--- title: "Automating collections with an AI agent" description: "What manual collections cost, what chasing somebody who already paid costs, and what exactly an agent does at each of the seven steps." url: https://studiochat.io/blog/cobranzas-que-nadie-sigue locale: en translations: { es: https://studiochat.io/es/blog/cobranzas-que-nadie-sigue.md, pt: https://studiochat.io/pt/blog/cobranzas-que-nadie-sigue.md } site: https://studiochat.io --- [ Back to blog](/blog) An invoice falls due. From there, what should happen is simple enough to describe. Somebody has to notice it fell due. Send the first notice. Write again three days later. Resend the invoice when the customer says they never got it. Check whether the payment landed before chasing again. Note what came back, so the next message does not repeat the last one. Seven steps, none of them hard, and none of them something anybody will do at eleven on a Tuesday with four hundred overdue invoices and one person. ## [The cost isn't the chasing, it's the invoice nobody touched](#the-cost-isnt-the-chasing-its-the-invoice-nobody-touched) The collections team almost always works well. The problem is that capacity is fixed and the invoices falling due are not. When it cannot keep up, nobody decides to abandon an invoice: its turn simply does not come. And while it waits, absolutely nothing happens. It shows up as overdue, a category that obliges nobody to do anything, until one day somebody looks and seven weeks have passed. And there is a second, quieter cost, which is the error in the other direction: chasing somebody who already paid. That happens when the payment landed on Tuesday and the system applied it on Friday. That call costs far more than the minutes it took, because it spends exactly what collections needs, which is the customer answering. ## [The same ledger, today and with an agent](#the-same-ledger-today-and-with-an-agent) One overdue invoice, end to end * the agent does it * a person does it * always a person the steps of the chase * the agent does itBuild the day's overdue list Receivables Looks at the whole ledger every day, not the part that fits in somebody's day, and sorts by age and amount. * the agent does itSend the first notice WhatsApp Goes out on the due date, through the channel where accounts payable actually answers, with the invoice detail. * the agent does itFollow up on a cadence WhatsApp Writes again after three days incorporating what came back, instead of repeating the same message until they stop opening it. * the agent does itResend the invoice or the receipt Email When they say they never got it, sends it on the spot, which is the most common objection and the easiest to resolve. * the agent does itRead the payments and go quiet Bank Checks credits before every message and stops chasing the moment the money lands, even if the system has not applied it yet. * the agent does itLog what came back CRM Records what they said and when, with a date, which is what lets the next message start from somewhere instead of from zero. * always a personNegotiate a payment plan Receivables Agreeing installments or a discount is signing something. A person decides, on a case with the whole contact history in view. Invoices falling due per month: 300 Minutes of chasing one invoice takes today: 14.0 Hourly cost of whoever chases: USD 12 Share chased too much or too little: 4% What that error costs with the customer: USD 40 Today that is 70 hours a month and 12 chases that go wrong. Between the time and what the error costs, USD 1,320 a month. With the agent holding 6 of the 6 steps, 4 hours and USD 66 are left. The difference is USD 1,254 a month, USD 15,048 a year. And 36% of that difference is not time: it is the chases to people who already paid that stop going out. Of what a person still does, the heaviest step is: Negotiate a payment plan. You set all five numbers. How the minutes split across steps is ours, taken from how it gets done by hand. The modelling assumption: an error born of not checking the system before writing falls in the same proportion as that check stops being manual. Switch off the step that reads payments and leave the rest on. The time barely moves and the cost of the error climbs. That combination, an agent that chases well and never checks the bank, is the worst possible version of this project and it is more common than it sounds. This object also has [a page of its own](/collections-with-an-agent), in case you want to send just that. ## [What the agent does that a person cannot](#what-the-agent-does-that-a-person-cannot) **It reaches the whole ledger, not the top of it.** A person works the ones that fit in their day. An agent sends the first notice on the due date to all of them, which is the only moment the invoice is fresh on the other side too. **It insists without tiring and without embarrassment.** The fifth message is the one that recovers, and it is exactly the one a person does not send. Not for lack of discipline: because writing a fifth time to somebody who is not answering is uncomfortable. **It checks the bank before every message.** No human team queries credits before each contact. An agent does, and that is what prevents the chase to somebody who already paid. ## [What stays with a person](#what-stays-with-a-person) Three things, worth writing down before starting. The payment plan, because agreeing installments is signing something. The tone when somebody replies angry, which is not a reminder but a conversation. And the decision to escalate, to accept a discount, or to stop chasing because there is nothing on the other side. What falls outside those three limits is still most of the volume. ## [How it gets implemented](#how-it-gets-implemented) First the opening notice and the cadence, with payment reading inside it from day one. Not later: inside it from the start, because without that the project breaks in the first week. Second the resending of documents and the logging of replies, which is what stops the insistence from becoming noise. Third, and only once there is a track record, the menu of pre approved payment options the agent can offer with nobody stepping in. ## [What to measure](#what-to-measure) At sixty days, the clean number is not how much was recovered, which depends on seasonality and on one large customer who paid or did not. The clean number is what share of overdue invoices received at least three contacts. Before automating that is usually below half, and nobody knows it because contacts are not logged consistently. And the second: how many days pass between an invoice falling due and receiving its first message. That is the one worth taking to the next meeting, because it depends on neither the economy nor the customers. Frequently asked questions ### What does an AI agent do in a collections process? It builds the day's overdue list, sends the first notice, follows up on a cadence that incorporates what came back, resends the invoice or the missing proof, reads credited payments and stops chasing the moment the money lands, and logs every contact. What it does not do is negotiate a payment plan or decide when to escalate. ### What if the agent chases somebody who already paid? That is the most expensive error in the process, which is why it gets solved before anything is automated. Either the agent reads credited payments in real time, or it gets a silent window after every credit. Chasing somebody who already paid destroys more trust than the automation earns in a month. ### Why is collectable debt lost? Because the first contact arrives late. An overdue invoice joins a queue behind every earlier one, and while it waits nothing happens: it shows up as overdue, a category that obliges nobody to do anything. By the time somebody finally writes, weeks have passed and the contact person changed. Share [ X](https://x.com/intent/post?text=Collecting%20one%20overdue%20invoice%20is%20seven%20steps%20and%20none%20of%20them%20is%20hard&url=https%3A%2F%2Fstudiochat.io%2Fblog%2Fcobranzas-que-nadie-sigue) [ LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/sharing/share-offsite/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstudiochat.io%2Fblog%2Fcobranzas-que-nadie-sigue) [ WhatsApp](https://wa.me/?text=Collecting%20one%20overdue%20invoice%20is%20seven%20steps%20and%20none%20of%20them%20is%20hard%20https%3A%2F%2Fstudiochat.io%2Fblog%2Fcobranzas-que-nadie-sigue)Copy link Ignacio Puig Moreno Ignacio Puig Moreno · Co-founder · Business, StudioChat Want agents like these working for your team? [Talk to us now](https://cal.com/studiochat)