hours, weekend exclusions, adaptive cadence, due-date autopay, or owner approval.
• Recovery-policy steps created from Settings control the actual Auto-chase schedule and channel.
• Settings-created steps always attach the invoice. They do not show template, tone-profile, fee-rule, sender, edit, delete, or reorder controls.
• A policy created from Settings is active immediately and has a five-step maximum.
• If more than one active policy exists, Auto-chase selects the newest active policy. The invoice control does not offer a policy picker.
• Tone experiments apply only to eligible workflow communications that have tone turned on. Do not assume that every Auto-chase message participates.
• Multi-currency receivables totals can combine raw amounts under one displayed currency label.

Troubleshoot

Auto-chase starts but no next reminder appears

Confirm that the active recovery policy has at least one step and that the invoice has a customer. Refresh after the background job has time to create the recovery sequence.

The reminder date is later than expected

The Day value is now a delay from enrollment for the first step and from the prior step for later steps. Eigenn does not calculate it as an absolute day after the original due date.

A message failed

Check the customer's email or phone, channel preference, suppression state, and provider configuration. Wait for the retries that you set up before you send a manual duplicate.

A paid invoice is still in recovery

Check the way that Eigenn recorded the payment. Some payment-completion paths close recovery automatically. A manual status correction can leave some recovery records unchanged. Turn off Auto-chase when the active sequence stays visible after a payment that you confirmed.

The action item remains after correction

Confirm the source invoice, payment, promise, or customer record first. Then refresh Receivables. Give the analytical view time to update.

Related Pages

• Receivables
• Receivables Controls
• Configure Receivables Controls
• Receivables Analytics
• Invoices
• Manage the Invoice Lifecycle