On Monday, AP has supplier bills waiting for receipts. AR has customer invoices waiting for payment and bank deposits waiting to be applied. If you can fund one project, open a few records from each queue and ask what would happen if the wait disappeared.
Separate the delay from its consequence
| What is waiting | What fixing it changes | First thing to test |
|---|---|---|
| AP bill waiting for a receipt | Whether an otherwise valid bill can reach approval on time | Send receiving the order line and delivery evidence |
| Approved AP bill waiting for posting | Whether the ledger and proposed payment run reflect the bill | Trace a failed write and reconcile before retrying |
| Customer invoice rejected by AP | Whether the customer can put it into a payment run | Catch the rejection reason before the next submission |
| Customer payment already in the bank | Whether AR can update aging and avoid an unnecessary reminder | Match the remittance and verify the open invoices |
| Accepted customer invoice past due | Whether collections can confirm a payment date or uncover a dispute | Check the balance, last contact, and promise before outreach |
A faster payment application can free analyst time without changing when the cash arrived. A faster bill approval can protect supplier terms without reducing payroll. Write down the consequence you want before comparing the projects.
Use a week of records to pick a pilot
For each queue, measure hands-on time, waiting time, and how often the problem repeats. Identify who owns the records and who can act on an exception. If you plan to use days sales outstanding (DSO), compare it with credit terms and check whether sales changed before attributing a change to collections. Oracle’s days sales outstanding documentation.
Start where you can trace the problem, reach the owner, and verify the result. If a supplier is repeatedly waiting for the same missing receipt, the AP pilot guide gives you cases to test. If customers cannot pay because their invoices keep getting rejected, start at acceptance. If cash has already arrived, start with the remittance and allocation. Use the AR pricing and ROI guide to estimate the benefit from the part you change.
Give the pilot owner one measure to improve and one control to verify. For example, shorten the time AP spends resolving receipt holds while keeping held invoices out of the payment run. Then compare the same types of transactions before adding another queue.