CFOs Tackle B2B Payments Delinquency by Using Data and AI

Even small improvements in payments behavior can materially affect working capital.

At a time when capital efficiency has become paramount, companies are starting to pay closer attention to the trillions of dollars tied up in receivables globally.

For many B2B companies, the real cost of late invoices isn’t just delayed cash but the time, staff hours and operational drag required to chase them down. Tucked inside back offices and shared service centers, the work of tracking invoices, chasing late payments and resolving disputes has historically relied on spreadsheets, aging reports and persistent phone calls.

This manual approach is proving to be increasingly at odds with the simple fact that receivables are often among the largest assets on corporate balance sheets.

Forward-looking chief financial officers are beginning to reinvent their accounts receivable function with data and artificial intelligence. Delinquency management is on the front line of this transformation. The result is a new wave of technology and operating models designed to predict, prevent and resolve B2B payments delinquency more intelligently, with embedded AR platforms that use machine learning to predict which customers will pay late, prioritize high-risk accounts and trigger personalized outreach automatically.

Read also: Why CFOs Who Prioritize Cash Flow Improvements Start With Receivables Innovation

From Reactive Collections to Predictive Cash Management

Delinquency management has for years followed a simple pattern. An invoice was issued with payment terms, often 30 or 60 days, and the collections process began only after the due date had passed. Finance teams relied on aging reports to prioritize outreach, calling or emailing customers whose balances were 30, 60 or 90 days overdue. The process was labor-intensive and blunt, with little differentiation between customers who would pay late but reliably and those at genuine risk of default.

But as B2B goes digital, that reactive model is giving way to predictive systems. Modern receivables platforms can ingest data from payments histories and order patterns to macroeconomic indicators and behavioral signals to forecast the likelihood that a given invoice will become delinquent. Machine learning models can identify patterns that traditional rule-based systems may miss, such as how payments behavior shifts during seasonal cycles or economic downturns.

This predictive layer changes the timeline of intervention. Rather than waiting until an invoice is overdue, finance teams can act earlier by adjusting payment terms, initiating reminders or engaging customers proactively. In effect, delinquency management is shifting from a collections activity to a form of forward-looking risk management.

If prediction is the first pillar of the transformation, automation is the second. The typical collections workflow once involved manual tracking, templated emails and individual phone calls. Automation platforms now orchestrate much of this work automatically.

When an invoice approaches its due date, automated systems can trigger tailored reminders across multiple channels, either email, SMS or customer portals, based on a customer’s communication preferences and historical responsiveness. Escalation paths are also automated. If a payment remains outstanding, the system can route the account to different workflows depending on risk level, payments history or dispute status.

According to the PYMNTS Intelligence report “Time to Cash: A New Measure of Business Resilience,” 77.9% of CFOs see improving the cash flow cycle as “very or extremely important” to their strategy in the year ahead. That figure jumps to 93.5% among “strategic movers,” which are organizations that outperform their peers on growth and digital transformation.

See also: CFOs See Month-End as the Front Line of Finance Automation

AI Enters the Finance Back Office

When payments are delayed, the impact extends beyond accounting metrics. Companies may need to draw on credit lines, delay investments or absorb higher financing costs. Conversely, improving collections performance can free up capital for growth initiatives.

But one of the enduring tensions in collections has been the balance between recovering cash and preserving customer relationships. Aggressive collections tactics may accelerate payment in the short term but risk damaging long-term partnerships.

Technology is helping resolve some of that tension by enabling more nuanced engagement strategies. Predictive analytics can distinguish between customers who habitually pay slightly late but reliably and those whose behavior signals financial distress. That differentiation allows companies to tailor their approach.

The latest emerging frontier in delinquency management is autonomous AI agents capable of handling large portions of the collections process. These systems can interpret customer responses, answer payments inquiries and propose structured payment plans without human intervention.

For companies managing thousands, or even millions, of invoices each month, this level of automation represents a step change in scalability. Finance organizations can maintain consistent outreach and follow-up across massive portfolios of receivables without dramatically expanding headcount.

The result is a more holistic view of the revenue cycle, one in which each stage of the process informs the next.

Ben Ellis, senior vice president and global head of Large and Middle Markets at Visa Commercial Solutions, told PYMNTS in an interview published Tuesday (March 10) that, among low-performing firms that adopted artificial intelligence for working capital management, cash flow unpredictability later dropped from 68% to 17%.

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