Supply Chain Finance: How Small Suppliers Get Paid Early When Buyers Stretch to Net-90
Supply chain finance pays suppliers in days at the buyer's credit rate: a 1.2% fee for 85 days early is about 5.2% APR. Negotiate the base term, not the fee.
#accounts-receivable
Accounts Receivable
Manage invoices, track payments, and optimize cash collection
Ask Your AI Assistant What You Owe and Who Owes You: AP Data Inside AI Workspaces
Ottimate's June 2026 MCP integration lets you query live AP data from Claude or ChatGPT; Billtrust followed for AR. Start read-only, with audit logs on.
The Defensive Interval Ratio: How Many Days Could Your Business Survive With Zero Revenue?
The defensive interval ratio divides cash, marketable securities and net receivables by daily cash operating expenses to state your runway in days. Half of small businesses hold under 15 buffer days — here is how to compute and lengthen yours.
When a Client Won't Pay: Small Claims Court for Unpaid Invoices
A 2025 Intuit QuickBooks survey found 56% of small businesses carry unpaid invoices, averaging $17,500 owed. Here is the full small claims path — demand letter, state dollar limits, naming the right defendant, evidence packet, and the levies and liens that turn a judgment into cash.
Bad Debt Reserve Accounting: Allowance Method vs. Direct Write-Off, and the Collection KPIs That Keep Your Reserve Honest
GAAP requires the allowance method while the IRS requires direct write-off under Section 166, so most accrual-basis businesses run both and reconcile the difference. This guide gives the journal entries for each, three ways to estimate the reserve (percentage of credit sales, an aging schedule, specific identification), and the five collection KPIs — DSO, CEI, current-bucket share, bad debt to sales, and average days delinquent — that reveal when a reserve has drifted from reality.
Charging Late Fees on Overdue Invoices: How to Get Paid Faster Without Losing Clients
Late fees are enforceable only when the client agreed to them in writing before the invoice went overdue. This guide covers the 1%–1.5% per month market standard, state usury limits, grace periods, and how to book fee income to a separate account for clean revenue and tax reporting.
Clinical Trial Site Bookkeeping: Getting Paid for Every Visit, Screen Failure, and Pass-Through Cost
How independent research sites track clinical trial money — nonrefundable startup fees, per-visit rates, prorated screen-failure payments, separately invoiced pass-throughs, 27–35% institutional overhead, and holdbacks that keep 5–10% outstanding while nearly a quarter of sites wait 90+ days for payment.
Co-Op Advertising: How to Claim Vendor Ad Dollars and Book Them Under ASC 705
Manufacturers budget roughly $75 billion a year in co-op advertising funds and about half goes unclaimed. How accruals, pre-approval and proof-of-performance claims work, why claims get denied, and why ASC 705 presumes a vendor allowance reduces COGS rather than advertising expense.
Selling on Credit? How a Purchase-Money Security Interest Puts You First in Line
A PMSI lets a supplier outrank a bank's earlier blanket lien on the goods it sold — but only with exact mechanics: file within 20 days for equipment, and for inventory perfect before delivery plus send an authenticated notice the lender received within the prior five years.
Conditional vs. Unconditional Lien Waivers: Which One to Sign, and When
A lien waiver comes in four forms, and two words decide whether you kept your lien rights. Conditional waivers release rights only if the payment clears, so they go out with the invoice; unconditional waivers release immediately whether or not you are paid, so they go out only after funds clear the bank. Includes the through-date, retainage, and preliminary-notice rules that make the system hold up.
Why Your Business Emails Land in Spam (and How SPF, DKIM, and DMARC Fix It)
Gmail, Yahoo, and Outlook filter mail from domains without SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, and bulk senders must also keep spam complaints under 0.3% and offer one-click unsubscribe. Here is what each DNS record proves, how to publish all three in about an hour, the seven mistakes that keep small-business invoices in spam, and why unread invoices show up in your receivables.
The New Medicare ABN Form (CMS-R-131): A Chiropractic Practice Audit Guide
CMS released an updated Advance Beneficiary Notice of Noncoverage (Form CMS-R-131) on March 13, 2026, mandatory for fee-for-service providers since May 12, 2026. With chiropractic improper payments at 30.4% and nearly 90% of those errors from insufficient documentation, this guide covers ABN trigger points, the GA/GZ/GY modifiers, and the bookkeeping that turns signed notices into collected cash.