DSO Reduction and Billing Automation Offer (10-14 days)
A fixed-scope engagement that rebuilds an agency client's time-to-cash path: tracked hours and expenses convert into invoices on a schedule, reminders fire without a human, and a payment gateway closes the loop. Target outcome is a measurable drop in days sales outstanding within two billing cycles. Time: 10-14 days.
By InnovaAI ResearchPublished
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DSO Reduction and Billing Automation Offer (10-14 days)
A fixed-scope engagement that rebuilds an agency client's time-to-cash path: tracked hours and expenses convert into invoices on a schedule, reminders fire without a human, and a payment gateway closes the loop. Target outcome is a measurable drop in days sales outstanding within two billing cycles.
- Read access to the client's last 12 months of invoice and payment history, including issue dates and settlement dates
- Named finance owner on the client side with authority to change billing terms and reminder cadence
- Confirmed list of payment methods the client's customers actually use (card, ACH, bank transfer, direct debit)
- Written inventory of every system that touches billable time: project management, timesheets, expense capture
- Agreement on the baseline DSO figure and the reporting window used to judge success
- 1.Pull 12 months of invoice data and compute baseline DSO by client segment
- 2.Map the current path from tracked time to issued invoice, noting every manual handoff
- 3.Interview the finance owner about reminder habits and write-off patterns
- 1.Identify where billable time leaks: untracked hours, late expense submission, approval stalls
- 2.Score each leak by revenue at risk per month
- 3.Confirm which leaks the client will let you fix in this engagement
- 1.Select the billing platform against the client's integration constraints, not feature count
- 2.Verify the platform's API or native connector reaches the project management tool in use
- 3.Document the fallback if the primary platform's connector breaks
- 1.Configure invoice templates with payment terms, late fees, and tax treatment
- 2.Set the invoice generation trigger: on milestone, on schedule, or on approval
- 3.Test one invoice end to end in a sandbox before touching live data
- 1.Wire the payment gateway and confirm settlement timing per method
- 2.Turn on automatic reminders at day 3, day 14, and day 30 past due
- 3.Draft reminder copy that escalates in tone without souring the client relationship
- 1.Connect expense capture so receipts reach the invoice without a spreadsheet
- 2.Set approval routing rules with a named backup approver
- 3.Build the profitability view that shows margin per client and per project
- 1.Run a parallel billing cycle: new system alongside the old one
- 2.Reconcile every invoice produced in parallel against the legacy output
- 3.Log discrepancies and fix configuration before cutover
- 1.Cut over live billing and retire the manual step
- 2.Brief the delivery team on how time entry now affects invoice accuracy
- 3.Publish the escalation path for disputed line items
- 1.Build the DSO dashboard: invoice age buckets, reminder effectiveness, collection rate
- 2.Set alert thresholds so the finance owner hears about a 45-day invoice the day it happens
- 3.Schedule the first review against baseline
- 1.Train the finance owner and one backup on the platform's daily operations
- 2.Hand over a runbook covering month-end close and gateway reconciliation
- 3.Confirm the client can add a new customer and invoice them unaided
- 1.Review the first live cycle for exceptions and reminder misfires
- 2.Tune reminder timing based on early payment behavior
- 3.Document any client-specific terms that need manual handling
- 1.Deliver the DSO comparison against baseline and the projected annual cash impact
- 2.Present the retainer scope for ongoing monitoring and platform administration
- 3.Agree the 60-day checkpoint date for the second measurement
Agencies can charge a fixed setup fee because the deliverable is a cash-flow number the client can verify against their own bank statements, not a subjective quality judgment. The retainer is defensible because DSO drifts back up the moment reminder cadence and approval routing go unmanaged, and the client rarely has someone whose job is to watch it. Margin comes from repeatable configuration work: the second and third client in the same vertical take roughly half the days of the first.
- Baseline DSO analysis broken out by client segment and payment method
- Configured billing platform with invoice templates, approval routing, and reminder sequences live
- Payment gateway integration with settlement timing documented per method
- DSO dashboard with alert thresholds and a named owner on the client side
- Operations runbook covering month-end close, gateway reconciliation, and dispute escalation
The client has issued at least one full billing cycle through the new system with zero manual invoice creation, and the DSO dashboard reports a figure the finance owner accepts as accurate against their bank records.