B2B Cash Flow Forecasting: How to See Incoming Payments Before They Arrive

Your treasury team knows exactly what cash flow is coming before the month-end report.

Your buyers know how to save money on their invoices before they pick up the phone.

These are just two reasons why you’ll love Billtrust’s new product enhancements, including B2B cash flow forecasting and the Buyer Payment Portal.

Somewhere in your treasury department, a liquidity decision is being made from a model built on last year’s run rates. And, somewhere in your finance team right now, an accounts receivable professional is answering a call from a buyer who could have paid online instead.

These are common challenges in AR, and here’s why they’re persistent today…

Buyers call in to make a payment because they aren’t guided in making the smartest payment decisions. Treasury departments make financial planning decisions based on historical run rates, because they don’t have visibility into the most recent changes in buyer behavior. A lapsed payment, a shift in payment method, a new pattern of slowing payments — by the time any of that data shows up in a financial report, the window to shift strategies has already closed.

Billtrust has solved these problems with our latest product enhancements. Let’s take a look at what’s new and the features making a tangible difference for AR leaders.

Why B2B Cash Flow Forecasting Fails and How Billtrust Fixes It

Getting buyers to pay faster is half the equation. Knowing when that money arrives before it does is the other half. It’s all too common for treasury teams to find out that a buyer has slowed their payment cadence only after the invoice becomes delinquent – as it moves into an aging bucket. The problem is this: That might be 30 days – or even 60 days – after the fact. Any resulting decisions made during that window are based on data that is already inaccurate. As a result, credit line adjustments, liquidity planning, and financial management are all driven by hindsight instead of foresight.

Billtrust helps treasury teams see real‑time payment behavior, so they don’t have to rely on lagging indicators. Cash Forecast, a new feature within Workspace Analytics, refreshes every day, giving clients the latest AR information. Plus, the forecast covers all payment channels — not just what flows through the Billtrust platform.

You get 13 weeks of forward-looking visibility. When a buyer starts paying slower, cancels an autopay enrollment, or switches their payment method, you can see who it is and what those changes mean for your cash position that week — not next month, when it shows up in a report.

Here’s what cash forecasting looks like in the Billtrust platform.

“Buyer-level behavioral signals, such as payment timing shifts, autopay changes, modality drift, have been a consistent blind spot in cash forecasting, even among companies with large data assets. The ability to surface those signals at the individual buyer level, with explainability, represents a meaningful step forward in AR intelligence.”

Kevin Permenter, Research Director, IDC

Buyers Need Payment Guidance – Billtrust Now Provides It

Start with the buyer experience, because that’s where the cash cycle begins. Most buyers who pick up the phone to pay a bill aren’t intentionally trying to slow AR operations. They just don’t have enough information to make the best payment decisions:

• Which of our five invoices is most urgent – due first?
• Are there any early payment discounts? When does the discount window close?
• Will paying by card trigger a surcharge? Can I avoid it?

Buyers can’t always answer critical questions using their supplier’s payment portal or their invoice alone. Thus, they end up calling the AR team for personalized help.

But what if buyers had all that information at their fingertips, making it easier to pay?

B2B Payment Solutions: How the Billtrust Buyer Payment Portal Improves B2B Payments

Our new Buyer Payment Portal is a B2B payment solution that provides payment recommendations for buyers, and they’re calculated daily from supplier policies. So, the buyer sees the full picture before choosing what to pay and how. With our latest features, they can see discount windows, surcharge implications, card eligibility, and optimal payment timing. The screenshot below serves as an example.

Buyers aren’t the only ones who benefit from the new features. For the first time, AR managers have direct access to these controls. Payment methods, branding, and policy settings are configurable directly in Workspace, giving clients full self-service control over their buyer experience.

What’s the end result? A slew of benefits from faster payments and more cash flow velocity to fewer calls, and an AR team focused on the customer accounts that truly need their time and attention. In fact, research shows that finance teams with full AR automation see reductions in Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) metrics as high as 41%, and 95% report AR efficiency gains. When AI is used in AR, 75% see DSO drop by six days or more and 43% report improved cash flow predictability.

The Inputs that Feed B2B Cash Flow Forecasting

Every payment method feeds the same forecast, which means how buyers pay matters as much as whether they pay at all. This product release delivers significant updates to two features that sit at the center of that equation: Autopay and Payment Links.

Autopay gives AR managers direct control over enrollment, timing, and schedules, without waiting for buyers to act. Here are some of the notable changes:

• To help protect revenue streams, managers can enroll specific buyers directly and lock that enrollment in place for at-risk accounts.
• Payment dates are also configurable to support cash flow management goals.
• Every enrollment influences Cash Forecast, and when anything changes, the forecast reflects it the following day.
• All enrollments are now visible in a single view inside Workspace.

Payment Links are shareable, secure URLs that let buyers pay via ACH or credit card without logging into the Billtrust Buyer Payment Portal. They’re useful for one-off payments, early collections outreach, or any situation where waiting on a formal invoice isn’t an option. Now, AR managers can create and manage reusable templates for deposits, project advances, and other pre-invoice payments directly in Workspace.

One System for Everything from Buyer Behavior Monitoring to Liquidity Planning

Most AR teams are managing two separate problems with two separate sets of tools — one for influencing buyers to pay faster, and another for figuring out when the money will hit the bank account. The gap between them is where bad borrowing decisions get made, where discount windows close without anyone noticing, where a lapsed autopay quietly weakens cash reserves while no one notices.

Billtrust closes that gap. When the buyer pays through the Billtrust Buyer Payment Portal, the Cash Forecast knows. When an Autopay enrollment changes, the forecast updates. When payment patterns shift, AR and treasury professionals see them in the same system, at the same time, before it becomes a problem to manage.

Don’t let uncertainty slow you down. Get paid on your terms. See it for yourself. Request a demo or explore the Buyer Payment Portal and Cash Forecast features in depth.