The real delay happens before the first collections action.
An invoice becomes overdue, but that doesn’t necessarily mean someone acts on it right away.
Finance may need to confirm the balance, review previous payments, check the customer’s account and invoice history, determine whether there’s an active dispute, understand the relationship, and decide who should handle the next step.
When that work happens manually, invoices can spend days sitting in receivables before the first meaningful touch.
And the same process gets repeated across every overdue account.
The opportunity isn’t simply to collect better. It’s to remove the dead time between an overdue invoice and the right next action.
The play: Define your collections logic. Ballet builds the workflow.
Your Finance team already has a process for deciding which accounts are straightforward and which ones need more attention. Describe that process to Ballet in plain English.
What you hand Ballet
When an invoice becomes overdue, pull the invoice, payment history, account information, previous collections activity, and any open disputes. Evaluate the account against our collections rules. If it’s a straightforward, low-risk account, prepare and send the appropriate first-touch reminder. If it requires judgment or meets our high-risk criteria, route it to the assigned collector with the information they need to decide the next action.
Ballet builds the integrations and workflow needed to gather that information, apply your collections logic, execute the defined actions, and surface accounts that require human judgment.
Once built, the workflow runs as deterministic, reviewable code, giving your team visibility into what happened and why.
You define how accounts should be handled. Ballet builds the workflow that moves them forward.
Here’s how the workflow runs
1. An overdue invoice starts the workflow
Instead of waiting for someone to work through an AR queue, an invoice reaching the overdue criteria your team defines can trigger the workflow.
That might be an invoice reaching its due date, becoming a certain number of days past due, or meeting another condition your Finance team uses.
2. Ballet brings together the information needed to act
Collections decisions often depend on information spread across multiple systems. Ballet brings that information into the workflow before determining what should happen next.
Your team determines which systems and information should be considered before a collections action is taken.
3. Ballet applies your collections logic
Once the information is available, Ballet evaluates the account against the rules your Finance team has defined.
Those rules might consider:
- Amount outstanding
- Days past due
- Payment history
- Previous collections activity
- Open disputes
- Customer or account status
- Existing payment commitments
- Other risk criteria defined by your team
The goal isn’t for Ballet to invent a risk model. Your team defines what makes an account straightforward, higher-risk, or in need of review. Ballet executes that logic.
4. The account moves into the right path
Once the account has been evaluated, the workflow takes the next action your team has defined.
Straightforward / low-risk
Ballet can execute the approved first-touch action, such as sending the appropriate payment reminder and recording the activity in the relevant system.
Higher-risk / needs judgment
Rather than automatically contacting the customer, Ballet routes the account to the appropriate collector with the information gathered during the workflow.
That might include the outstanding balance, invoice history, previous outreach, open disputes, payment behavior, account details, and the reason the account was flagged.
The collector starts with the information needed to make a decision instead of assembling it manually.
5. The workflow records what happens next
Whether Ballet executes the first touch or routes the account to a collector, the workflow can record the action taken and continue the collections process your team has defined.
That gives Finance visibility into which accounts moved automatically, which required human attention, and where each account is in the process.
From 10 days of dead time to same-day action
Less waiting. Faster action on receivables.
When the information needed for collections is gathered and evaluated as part of the workflow, Finance doesn’t have to spend days working through the same manual steps before deciding what to do.
Straightforward accounts can receive the defined first touch sooner. Higher-risk accounts reach experienced collectors with the information needed to make a decision.
And instead of treating every overdue invoice the same way, your team can reserve human attention for the accounts where judgment actually matters.
The result is less latency between an invoice becoming overdue and the right collections action taking place.
Take this play and make it yours
Every Finance team has different collections rules. Start with the process your team already follows:
- What triggers your collections process?
- Where do invoice and payment details live?
- What information does your team review before contacting a customer?
- What makes an account straightforward or low-risk?
- What makes an account higher-risk?
- Which first-touch actions can happen automatically?
- Which accounts should always go to a collector?
- What information does the collector need before taking action?
- What should happen after the first touch?
You don’t need to map the integrations or build the decision logic yourself. Start with how your team decides what should happen when an invoice becomes overdue.
