Go Beyond Excel: Unveiling Invevo as the Future of Accounts Receivables Management

Effective accounts receivables (AR) management plays a pivotal role in maintaining healthy cash flow and ensuring financial stability for businesses of all sizes.

For the last 35 years, Excel has been a trusted companion for finance departments due to its ease of use and familiarity. However, its limitations for the accounts receivable lifecycle are increasingly hindering businesses from achieving a streamlined, efficient AR process.

This blog post will explore the limitations of using Excel for AR and why switching to innovative software like Invevo can significantly enhance your AR lifecycle, save valuable time, and boost your business's financial health.

‍Addressing Concerns

Adopting a specialised software might be viewed as more costly than using Excel, however it might be argued that the countless wasted hours of manual data entry and limited capabilities arguably have a greater cost on the performance an efficiency of the team.

There’s a reason why 49% of finance professionals still use Excel, it’s extremely useful to manipulate data. However, the most forward thinking and digitally advanced businesses know that it’s a necessity to drive process efficiency through a bespoke software solution.

At Invevo, we inspire the combination of simplicity and the complexity of our technological capabilities and we know that Excel isn’t the future, we are.‍

Excel Is Unsuitable For Managing Complex Financial Data

Despite the potential for unnoticed errors using Excel, particularly in remote work scenarios, many finance teams continue to rely on the time-consuming process of manually inputting data. Users need to apply payments to the correct invoices in Excel, transfer data, and ensure formula accuracy, which can be prone to human error.

One of the worst cases of human error with Excel was demonstrated by TransAlta, a Canadian power generator, who lost $24 million due to a cut-and-paste error in a spreadsheet which underlines Excel’s unsuitability for managing complex, critical financial data.‍

There is a Simple Solution

Specialised AR software solutions like Invevo are designed with a focus on AR management, addressing the challenges that Excel struggles to overcome. Invevo streamlines the entire AR process by automating 80% of the receivables lifecycle. It gives you a workflow engine that enables you to configure any combination of workflow processes with automated communications to increase cash collection performance and reduce risk.

Transitioning from standard outdated processes like Excel to a new AR software can sometimes be viewed as daunting, but in reality this change should be exciting. As your finance team evolves, you’ll be able to see immediate benefits including time saved, rapid ROI and generally a happier more efficient team.

Some of the key benefits of utilising a cloud-based technology like Invevo include:

📈 Real-Time Credit Risk Monitoring

Monitor every customer's credit risk closely and automate decisions to manage credit exposure effectively.

🚦 Order Block Management

Make real-time decisions on order blocks based on available credit, risk, and overdue receivables, and manage customer segments like key accounts.

💻 Customisable Workflows

Configure workflows to improve collection performance and segment customers based on risk profiles and behavioural groups.

✉️ Automated Communication Suite

Send branded communications through various channels, including email, SMS, post, and phone, directly from the Invevo desktop.

Real-World Application

Excel's capacity is bounded, leading to potential slowdowns and errors when handling large amounts of data. As the analysis complexity rises, the likelihood of encountering errors also escalates.

Picture a credit controller who uses Excel to create multiple spreadsheets for data management, tracking payments and reporting. This credit controller will be facing several issues, including time-consuming manual data entry and keeping information up to date, limited automation, lack of real-time collaboration and inadequate reporting.

That’s where an innovative AR solution steps in and gives these credit controllers a complete solution in one consolidated workspace, as explored in our previous blog post here.

Invevo’s automation unlocks a variety of benefits to this credit controller, including enhanced data management, such as being able to segment customers into risk profiles and providing a tailored workspace to complete prioritised collection and dispute resolution tasks.

It also provides real-time data-rich dashboards that can be accessed by anyone who needs to in their team, giving the credit controller the latest data instantly that they can create advanced reports from allowing for better insights and decision-making.

How Invevo Eliminated Informa’s Need for Excel

Put simply, Invevo dramatically changed the game for Informa, across each of the team’s practices was the use of excel, which was an inefficient and extremely time-consuming solution for them.

Working closely with the Informa team to ensure all its challenges were addressed, Invevo built a tailored solution designed to support the entire process from start to finish. The new solution completely removed the need to use excel, providing a central task list from which all local teams could work, and an automated collections process which produced significant efficiency gains.

Having automation at product type level allows for a customer to run through multiple strategies at the same time, which together improved the customers experience and payment behaviour.

‍An Innovative Product That Adapts With Your Business

While Excel continues to hold its ground in the spreadsheet domain, the dynamic and evolving requirements of finance professionals necessitate a technology that can adapt and innovate in tandem.

Unlike Excel, our platform was created to be integrated with any system (just not Deliveroo… yet) via APIs. This integration allows for real-time updates between systems 24/7 including account and contact updates.

But this is just scratching the surface of Invevo’s capabilities and our product vision.

At Invevo, the latest tech is always available or being developed to give your team an advantage across any back office function. We aim to give your team the ultimate tool to be more productive and eliminate challenges year after year.

Conclusion

Whilst Excel has served as a reliable tool for basic financial management tasks, it has a large list of limitations and may actually be doing more harm than good for your business when managing complex accounts receivables processes.

Specialised software solutions like Invevo help maintain healthy cash flow and simplifies, automates and streamlines your middle and back office workflows while eliminating time wasters and human error.

By embracing the power of an innovative software, businesses can unlock their full potential, and stay ahead in today's competitive market. So, it's time to bid farewell to Excel and revolutionise your accounts receivables process.