Loopfour
Finance playbooks

Track receivables on a dashboard

Set up workflows that save a weekly AR aging snapshot to a table, flag at-risk accounts and report collections, then chart the results on a dashboard.

The job

Each week the controller wants to know where cash is stuck: how much is overdue, which customers are slipping, and how collections are going. Someone rebuilds the aging report, updates a chart and messages account owners.

By hand

Export aging from the ledger, paste it into last week's spreadsheet, rebuild the charts, and message account owners about the worst accounts.

With Loopfour

Workflows save a weekly aging snapshot to a table and message owners of at-risk accounts. A dashboard built on the table shows the trend.

Check the reporting calculations before deploying

DSO monitor and Collections performance contain Transform calculations that do not run. Ask your developer to replace those steps with Code and check the data passed to later steps. Compare the results with your ledger before sending messages or relying on the charts.

How it works

  1. TriggerEach Monday
    The templates run weekly on a schedule.
  2. StepPull open receivables
    Open invoices with days overdue and balance, from NetSuite.
  3. StepSave a weekly snapshot
    AR aging summary adds the week's receivables to a table.
  4. DecisionOverdue past your limit?
    DSO monitor checks each account against the days you set. The template uses 60.
  5. StepMessage the account owner
    At-risk accounts go to their owner by Slack direct message.
  6. OutputDashboard on the snapshot table
    Charts you ask chat for, saved to a dashboard.

What you need

  • Templates, all in the AR area of Workflows > Templates:
    • AR aging summary saves the weekly snapshot.
    • DSO monitor messages owners of accounts past your limit.
    • Collections performance posts a weekly summary of collection activity by rep.
  • Systems to connect: NetSuite for all three. Slack for DSO monitor and Collections performance. Salesforce for Collections performance.
  • A table: for the weekly aging snapshots. See Tables.
  • Who reviews: the controller or AR lead who owns the dashboard.

Set it up

Create the snapshot table

Go to Tables and create a table for weekly aging snapshots.

Set up AR aging summary

Go to Workflows, open the Templates tab and choose AR. Select AR aging summary, then Run workflow. In chat, point the snapshot step at your new table. Check the schedule, select Deploy, then Run once and check the rows it added. Run needs an Active workflow; deploying also switches on the schedule.

Set up DSO monitor

Back in Templates, select DSO monitor and Run workflow. Chat asks for Days past due to flag as at-risk; the template uses 60 if you leave it. Each account owner needs an email address that matches their Slack account.

Add Collections performance, if you track collectors

Select Collections performance and Run workflow. It needs Salesforce for collection activity and NetSuite for payments, and posts a weekly summary to Slack.

Verify the calculations

Have your developer replace the calculation steps in DSO monitor and Collections performance with Code. Check a sample overdue account and a sample collector total against the source records.

Deploy the workflows

Open each workflow and select Deploy, so they run each Monday. See Deploy, test and change a workflow.

Build the dashboard

Go to Dashboards and create a dashboard, for example "AR weekly". Ask chat for the charts you want from the snapshot table, such as balance by aging bucket over time, and save them to the dashboard. See Build a dashboard.

What you review

  • The dashboard: the trend in each aging bucket from week to week. See Share a dashboard to give the controller access.
  • The snapshot table: the rows behind the charts, kept week by week as support.
  • Escalations: under Runs, each DSO monitor run lists the accounts it flagged and the messages it sent. See Read a run.

Adapt it

  • Different buckets: ask chat to add an aging bucket column to each snapshot row, so the dashboard can group by it directly.
  • Escalate to a channel: send at-risk accounts to your collections channel instead of to each owner.
  • Add a follow-up: pair this with reminder emails. See Follow up on overdue invoices.

Prepare accruals at month end

Build a workflow that drafts accrual entries at month end from open purchase orders and recurring costs, and posts them only after approval.

Help and troubleshooting

Find the fix for a problem by its symptom, such as a workflow that did not run, a connection that stopped working or a missing approval.

On this page

The jobHow it worksWhat you needSet it upCreate the snapshot tableSet up AR aging summarySet up DSO monitorAdd Collections performance, if you track collectorsVerify the calculationsDeploy the workflowsBuild the dashboardWhat you reviewAdapt it