Accounts Receivable Best Practices: How to Cut Your Collection Time from 45 Days to 30
Cut DSO from 45 days to 30 with six habits - same-day invoicing, written terms, electronic payment, scheduled follow-ups, dispute triage, and credit limits.
#collections-management
Collections Management
Strategies for managing accounts receivable, recovering overdue invoices, and improving cash flow
The 10-Year IRS Collection Clock: When Tax Debt Legally Expires
The IRS generally has ten years from assessment — not filing — to collect. Offers, payment-plan requests, CDP hearings and bankruptcy all pause that clock; here is how to reconstruct your real CSED from transcripts.
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.
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.
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 $15 Dispute: What the No Surprises Act's New IDR Rules Mean for Your Practice's Out-of-Network Revenue
The No Surprises Act's Federal IDR administrative fee fell from $115 to $15 per party for disputes filed on or after June 11, 2026, with the rest of the operations rule effective August 3, 2026. This guide walks a small medical practice through the arbitration timeline, why low-dollar out-of-network underpayments are now worth disputing, and how to book disputed receivables, dispute fees and awards so contested claims stop leaking revenue.
Pay-If-Paid vs. Pay-When-Paid: The Subcontract Clause That Decides Whether You Get Paid When the Owner Stalls
A pay-if-paid clause makes the owner's payment a condition precedent and shifts the full risk of owner nonpayment onto the subcontractor, while a pay-when-paid clause only sets timing and still obligates the general contractor. Courts enforce pay-if-paid only when the condition-precedent language is express, and at least eight states (California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Wisconsin) void it outright. This guide covers how to tell the clauses apart, what to negotiate before signing, the Miller Act's 90-day notice and one-year suit deadlines, and how to book contingent receivables so your aging report and cash forecast tell the truth.
The FDCPA Won't Help You Collect That Unpaid Invoice: A Small Business Owner's B2B Collection Playbook
The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act covers consumer debt collected by third parties, so it does not govern a business chasing its own overdue B2B invoices — contract law, UCC Article 2, and state unfair-practice statutes do. This guide explains the two FDCPA tests most commercial receivables fail, and gives a five-step recovery sequence from contract clauses and a follow-up cadence through demand letter, small claims or a 15–40% contingency agency, and judgment enforcement.
Debt Collection Agency Bookkeeping: Trust Accounts, Contingency Fees, and FDCPA Compliance
Debt collection agencies must hold client recoveries in a segregated trust account, recognize contingency fees only after collection, and run monthly three-way reconciliations of bank balance, book balance, and client ledger totals to avoid commingling violations and FDCPA compliance gaps.
Collection Due Process Hearings: How a 30-Day Letter Stands Between Your Small Business and an IRS Bank Levy
A timely Form 12153 filed within 30 days of IRS Letter 3172 or LT11/L-1058 triggers a Collection Due Process hearing under IRC Sections 6320 and 6330 — suspending levy action, preserving Tax Court appeal rights, and giving small business owners a statutory chance to negotiate installment agreements, lien withdrawal, innocent spouse relief, or offers in compromise before the IRS drains the operating account.
Collections Management Guide: Turn Unpaid Invoices Into Predictable Cash Flow
A working guide to collections management for small businesses, covering the six-stage follow-up workflow, the AR metrics that actually matter (DSO, CEI, ADD), and a 30-day plan to shorten the average collection cycle.