Accounts receivable work queues are the cornerstone of your organization’s ability to collect money owed by your customers. Therefore, they are essential to the receivables management process and must be dealt with systematically. In this post, we’ll discuss some questions you can ask yourself about your AR work queues to ensure that they’re working for you.

 

Do my worklists accurately reflect the risks on my accounts?

One of the main components of an accounts receivable work queue is a list of claims that need to be processed. Having a detailed and regularly updated list is an excellent practice because it allows you to efficiently manage your most important accounts receivable tasks. 

 

The first question you should ask yourself is whether your worklists accurately reflect the risks on your accounts. For example, suppose you have one customer who has recently been late paying their bills. Your accounts receivable work queue should reflect this risk factor by giving that customer’s invoices higher priority (or “claims” in this context).

The second question you can ask yourself is how often does my worklist get updated? In many cases, updating an account receivable work queue takes place weekly or monthly. This frequency may not be sufficient for some businesses because they may assign a high priority to specific customers, meaning their claims need attention sooner than later.

The third question we want you to consider when using our program is: Who reviews my worklists? Accountants or managers tend not to review these lists as much as HR departments do–and why not? Because accounting departments don’t usually have time! So what happens when someone doesn’t review their queues properly? They end up working inefficiently and wasting valuable time looking through old files instead of focusing on what matters most–their current assignments. 

There are ways around this problem: software solutions like ours allow users access anywhere 24/7 to check their progress without needing anyone else’s help!

 

What should be the frequency of my difficult claims presented to AR staff to be worked upon?

Don’t be afraid to ask for help. The best way to determine the frequency of claims is by asking your finance department what they think would be appropriate. If you’re not sure about the answer, don’t hesitate to reach out and ask for some guidance on this critical question.

 

When deciding a frequency, ensure it’s based on risk rather than just time passed since the last claim was submitted or paid. For example, suppose one of your accounts has been delinquent for a long time without any issues. In that case, there’s no reason it would need special attention from AR staff—you can wait until their payment is due before working with them again (which will happen anyway). 

However, if another business owes you money and consistently makes monthly late payments—even if all of those payments have cleared—that account may present a greater risk than others. This should likely get additional attention from your accounts receivable staff as soon as a new invoice is raised.

The correct frequency will also depend on the type of claim: some types might require immediate attention while others can wait longer; some might merit monthly monitoring, but others could take the less frequent review.

Read more: How Is AI Driving The Future Of Debt Collection?

 

Is my staff touching claims aged less than 30 days?

First, you should ask yourself: what is the problem? In other words, what is your goal? Is your goal to improve the efficiency of your accounts receivable staff? Are you trying to find out if there is a way for your staff to spend less time on claims aged less than 30 days and more time on new claims that come in? Or are you trying to find out if there are any issues with one particular member of your accounts receivable department touching these claims? Once you have answered this question, it will be easier for us to give a solution that fits your needs.

If your accounts receivable staff is not touching claims aged less than 30 days and driving up your outstanding balance, you need to take action. The solution could be as easy as ensuring the claims are paid in full before they reach their 30-day mark. If this isn’t possible, you may want to consider implementing a new policy within the department or company wide so that everyone follows through with their promises when dealing with vendors.

 

Do my work queues include any black holes?

If you’re using a work queue to manage your accounts receivable, you’ll want to ensure that you aren’t missing anything. The last thing you want is to have a claim sitting in limbo without being worked on because it’s the only claim that needs attention. That’s where black holes come into play. 

A black hole is a claim on which no action has been taken for an extended period. These claims are typically caused by either human error (such as entering the wrong information) or technical difficulties (like a glitch in their system).

Black holes can cause problems for your AR department and your business, especially if they become large enough to start affecting other parts of the company, like payroll or billing. 

For example: Suppose one of your employees enters an incorrect amount into their system when creating payments. In that case, this could lead to incorrect amounts being applied toward interest rates or late fees—which could lead to other customers having difficulty paying their bills due to these errors! Fortunately, there are ways around this type of problem: ask the person who originally entered this false data why they did so; if it was just an honest mistake, then go ahead with making edits accordingly; but if not, then there might need some disciplinary action taken against them but more importantly than any disciplinary action would be fixing whatever went wrong here, so we don’t repeat ourselves.

 

Which claims get touched the most often?

The first thing to ask is which claims get touched the most often. The answer will help you identify areas where there are a lot of transactions and whether they’re being handled correctly. 

For example, if you see that a claim has been updated multiple times in a short period of time—and a different person dealt with it each time—likely, someone hasn’t realized how many changes have been made before acting on them. That’s not necessarily an issue with your process or workflow; it might simply be an opportunity for training so that everyone knows what steps to be taken when updating a claim.

But what if it all looks good? Let’s say one claim gets updated every few days but never touches any other claims in the queue; this is probably normal behavior for your organization. Additionally, it won’t affect your operations much, aside from clogging up some space in the queue (and perhaps making it harder for another employee who needs access). 

Other things can cause more significant problems: A substantial transaction may require hours of additional work to complete all aspects correctly–or worse yet–no one will take care of it until someone else does!

 

Conclusion

The work queue needs to be managed systematically. In other words, it should be regularly updated, reviewed, and reviewed by senior management and the board of directors. What does this mean for you? If your company has a problem with its accounts receivable, it may want to consider using an automated solution.

Hopefully, this article has provided valuable insights into setting up an accounts receivable queue. If you have any questions or comments about what we covered here, feel free to reach out! We’re always happy to help our customers figure out the best way forward for their business needs.