Feb 13, 2026
Your finance team knows exactly what's broken. Late payments are stacking up. Days Sales Outstanding is creeping upward. Credit risk is mounting. But when you raise the issue with IT, you get the same response: "We'll add it to the roadmap. Maybe Q4."
By Q4, the problem has metastasised. Cash flow has tightened. Your Accounting Rate of Return on operational investments is suffering because you can't move fast enough. The IT queue isn't just slowing you down: it's actively damaging your balance sheet.
Here's the reality: you don't need to wait. The right AR automation can be live and delivering measurable results within 60-90 days, bypassing the IT bottleneck entirely.
IT roadmaps are built for stability, not urgency. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) customisation projects take 12-18 months on average. By the time your "bespoke" AR module goes live, market conditions have shifted, your team has turned over, and the original problem has evolved into something entirely different.
Meanwhile, 70% of late payments aren't caused by customers refusing to pay: they're caused by inefficient internal workflows. Every month you spend waiting for IT is another month of manual reconciliation, missed follow-ups, and preventable write-offs.
The numbers don't lie. Companies stuck in manual AR processes typically see DSO between 45-60 days. With quick-deployment automation, that same metric can drop to 24-30 days within a single quarter. That's not incremental improvement: it's a fundamental transformation of working capital performance.
The traditional approach to AR automation assumes you need custom development. That's the trap. What finance teams actually need is a sector-ready operational layer that sits above your existing infrastructure, requiring minimal IT involvement.
This is where Invevo's approach differs fundamentally from legacy ERP upgrades. Instead of ripping out and replacing your core systems, we deploy a cloud-based intelligence layer that integrates with your existing accounting platform in weeks, not quarters. No custom code. No lengthy sprints. No dependency on IT resource allocation.
Sector-ready means the platform arrives pre-configured for your industry's specific AR challenges. If you're in professional services, the workflows already understand project-based billing cycles. If you're in distribution, the credit rules already account for inventory-linked payment terms. You're not starting from scratch: you're activating proven playbooks that have worked for dozens of similar businesses.
This is the essence of Low Cost of Change. When market conditions shift or your business model evolves, you need AR systems that adapt in days, not months. Sector-ready configurations make that possible because the underlying architecture is modular, intelligent, and cloud-native.
Finance leaders often hesitate to bypass IT because they worry about integration quality or long-term maintenance. But here's the uncomfortable truth: the "perfect" solution that launches in 18 months is worth far less than the "good enough" solution that goes live in 60 days.
Consider the cash flow impact. If you're carrying £5 million in receivables at 50 days DSO, dropping that to 30 days releases approximately £2 million in working capital. That's capital you can redeploy, debt you can pay down, or growth you can fund: this quarter, not next year.
Quick-deployment platforms like modern AR automation tools achieve 95% payment matching accuracy versus 60-70% from manual processes. That accuracy improvement alone eliminates 15-20 hours per week of reconciliation work. Your finance team stops chasing spreadsheets and starts managing exceptions that actually require human judgment.
Speed also compounds. When you deploy quickly, you start learning quickly. Real-world data flows in. You identify which customer segments respond to automated reminders versus direct outreach. You discover which payment channels drive the fastest settlement. These insights feed back into your configuration, creating a continuous improvement loop that's impossible when you're stuck waiting for IT.
The connection between rapid AR deployment and financial performance is straightforward. DSO measures how long it takes to convert sales into cash. Every day you reduce DSO, you improve cash availability. Every pound released from receivables can be redeployed at your business's internal rate of return.
Let's make this concrete with a worked example. Assume your business generates £10 million in annual revenue with a current DSO of 55 days. That means you're carrying approximately £1.5 million in receivables at any given time. Now assume you deploy a sector-ready AR platform that reduces DSO to 35 days within 90 days of implementation. You've just released £548,000 in working capital.
If your business generates a 20% accounting rate of return on capital, that released cash produces £109,600 in annual value. And that's before accounting for reduced write-offs, lower collection costs, and improved credit risk management. The platform pays for itself within months, not years.
This speed to value is only possible when you bypass the IT queue. Traditional ERP upgrades don't deliver measurable ROI until 18-24 months post-launch. By that point, the business case has often changed entirely, and you're left justifying sunk costs rather than celebrating wins.
Beyond the headline metrics, fast-track AR automation delivers immediate operational improvements that your team will notice from day one:
Multi-channel communication without IT involvement. Modern platforms leverage email, SMS, and automated calls simultaneously. Research shows 85% of email reminders get lost in inboxes, while SMS achieves 90%+ open rates. Switching channels doesn't require IT: it requires configuration you can toggle in an afternoon.
Direct Debit authorisation that puts you in control. Rather than waiting for customers to push payments, activate pull-based payment systems. Once authorised, funds are automatically collected on due dates, eliminating payment friction entirely. This is a policy and authorisation shift, not a technology project.
Intelligent escalation based on customer history. Sector-ready platforms analyse payment patterns and automatically route high-risk accounts to human collectors while handling routine follow-ups autonomously. This optimisation happens algorithmically, learning from your specific data without requiring custom rules or coding.
Early payment incentives that work. Offering a 2-5% discount for advance payment can dramatically accelerate cash inflows. With the right platform, these incentives are applied automatically and tracked seamlessly. No spreadsheets. No manual tracking. No IT dependency.
At Invevo, we've built our platform around a single principle: finance teams should control their own AR destiny. That means giving you a sophisticated operational layer that integrates with major accounting systems in 1-2 weeks, requires minimal IT infrastructure work, and delivers measurable DSO improvements within a single quarter.
Our sector-ready approach means you're not starting with a blank canvas. The credit rules, communication workflows, and risk models that have worked for similar businesses are pre-loaded. You configure rather than customise. You activate rather than develop.
This is what Low Cost of Change looks like in practice. When your business scales, you adjust thresholds in a configuration panel, not request a development sprint. When regulations shift, compliance updates roll out automatically rather than requiring months of technical project management. When market conditions demand agility, you respond in days, not quarters.
The result? AR performance improvements that show up on your balance sheet this quarter, not next year. Cash flow visibility that actually helps you make decisions. Credit risk intelligence that protects margin without strangling growth.
The IT queue will always exist. There will always be competing priorities, resource constraints, and technical debt to manage. But your AR performance can't wait for the perfect alignment of IT capacity and business need.
If you're serious about improving cash flow by next quarter, the path forward is clear: deploy a sector-ready AR platform that bypasses the bottleneck, learn from real data immediately, and iterate based on results rather than assumptions.
The finance teams winning in 2026 aren't the ones with the most customised systems: they're the ones that moved fastest, learned quickest, and maintained the agility to adapt as conditions changed.
Ready to stop waiting and start improving? Let's talk about getting you live in 60 days.
