Key Benefits of Cash Collection Centralisation

How businesses with fragmented cash collection teams and processes can achieve efficiencies through cash collection centralisation in a shared service

Whether servicing multiple operations in one territory or managing processes for multiple markets across the globe, internal or external shared service centres can help organisations reduce costs and deliver a consistent, high service standard across their finance functions. Cash collection is one of the finance functions which can see huge benefits from centralisation.  Highly process driven, it is a function for which technological transformation has been proven to deliver significant improvements in the efficiency and effectiveness of cash collection.  As technology is one of the greatest drivers and enablers of centralisation – it is unsurprisingly that invoice-to-cash, alongside accounts payable, are often the first areas business look to combine in a shared service centre.

In this article we outline six of the key business benefits of centralising cash collection in an in-house or outsourced shared service solution.

1. Cost efficiencies

Generally top of the corporate agenda and top of our list is cost reduction. Consolidating multiple smaller teams into one allows the business to leverage economies of scale and avoid the duplication of effort.

2. Improved flexibility / scalability

 Smaller, leaner individual collections teams can often struggle to service peaks potentially leading to increased DSO and ageing ledgers.  Centralisation enables the flexibility to allocate resource when and where it is most needed to deliver overall business goals. This can help dramatically improve the overall efficiency and effectiveness of your collections process.  

3. Process optimisation

Standardisation of collections processes and investment in collections software solutions within a shared service centre will deliver consistency in results as well as improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the businesses overall collections process.  Fragmented teams create the possibility of variable levels of process delivery and it can be difficult to identify and amend the endemic issues within each teams process.

4. Greater potential to build and maintain successful teams

Whilst centralisation can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of your collections process, it can also create an environment in which to nurture and build your collections teams. A larger team can provide employees with training and career opportunities – this can enable the business to foster and maintain talent providing both stability and reducing costs from recruitment. 

5. Greater controls

Centralisation provides the opportunity to review your overall business needs and goals and build the right processes to deliver them. This can prevent loan wolf decisions which might not fit with the company’s overall vision as well as enabling better visibility of how individual markets are truly performing.

6. Improved reporting and analytics

A key advantage of shared services is their ability to deliver the data reporting and analytics which enable the business to make data informed decisions. Effective reporting amongst order-to-cash can also help identify and resolve upstream issues which might be inhibiting business growth.

Download Now: A Guide to Cash Collection Shared Service Implementation

To help businesses avoid common pitfalls, we have developed a guide to delivering successful cash collection in a shared service facility.

What you’ll learn in this guide:

• Key benefits of cash collection centralisation
• Key considerations
• Common pitfalls
• Case Study: Global Pharmaceutical

Download Free Guide

Whether you manage your cash collection from a shared service centre or are an independent team, 4D Contact have extensive experience providing outsourced credit-control and debt recovery solutions to help businesses meet their cash targets. Contact us now at: sales@4dcontact.com or on 020 37691487.