One vendor quotes cash application for a single bank feed. Another quotes “AR automation” per user. Your team also pulls remittances out of email, works short payments in the ERP, and looks up missing invoice references in customer portals. Until both vendors price that same work, you are comparing a quote for one feed with a quote for the whole queue.
This guide covers how to get comparable quotes, how to test what your current ERP already handles, and how to build a payback model that keeps cash, timing, and staff hours in separate rows.
Count your volume before you ask for a price
Take a recent month your team has already reconciled. Add a peak month if your volume is seasonal. Count everything that could appear on a bill:
| Unit | What to count | Question to ask each vendor |
|---|---|---|
| Payments | Bank receipts, checks, card settlements, lockbox items | Is a payment covering 12 invoices billed as one item or 12? |
| Invoices | Invoices issued, and invoices touched by a payment | Do credit memos and debit memos count? |
| Remittances | Emails, files, portal downloads, EDI messages | If the same remittance arrives twice, is it billed twice? |
| Users | Preparers, approvers, read-only collectors | Are reviewers and auditors charged as users? |
| Entities and bank accounts | Legal entities, subsidiaries, bank accounts, currencies | What does adding an entity cost mid-contract? |
Ask every vendor to quote on the same counts and to state the billable unit in writing. A per-invoice price and a per-payment price can differ by an order of magnitude on the same month of activity if your customers pay in bundles.
Make each vendor price the same scope
| Quote line | What to confirm in writing |
|---|---|
| Subscription | Included workflows, users, entities, and supported ERP connections |
| Usage | Billable event, included volume, minimums, overage rate |
| Setup | Data mapping, testing, training, and who fixes rejected records |
| Ongoing support | Who maintains bank formats, routing rules, and customer-specific remittance layouts |
| Recovery | Who repairs a partially posted batch or a failed write, and whether that is included |
| Renewal and exit | Price change caps, term, and how you export records and decision history |
Scope creep in AR usually comes from upstream work. If customers reject invoices before they ever become payable, a cash application tool will not fix that. Price invoice acceptance work separately so you can see what each piece costs.
Run the demo on your backlog
Give every vendor the same bank export, remittances, and open invoice list from a reconciled period. Ask for proposed allocations before you share the approved results.
| Give the vendor | Ask to see |
|---|---|
| One payment for several invoices | The amount applied to each invoice and how the total ties to the bank line |
| Two open invoices for the same amount | What evidence separates them, and what happens when it is missing |
| A short payment with a stated deduction | Cash applied, balance still due, and who reviews the deduction |
| A receipt that already posted, or a failed posting | How the operator checks for an existing record before retrying |
| A receipt with no reliable match | Where the remainder appears and how the next reviewer finds it |
Have someone who actually posts cash work one exception from start to finish during the demo. Can they see the bank line, the remittance, the invoice, and prior decisions without switching screens? Record which suggestions the reviewer accepted, corrected, or rejected. That ratio tells you more than the vendor’s quoted match rate.
Find out what your ERP already does
Run the same sample through your current system first. If it already handles exact matches, score the new tool only on the cases that still need a person.
| ERP | What the sources document | What to test and put in the quote |
|---|---|---|
| NetSuite | Automated Cash Application generates customer payments from imported bank lines and applies them to invoices; it can create an unapplied payment for a single customer. With Consolidated Payments enabled, Oracle points to Accept Customer Payments for multi-customer payments. Oracle | Parent remittances, corrections across subsidiaries, and unresolved short pays priced separately. If the vendor only prepares a draft, include posting time. |
| Sage Intacct | When a bank account is associated with an entity through its Location ID, users can receive payments for that entity at the top level, subject to permissions. Sage | One receipt covering invoices from two entities. Who needs top-level access, and the price of adding an entity. |
| Oracle Fusion | Lockbox runs import, validation, and posting; validation checks duplicates, customer and receipt data, and amounts to apply. Oracle | A transmission with one posted receipt and one failed row. Who repairs it after hours, and whether the retry leaves the posted receipt untouched. |
| Sage 100 | The Cash Receipts Journal is an audit trail showing bank code, posting date, deposit amount, customer, payment reference, and invoices applied. Sage | Compare vendor output to the journal. Ask whether one check is billed as one deposit, one payment, or several applications. |
| Dynamics 365 Finance | Recording a customer payment is distinct from settling it against invoices, and settlement can happen later. Microsoft | Which timestamps your system exposes, so you can measure receipt-to-settlement in the pilot. |
In Oracle Fusion, also compare any proposed allocation with what your configured AutoCash rules already do. Oracle’s reference shows which behaviour depends on configuration. Oracle’s AutoCash rule documentation.
For every bidder, interrupt a payment write in the sandbox and ask them to recover it. AR should be able to find the saved payment, or confirm none was created, before trying again. Name who owns that recovery in production.
Give each benefit one place in the model
The easiest way to inflate an AR business case is to count the same benefit twice. Keep three categories apart:
- Cash timing. If credit sales are reasonably stable, a sustained reduction in days sales outstanding (DSO) multiplied by average daily credit sales estimates the working capital released. That is a one-time shift in the receivables balance, not monthly income. If it reduces borrowing, estimate the interest actually avoided as a separate line. Oracle’s DSO documentation.
- Staff capacity. Minutes spent matching, investigating, and correcting, before and during the pilot. Include new review work the tool creates. Report hours separately from cash unless the change ends a specific expense such as contracted processing or overtime.
- Incremental recovery. Amounts collected that would otherwise have been written off, counted only where evidence supports it. A deduction paid sooner may belong in timing instead.
DSO moves when sales volume or terms change. Check the invoices and customer mix before attributing a decline to software. The DSO and cash forecasting guide shows how.
Worked example (illustrative)
Trial timing. Ten receipts took 50 minutes before the pilot and 25 minutes during it. The trial returned 25 minutes for that mix. Payment dates did not change. Repeat with an exception-heavy batch before budgeting from it.
Capacity. The team processes 1,200 receipts a month at 6 minutes each, or 7,200 minutes (120 hours). In the pilot, comparable receipts take 3 minutes including review: 3,600 minutes (60 hours). That releases 60 hours a month. Report it as capacity.
Cash costs and benefits per month.
| Line | Monthly amount |
|---|---|
| Overtime that stops (a specific expense) | +$2,500 |
| Interest avoided (see below) | +$700 |
| Subscription | −$2,000 |
| Net monthly cash benefit | +$1,200 |
Working capital. Average daily credit sales are $40,000 and DSO falls by a sustained 3 days: $40,000 × 3 = $120,000 released once. If treasury keeps $120,000 less drawn on a line at 7% for a year, interest avoided is $120,000 × 7% = $8,400 a year, or $700 a month. The $120,000 itself goes in a separate one-time row.
Payback. Setup costs $12,000. At $1,200 a month, payback is $12,000 ÷ $1,200 = 10 months.
Downside scenario. Review work grows and only $1,800 of overtime stops. Net becomes $1,800 + $700 − $2,000 = $500 a month, and payback stretches to $12,000 ÷ $500 = 24 months. If monthly costs exceed monthly cash benefits, leave payback blank. A negative number is not a payback date.
Ask the pilot owner which assumption the next batch of records can confirm. If the case rests on unapplied cash, measure receipt to application. If it rests on borrowing, get the actual line balance and rate from treasury.
Contract terms that change the answer
- Billable unit drift. The quote says per payment; the invoice says per application. Put the sample deposit and its billed count in the order form.
- Rejected records. If the vendor’s file fails import, who fixes it, and does that count against support hours?
- Bank format changes. Your bank changes its BAI or CSV layout. Is remapping included?
- Exit. Can you export allocations, notes, and approval history in a usable format?
The finance automation buying guide covers general contract and security questions; this page is about AR specifically. For the operational detail behind the demo cases, see the cash application guide and customer deductions and short pays.
Quote comparison checklist
- Every vendor quoted on the same monthly counts, including a peak month.
- Billable unit stated in writing, with your sample deposit priced line by line.
- Demo run on your five backlog cases, not the vendor’s sample.
- Current ERP run on the same cases first; new tool scored only on what remains.
- Failed-write recovery demonstrated in a sandbox, with a named production owner.
- Capacity, cash timing, and recovery in separate rows, each counted once.
- Payback calculated from cash lines only, with a downside scenario.
- Renewal cap and export format in the contract.