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Insights, strategies, and tools for finance teams that want to collect faster.

Three paths leading from an empty office chair: a job posting, an outside service provider building, and an automated collections dashboard, illustrating the choice between hiring, outsourcing and automating accounts receivable

Accounts Receivable Outsourcing vs Automation: What to Do When Your AR Person Leaves

Should you outsource accounts receivable, hire a replacement, or automate? A comparison of cost, control, speed and customer experience, with questions to ask AR outsourcing companies.

Salman Shawaf

Sep 25, 2026

A shipping box held back by a padlock next to an invoice marked overdue, illustrating a supplier placing a customer account on credit hold

What Is a Credit Hold? When to Use One, and When to Require Payment Up Front

What a credit hold is, when to put a customer account on hold, how to tell the customer, when to release it, and when repeat holds should mean payment up front.

Salman Shawaf

Sep 25, 2026

A large invoice document with a slice cut away and held separately by a clamp, orbited by a hard hat, a percentage symbol, and a padlock, illustrating construction retainage held back from an invoice

How AR Automation Handles Construction Retainage and Holdback

Construction invoices are never fully due. Here is how AR automation handles retainage, holdback, progress billing, and partial payments without chasing money nobody owes yet.

Salman Shawaf

Sep 2, 2026

A large padlock guarding a stack of ledger documents, orbited by a cloud server, a one way arrow, and a shield, illustrating read only access to accounting data

Is It Safe to Give an AR Tool Access to Your Accounting Data?

Before you connect an AR automation tool to your ledger, know what it reads, what it writes, where the data lives, how long it is kept, and whether it trains AI models on your customers.

Alex Popa

Sep 2, 2026

A closed server cabinet on the left connected by an arrow through a spreadsheet file to an open automated inbox on the right, illustrating a CSV bridge between a legacy ERP and AR automation

How to Automate AR When Your ERP Has No API

Closed ERP, on premise system, or QuickBooks Desktop? You can still automate collections. How scheduled CSV exports deliver the same result as a direct integration.

Alex Popa

Sep 2, 2026

Two speech bubbles containing an invoice document each, facing one another across a globe with a small envelope and clock between them, illustrating bilingual payment reminders

Bilingual Collections: Running AR in French and English

If you invoice customers in Quebec or overseas, your payment reminders need to arrive in the right language. How to run bilingual collections without doubling the work.

Salman Shawaf

Sep 2, 2026

A large telephone handset flanked by a sound wave on one side and a chat bubble on the other, with a small clock and a voicemail icon nearby, illustrating AI voice calls compared with SMS for collections

Do AI Phone Calls Actually Work for Collecting Invoices?

AI voice calls for AR collections work better than most people expect, but not for the reason vendors claim. The honest breakdown of latency, dial trees, voicemail, and connect rates.

Salman Shawaf

Sep 2, 2026

A horizontal project timeline with four invoice documents attached at intervals, a checkmark stamp, a clipboard, and a coin stack, illustrating progress billing across project milestones

Progress Billing: How to Automate AR for Project-Based Businesses

Progress billing breaks one contract into many invoices with different approvals and due dates. How to run collections on project based AR without chasing the wrong milestone.

Salman Shawaf

Sep 2, 2026

A large invoice with a wedge sliced out of it sitting on a balance scale, orbited by a magnifying glass, a coin stack, and a question mark, illustrating a short paid invoice under review

Short Pays and Deductions: How to Handle Partial Invoice Payments

What a short pay is, why customers take deductions, and how to handle partial invoice payments without writing off cash you are actually owed.

Salman Shawaf

Sep 2, 2026