Following-up on past due invoices: still using Excel spreadsheets?

B2B companies frequently generate hundreds of invoices per month and struggle to keep up with them, especially with invoicing and late payments. The issue is that current tools and software, such as invoicing software, ERPs, and accounting software do not have the capacity to monitor the progress of each invoice and measure the effectiveness of their actions.

This is because these tools are not specifically designed to track and monitor Accounts receivable actions. Because of this, medium and small businesses are lacking the right tools to get paid on time. As a result, 60% of B2B companies turn to an Excel spreadsheet to track customer invoicing. Excel is a solution that has the advantage of being cost-effective, but its limitations quickly become apparent.

The question then becomes, how can you put in place a better system to reduce unpaid invoices and get paid faster? Keep reading and you’ll learn the general guidelines to follow, and a few alternatives to Excel that you should consider to successfully scale your business.

Need help tracking your key AR metrics? Have a look at our free spreadsheet!

Download our free Excel invoice tracking template

Whilst searching for solutions to assist with tracking invoices, we usually stumble across Excel invoice tracking templates like this one on google docs. It's a simple and commonly used invoice template. 

Here are some tips to help you get the best out of it. 

• Define a suitable workflow for your customers.

• Use the follow-up table to keep track of when you should initiate certain stages in your plan.

• Update the follow-up table daily to get an accurate overview of your invoice status and customer receivables.

Excel’s limitations

Without access to the right tools, tracking receivables and overdue invoices is often a manual, time-consuming, and repetitive task. It also hinders your financial team's efficiency.

Interestingly 60% of all B2B companies use Excel for tracking invoices. Unfortunately, it's a tool that is poorly adapted to most companies' needs and whose limitations ultimately hinder a company's accounts receivable process. 

Without access to the right tools, tracking receivables and outstanding invoices is often a manual, time-consuming, and repetitive task. It also hinders your financial team's efficiency.

Interestingly 60% of all B2B companies use Excel for tracking invoices. Unfortunately, it's a tool that is poorly adapted to most companies' needs and whose limitations ultimately hinder a company's accounts receivable process. 

A follow-up table that is not updated consistently can lead to inaccuracies when following up. Forgetting to send out a payment reminder on an invoice that has already been paid, requesting incorrect amounts, or even in some cases sending reminders for an invoice that is being disputed could have serious repercussions throughout the billing cycle.

In addition, following up is a task that often involves collaboration between several teams (finance, sales, or even upper management). It requires team members to be perfectly coordinated with each other. 

Unfortunately, using Excel tracking templates to collaborate can be quite a frustrating experience. Some of Excel's limitations include a lack of notification on invoice status and conflicts with other files. Moreover, if your team does not know who is responsible for which action, they won't be able to act in a synchronized manner to properly manage the follow-up process and ensure you get paid by the payment due date. 

Lastly, if the financial team is in the process of switching to a more analytical role as can be expected with financial tools being digitized, this shift will inevitably involve using tools that allow data to be collected and processed automatically and in real-time.

All company departments have begun embracing this shift towards digitalization of their business activities. Now it's up to the finance team to initiate their own transformation.

From data collection to analysis, digitization is transforming financial managers into key stakeholders of the company's financial data.

Meet Upflow: a real-time customer invoice tracking solution

Upflow is the leading platform for following up on account receivables and invoice reminders for B2B SMEs. Upflow enables financial teams to get back in control of their receivables and facilitate their digital transformation. Here is why our clients recommend Upflow for customer invoice follow-up:

Efficient cash collection

Upflow provides your business with systematic and customizable cash collection workflows, in order to make sure you never forget about unpaid invoices. Create targeted workflows and personalized reminders with the customer name, and company name to get paid faster. On average, our users see their days sales outstanding decreasing by 20% in less than 3 months, a significant improvement for their cash flows.

An analytics-driven approach to cash collection

Upflow collects and consolidates all of your billing cycle data and allows the CFO to measure the impact of his or her actions and monitor their performance indicators' progress in real-time. With Upflow, empowers you to meet your objectives!

Easily involve and streamline cross-team collaboration into the cash collection process

Upflow centralizes all aspects of invoice tracking and allows you to alert each member of your team when they should perform a follow-up action. Shorten your average payment term by sending a customer reminder at the right time and to the right person.

Unlock modern payment methods and scale your business

Upflow offers modern online payment methods. Your customers want to pay you so make it easy for them. Giving them the option of online payments using their credit card or PayPal account will make this task easier for them.

With Upflow, say goodbye to your Microsoft Excel payment tracking spreadsheet and digitize your invoice tracking process. You can try us out for Free with our Discover plan.