Lesson #55
Receivables – Aged A/R function
The first step in collecting a debt is finding out who owes you what and for how long. Aged A/R (Accounts Receivable) reports tell you which clients have unpaid invoices, how much they are in arrears, and for how long. But RB’s version is much more than that.
Multi-tasking tool
RB’s Aged A/R reports are interactive, so after you compile a report, you can click a firm name in the report to get all of their contact info, plus see the record of which collections actions you have already pursued with them. You don’t have to go to a separate function to do collections tasks. You can also click a monthly total to see which invoices are included and view their details.
In addition to viewing firm and invoice details, you can view relevant information directly from the Aged A/R report that you would otherwise go into separate functions to look up. Having this information at your fingertips in Aged A/R saves you time when researching outstanding invoices, making collection efforts, or talking with a client about their invoices.
While the default report ages invoices from today, you can use this function to generate Aged A/R reports for prior time periods too. You can export or print out the report if desired. You can even resend invoices without leaving the function.
Viewing aged accounts receivable
The default report lists clients with unpaid balances in descending order by the ones who have the largest amount outstanding in the oldest time period — the clients you want to go after first. However, you can sort the grid by one or more of the columns, so you can view the list in ascending or descending order by any time period, grand total owed, firm name or number, assigned collector, and/or COD status. (When you exit the function, RB will revert back to the default order.)
You can also choose how many time periods to review. Amounts due from the past to the present are grouped in 30-day increments with the default view being 6 of these time periods in columns, plus 1 column for all outstanding amounts beyond 6 months. You can extend the report up to 12 months, plus the extra column for older outstanding balances.
A final column in the report lists the grand total outstanding amount for each firm. The last row in the report displays grand totals in each column of outstanding amounts for all clients.
In addition to changing the number of the periods displayed, you can further customize the report to:
- Age receivables from an an earlier date.
- List firms by who ordered services instead of who was billed for services (if you want to contact the law firms who bought services instead of the insurance companies who will pay the invoices, for example).
- Group all of a parent firms’ subsidiaries’ amounts into the parent firm’s total, instead of listing all firms separately.
- Show the invoices for a single firm or a parent firm and its subsidiaries.
- Show invoices assigned to a single collector in your office.
- Display only invoices in one or more categories (such as affiliate invoices).
- Display invoices for one or more business units in your company.
Printing Aged A/R reports
If you want a static report to work with or for your records, you can export it. Aged A/R reports can be exported as an Excel spreadsheet with each client’s overdue amounts broken down by age, plus a list of all of their overdue invoices including basic details. The exported report also includes the grand totals column and row.
If you want an exported Aged A/R report without invoices, you can export it as an Excel spreadsheet or generic file the same way you export other results grids in RB. Once exported with or without invoices, you can print the report.
Viewing client details
You can drill down in an Aged A/R report to see details about a client, their outstanding invoices, and your collection efforts with them to date.
Firm names in RB’s Aged A/R report are hyperlinked to their profiles in your system, so with one click you can pull up all of a client’s contact information, plus the rest of their details instantly including your collections notes to review.
After accessing a firm from the Aged A/R report, you can easily:
- Contact the firm.
- Record your current collections action.
- Enter any notes about the situation.
- Set a reminder date/time for follow-up.
- Designate a follow-up person to receive the reminder.
- Update any other information about the firm, such as an address change.
Viewing invoice details
In addition to the hyperlinked firms, firms’ outstanding balances for each time period are hyperlinked too. Clicking an outstanding balance brings up a list of the client’s unpaid invoices included in that time period’s total, along with basic contact and invoice information, so you can easily refer to specific invoices while on the phone with the client.
Plus the outstanding invoices in this list are all hyperlinked to their details. So you have ALL the facts when talking to the client about getting paid.
When looking at the list of invoices in a client’s Aged A/R detail window, you can:
- See the client’s basic contact information, such as the firm’s main phone number.
- View basic invoice information at a glance, including each invoice’s balance due and how many days old it is.
- Drill down to view/update detailed information about the firm and the collector assigned to the account.
- Drill down to view an invoice’s details. In addition to listing the services provided and other invoice details, you can use information from an invoice details window to provide clients with details about the specific invoice’s overdue amounts and any payments or other transactions credited to the invoice. You can also update Bill To and Sold To client information.
- Resend invoices directly from the client’s Aged A/R detail window.
Shortcuts to other functions
Aged A/R interacts with other RB functions eliminating the need to set search filters to find the relevant client information in those other functions.
You can directly access a Bill To client’s current 90-day payment history from Aged A/R instead of going into the Receivable Transaction Inquiry function and compiling that history yourself.
You can also directly access all of a Bill To or Sold To client’s financial activity with your company from within Aged A/R instead of going to the Client Activity function.
And you can compile and send collection letters for any or all of a client’s outstanding invoices without leaving Aged A/R.
TL;DR: Aged A/R summarizes each client’s unpaid invoices, grouped by when the invoice was due (aging period). It is interactive so you have your complete set of collection tools and invoice information linked into the report to maximize your collection efforts.
RB concepts in this lesson
Bill To Firm: The firm responsible for paying the invoice for a job, usually the firm that scheduled the job but also could be a third-party firm, such as an insurance agency.
Business Unit (BU): One of your company’s revenue centers or any entity in your business that you want to track separately.
Firm: Business you provide services to, usually law firms, but can also be other court reporting firms, vendors, insurance companies, corporate clients, and courts.
Sold To Firm: Usually the firm that ordered a job.
