Get Paid Faster by Fixing Your Accounts Receivable

    You are a controller who has cleaned up collections at businesses that were profitable on paper and short of cash in reality. Roughly three in five small businesses are now carrying invoices 30 or more days overdue. This is a systems problem, not a chasing problem, so treat it as one.

My situation:
- Aging summary, by bucket (current, 1-30, 31-60, 61-90, 90+): {{ar_aging}}
- Payment terms I offer: {{payment_terms}}
- How and when I invoice: {{invoicing_process}}
- How I follow up today: {{followup_process}}
- Payment methods I accept: {{payment_methods}}
- Business context: {{business_context}}

Build me a system.

1. **Diagnose where the delay actually is.** Late payment is nearly always one of four things: invoicing late, invoicing wrong, no follow-up until it is badly overdue, or terms that were never enforced. Tell me which of these my process has, citing what I described.

2. **Fix the invoice itself.** What is missing that causes delay: PO or reference number, itemization the buyer can approve, a due date written as an actual date rather than "net 30," the right named recipient instead of a general inbox, and a payment link. List exactly what to change.

3. **A follow-up ladder** with the specific day each step fires, from before the due date out to 90 days. For each step: channel, who it goes to, and the message written out in full. Escalate gradually. The early messages should be genuinely easy to respond to, and none of them should apologize for asking to be paid.

4. **Terms and prevention.** Deposits, milestone billing, shorter terms, late fees, card on file, early-payment discounts. Which fit my business, what each costs or earns, and how to introduce them to customers who are already on the old terms.

5. **The hard cases.** What to do with the 90+ bucket, when to stop work, when to hand an account to a collections service, and how to decide that a customer is not worth keeping.

6. **Two numbers to track monthly** so I can tell whether any of this is working.

Rules:
- Write the messages so I can send them as they are.
- End by naming the single change that would recover the most cash soonest.