What is "trapped cash" in accounts receivable?

Trapped cash is revenue a business has already earned — the product or service was delivered and invoiced — but the payment hasn’t yet reached the supplier’s bank account. It can get stuck at any point in the AR cycle, from invoicing errors to unresolved disputes to unmatched payments and unpaid invoices.

How do you choose the right AI use case for freeing trapped cash?

Look for work that’s frequent and variable. Strong candidates typically show high volume, variability, usable data, direct cash impact, and heavy reliance on employee time for exceptions.

What makes an AI pilot in AR cash generation successful?

A successful pilot answers a specific business question, has a defined baseline, clear success measures, and human-review guardrails set before it starts — rather than letting a vendor define what success looks like.

What should finance teams check before scaling an AI pilot?

Five gates matter: technical accuracy, user adoption, performance, operational capacity, and measurable business impact. Weakness in any one area can undermine the whole initiative.

How does AI in accounts receivable affect DSO?

AI affects DSO indirectly, by changing specific operating levers like collections prioritization, dispute resolution time, or cash application match rates — not as a use case on its own, since DSO is also shaped by payment terms, sales mix, and seasonality.