Accounts receivable has always been a juggling act: sending invoices quickly, collecting payments efficiently, applying cash accurately, weighing credit vs. risk, and aligning with customers – all while protecting the corporate cash flow. In a world where everything is now smart and connected, finance leaders are using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to balance these competing priorities. An accounts receivable AI solution provides the same level of speed, precision, and intelligence you’d expect from your smartphone or ChatGPT. It’s a game-changer, to the point that 90% of finance leaders say AI is a critical component of their accounts receivable software.
That’s according to a recent study from Vanson Bourne, which explores the tangible payoffs of fully embracing AI in AR.
- 40% faster cash flow: AR automation accelerates payments by +40%
- Less risk: 56% of finance leaders say AI is crucial for avoiding financial and compliance risks, compared to 34% without.
- Nearly 2X customer loyalty: Almost twice as likely to report stronger customer experiences, relationships, and retention.
But not all AR software is the same. If you’re evaluating your options when buying an accounts receivable AI solution, here are the key features to look for and why they matter.
What Features Should I Look For in AI-Based Accounts Receivable Software?
Core Automation Capabilities
Highly automated AR operations see an average 41% drop in DSO and 44% drop in DTP, compared to 29% and 27% for those with less automation. If you pick just three areas to focus your accounts receivable automation efforts, these are the ones that move the needle most.
1. Invoicing: Data Extraction, Invoice Generation, and Electronic Delivery
Automated invoice delivery is 90% cheaper than manual and shown to shorten payment cycles by an average of 1.4 days. A company sending 500 invoices per month will save around 5,400 productivity hours per year – the equivalent of nearly 3 full-time employees. At Billtrust, we’ve seen customers gain the equivalent of up to 14 FTEs in productivity.
Automated invoice delivery is 90% cheaper than manual delivery.
Features to look for:
- You should be able to automatically send invoices via any customer-preferred channel – including mail, email, and accounts payable portals — without duplicating effort or overtaxing your team with manual work.
- Built-in compliance and visibility are critical for staying in step with evolving e-invoicing mandates that span the globe. Plus, you should be able to track invoice status in real-time with full, audit-ready transparency.
- Automatically extracting and normalizing invoice data is essential. You’ll want to ingest information from your ERP system(s), emails, or purchase order PDFs. Optical character recognition (OCR) and Machine Learning (ML) are a must for capturing unstructured data and generating accurate invoices that reduce disputes. When data flows in cleanly from the start, the rest of the process moves faster, and any dispute resolution becomes far simpler.
2. Payments: Acceptance, Matching, and Reconciliation
Automated payment-to-invoice matching cuts payment processing times and fees by an average 30%, saving hundreds of productivity hours per year. For one of our clients, automation drove a 42% jump in cash application match rates even as AR volumes grew 22%.
Key considerations:
- Your accounts receivable AI solution should be able to accept payments through virtually any channel without complicating operations and without significantly increasing payment acceptance costs. Ask if your AR automation software provider can help you with a digital lockbox, credit card surcharging, and lowering your card interchange rates. Get the guide to keeping your payment acceptance costs low.
- You should be able to automate the entire cash application process from acceptance through reconciliation so you can prevent errors and keep people focused on strategy — not spreadsheets. Look for machine learning, as this AI tool should mean your cash application system adjusts to inconsistent data formats and gets smarter with time.
- Buyers should also have the option to submit their payment online through your own branded payment portal, helping your team avoid manual payment processing. Learn more about payment portals and which ones lead the market.
3. Collections: Automated Payment Reminders and Follow-ups
Your AR software should do more than just follow static dunning schedules. This is where automated collections software powered by AI truly shines. It should know why to reach out, the best time to do it, and how to tailor the message by customer segment, payment history, and channel preference to maximize engagement.
Billtrust makes this happen with Agentic AI, which can read through entire email threads, pull out the key details and action items, and draft a response that is situation-aware in minutes. If you’re not yet ready for this level of accounts receivable automation, Agentic AI can still work to automatically gather everything related to a specific overdue invoice or delinquent account – stopping short of drafting the response email. See how Billtrust’s new AI-powered automated collections software helps collectors move 10x faster.
Advanced AI and Machine Learning Features for Your Accounts Receivable AI Solution
It’s hard to know where to start with all the noise around AI today. Here are the top three use cases for finance leaders that are looking to adopt advanced tools. The companies pulling ahead in AR performance are the ones making moves in these more innovative, strategic areas.
1. Predictive Analytics for Payment Behavior
A powerful accounts receivable AI solution can spot subtle patterns in how customers pay and translate them into insights you can act on like shaping credit policies, customizing payment terms, and deciding where to focus collections efforts. And because it continuously learns and adapts, those insights only get sharper over time.
Few companies are taking advantage of this next-level capability, even though the payoff is clear. A Cornell-led simulation with a multinational bank showed that predictive models can forecast invoice payments with up to 81% accuracy, saving as much as $1.75M per month by helping collectors focus on the right customers.
2. Smart Cash Flow Forecasting
AI-powered AR software truly transforms forecasting by connecting your AR functions and unifying the data behind them. With a single source of truth, AI can show you a real-time picture of cash flow and keep that forecast accurate by constantly recalibrating as new data comes in or conditions change. This makes advanced AI analytics, comprehensive AR solutions, and centralized management paramount for purchasing decisions.
An independent study by IDC found that, on average, Billtrust clients improve forecast accuracy and achieve average annual benefits worth $3.66 million per organization. Get the IDC research report to explore all the ways finance leaders gain the confidence of more informed financial management.
3. AI-Intelligent Customer Segmentation
AR is one of the rare finance functions that touches the customer, making personalization an important feature to call out. We briefly touched on segmentation when talking about automated payment reminders and follow-ups. The main goal here is personalizing the customer experience. Customers expect it, and companies that get it right move cash faster.
Automated segmentation features group customers by payment behavior, credit risk, industry, or even communication preferences, so debt recovery efforts are more targeted and effective – without you having to lift a finger. Instead of blanketing all accounts with the same collections outreach, you can apply the right level of attention to the right group.
“With Billtrust, AR teams are using AI-based segmentation to reduce delinquency, strengthen customer relationships, and accelerate recovery cycles without adding extra work”
Dave Ruda, VP of Product, Billtrust
See how Billtrust uses Agentic AI to automate collections procedures.
Integration and Usability Considerations
Even the smartest accounts receivable AI solution will fall short if it doesn’t play well with your existing ecosystem. When it comes to ease-of-use, here are the 3 things you need to prioritize.
1. ERP, AP Portals, and Financial Systems
The roadblocks that once made ERP integration daunting are no longer in play with interoperable AR software. Plug-and-play integrations should be available for a wide variety of ERP systems and financial institutions – not to mention all those AP portals where your clients want their invoices to be uploaded. ERP integration is how one of our customers, Cintas, saved over $1 million annually with massive productivity gains.
The 5-Minute Guide to Augmenting Your ERP with AR Automation Software
2. User Interface and Dashboard Customization
Your AR software shouldn’t just be powerful behind the scenes. It should deliver a configurable interface with real-time dashboards built for different roles so teams can spend less time hunting data and more time making decisions based on the info that matters most to them.
A strong platform should go above and beyond with these top three capabilities:
- Analytics dashboards: Surface trends at a glance, drill into details, segment data as needed and deliver insights tailored to every role.
- Prebuilt report templates: Jumpstart insights with ready-to-use reports or customize as needed.
- Drag-and-drop report builder: Create flexible, user-friendly reports without heavy IT lift.
3. Security and Compliance Features
The key thing to look for here is how your AR software prioritizes data security and privacy while advancing automation and AI.
When it comes to security and compliance, there are several non-negotiables.
- Certifications & audits: Look for providers that hold industry-standard certifications such as ISO 27001 and undergo regular SOC 1 and SOC 2 audits. These validate strong internal controls and readiness to handle sensitive financial data.
- Embedded compliance for eInvoicing: The right platform should include built-in validation and compliance checks for regional tax and eInvoicing mandates, ensuring invoices meet legal requirements automatically all across the world.
- Payment Security (PCI DSS): If card payments are part of your policy, ensure the platform is PCI DSS compliant so that credit card data is handled under rigorous security standards. Many CFOs enjoy this feature because it removes the need for rigorous internal audits.
- Data protection & AI privacy practices: Leading solutions encrypt data both in motion and at rest, anonymize benchmarking data, and follow strict policies to ensure customer data isn’t used to train public AI models.
- Audit trails & access controls: Built-in audit trails and role-based access controls help create transparent, tamper-evident logs while reinforcing accountability and compliance with relevant industry regulations and data protection laws (e.g., GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA).
See how Billtrust keeps financial data secure while driving the future of O2C.
Summing it Up: Buying AI-based AR Software
The shift to an accounts receivable AI solution isn’t just about reducing manual work. It’s about gaining intelligence, foresight, and control over one of the most critical functions in your organization.
At its core, the investment comes down to three essentials:
- Advanced automation: Automated invoice delivery, cash application, and collections workflows free teams from repetitive tasks and move working capital faster.
- AI Intelligence: Predictive analytics, smart forecasting, and customer segmentation unlock next-level decisions and proactive risk management.
- Integration and usability: Seamless ERP connections, a configurable user interface, and dashboard customization lower your time-to-value.
When all of these three elements come together in one solution, AR evolves from a back-office function into a powerful growth driver. This guide will help you distinguish AR software solutions and make sure you’re working with a reliable, proven partner in financial transformation.
Book a demo with Billtrust to see the power of AI across your O2C cycle.
