7 Accounts Receivable Goals for 2025 to Improve Cash Flow & Automation

Effective accounts receivable (AR) management is essential for accelerating cash flow and ensuring timely payments. To achieve this, businesses must set clear AR goals and adopt the right tools to streamline their processes. While automation plays a crucial role in improving efficiency, it should not be the sole focus—human engagement and communication remain key to resolving disputes and strengthening customer relationships. 

Relying on manual AR processes can create bottlenecks and slow down collections, making it harder to achieve long-term financial goals. On the other hand, automation enhances efficiency, reduces errors, and fosters better customer experiences, ultimately leading to sustainable cash flow. However, simply digitizing AR processes isn’t enough; businesses must ensure that automation supports their broader financial and customer service objectives. 

In this blog, we’ll explore seven essential AR goals every finance team should prioritize in 2025. Whether your focus is on improving collections, enhancing customer interactions, or optimizing workflows, these strategies—paired with the right technology—will help drive financial success. 

How do accounts receivable goals and objectives impact businesses?

Accounts receivable (AR) goals and objectives are specific, actionable targets set by finance leaders to improve cash flow, efficiency, and overall financial health. These objectives help businesses stay focused, streamline operations, and enhance collections management. 

AR goals can range from tactical tasks—such as ensuring invoices are sent promptly—to more strategic initiatives like transitioning to electronic billing or implementing a dispute resolution system. The goals highlighted in this blog represent key priorities that B2B companies should focus on to optimize their receivables process. 

A crucial aspect of modern AR management is digital transformation. While businesses recognize the importance of digitization, many have yet to fully automate their AR processes. In fact, even the most widely adopted AR automation tools are used by fewer than 50% of businesses. Embracing digital solutions is essential for improving efficiency, reducing errors, and accelerating collections, making it a key factor in achieving AR success. 

7 Key accounts receivable goals for 2025 

Here are seven important accounts receivable goals that can help your business optimize cash flow, improve efficiency, and enhance customer experiences in the coming year: 

Goal 1: Eliminate manual, repetitive, and error-prone AR tasks by automating processes like invoicing, payment reminders, and payment processing. 

Goal 2: Streamline B2B payments to offer your customers a more convenient and seamless payment experience. 

Goal 3: Automate cash application and financial reconciliation to reduce errors and save time. 

Goal 4: Free up your AR team’s time by automating administrative tasks, enabling them to focus on more strategic, high-value activities. 

Goal 5: Enhance both the customer payment experience and communication between your team and clients for smoother interactions. 

Goal 6: Attract and retain top talent in accounting and finance to ensure your AR team remains strong and capable of meeting business goals. 

Goal 7: Provide shared access to real-time data and information for both your customers and AR team via the cloud, fostering better collaboration and transparency. 

Tip: Before setting these goals, it's crucial to identify the challenges hindering your current AR processes. Without understanding these obstacles, you may continue to face the same struggles, no matter what your ambitions. If you're unsure about your current pain points, take a quick 6-minute assessment to pinpoint the most pressing issues facing your AR team. 

Accounts receivable goal 1: Eliminate manual, error-prone tasks and automate key AR activities 

If you haven't already, prioritizing the automation of routine and error-prone AR tasks should be at the top of your agenda for 2025. Automating processes such as invoicing, payment reminders, and payment processing can significantly save time and improve efficiency. These repetitive tasks often take up a large portion of your AR team’s time, preventing them from focusing on higher-value activities. 

A recent report shows that 80% of finance executives view reducing time-consuming, error-prone processes as one of the major benefits of AR automation. 

How to achieve this accounts receivable goal: The right technology 

• Cloud-based customer and supplier portals: A shared, cloud-based portal offers a centralized, real-time view of customer invoices and payment histories, reducing the need to track fragmented data across various platforms like spreadsheets or outdated systems. 
• Automated internal notifications: These timely reminders keep your team on track, helping them stay focused on collections priorities and ensuring tasks are completed on time. 
• Automated customer notifications: Customizable email templates and dunning notices allow you to engage customers before they become overdue, improving the chances of timely payments. 
• Automatic payment reconciliation: Digital payments can be automatically reconciled and posted directly into your ERP system, simplifying the process of balancing cash receipts. 
• Omni-channel electronic invoicing: Electronic invoicing enables you to issue, track, and automatically deliver invoices and statements across multiple channels, ensuring a smoother and more efficient billing process. 

Accounts receivable goal 2: Simplify B2b payments and enhance the customer payment experience 

Being able to accept secure online payments through your customers’ preferred B2B methods—such as credit, debit, ACH, virtual cards, and bank transfers—offers numerous advantages. These include faster cash conversion, quicker payment collection and processing across multiple sales channels, and optimized processing costs, making this goal highly valuable. In fact, 70% of finance executives view the ability to accept digital payments as a key benefit of AR automation. 

How to achieve this accounts receivable goal: The right technology 

• Integrated and omni-channel payment acceptance: Accept a wide range of digital payment options seamlessly and post payments directly into your ERP system, providing the flexibility customers expect. 
• Embedded payment functionality: Adding payment options directly within invoices allows customers to pay easily from anywhere, streamlining the payment process for both parties. 
• Customizable payment rules: Set up rules for automatic recurring payments, credit card surcharges, or fee exemptions at the individual customer level to maintain control over the payment experience. 
• Flexible invoicing options: Offer customers the ability to pay individual line items or consolidate multiple invoices, helping reduce the number of unpaid invoices and enhancing customer satisfaction. 

Accounts receivable goal 3: Automate cash application and financial reconciliation 

Cash application is a critical process in your business, but managing it manually comes with several challenges, including: 

• Reduced speed and accuracy 
• Increased days sales outstanding (DSO) 
• Limited working capital when it's needed most 
• Strained relationships with customers 

By adopting advanced cash application automation technology, you can transform your cash application process, making it faster, more accurate, and efficient. Automation simplifies the task of capturing and reconciling payment data, eliminates manual errors, and accelerates cash flow. 

How to achieve this accounts receivable goal: The right technology 

• Self-service online payment portals: Allow customers to make payments at their convenience and specify which payments should be applied to which invoices, reducing the workload on your team. 
• AI-powered cash application: Leverage machine learning technology to automatically match payments—such as checks and wire transfers—with corresponding remittance data and open receivables, improving accuracy and efficiency. 
• Custom settlement routing: Automatically direct incoming payments to the correct bank accounts, streamlining the reconciliation process. 
• Optical character recognition (OCR): Use OCR to digitize and analyze messy remittance data—such as illegible characters, unstructured formats, and missing information—speedily and accurately. 

Accounts receivable goal 4: Expand your AR team’s capacity to focus on strategic, high-value tasks 

Empower your AR team to focus on what they do best: driving business growth, rather than spending valuable hours on administrative tasks. By addressing inefficiencies, you not only improve team productivity but also create opportunities for career development for your AR professionals. 

Automating repetitive tasks like preparing invoices, making collection calls, and processing payments allows your team to shift their attention to customer experience and more strategic initiatives. This shift not only frees up their time but also boosts team morale, as they can tackle more engaging challenges that foster career growth. 

Seventy-five percent of finance executives identify increasing team bandwidth for strategic tasks as one of the top benefits of AR automation. 

How to achieve this accounts receivable goal: The right technology 

• Cloud-Based Payment Portals: Centralized, cloud-based portals give your AR team real-time visibility into customer invoice and payment history, saving time and eliminating the need to gather data from multiple sources. 

• Omni-Channel Electronic Invoicing: Automate the creation, issuing, tracking, and delivery of electronic invoices and statements, reducing manual tasks like printing, preparing, and mailing invoices. 

• Built-in dispute management and online collaboration tools: Enable faster customer engagement with integrated dispute resolution and chat-like communication tools, allowing your AR team to resolve issues at the source—the invoice—without relying on traditional communication methods like phone calls or emails. 
• Digital payment acceptance: Allow customers to pay their invoices online, at their convenience, using their preferred payment methods, empowering them to self-serve without requiring AR team involvement. 

Accounts receivable goal 5: Enhance your customers payment experience and improve AR team communication 

Miscommunication during the invoice-to-cash process can have significant negative effects on revenue. 

Fortunately, AR automation tools can help resolve these issues. However, not all AR automation solutions are equally effective—many traditional tools fail to enhance communication between your AR team and customers. 

To achieve this goal, it's crucial to choose AR automation solutions that prioritize seamless communication and collaboration. These tools can bridge the gap between pure efficiency and exceptional customer experience, ensuring that your AR team meets efficiency goals while also building strong, collaborative payment experiences. 

Sixty-five percent of finance executives cite fostering collaboration and enhancing customer experience as key benefits of AR automation. However, 35% acknowledge that communication difficulties with customers are delaying their revenue collection efforts. 

How to achieve this accounts receivable goal: The right technology 

• Real-time, chat-like collaboration tools: Facilitate faster issue resolution by enabling AR teams to communicate directly with customers about disputed invoices, addressing concerns at the source. 
• Digital payment acceptance: Make it easy for customers to pay securely using their preferred payment methods, streamlining the payment process and improving the customer experience. 
• Shared, cloud-based customer and supplier portals: Provide a platform for direct collaboration between your AR team and your customer’s accounts payable team throughout the entire order-to-cash process, ensuring smoother communication and quicker resolutions. 
• Automated cash application: Integrate account information and payment history, facilitating digital transactions and enabling faster, more accurate payments, reducing the need for customer clarification and improving cash flow. 

Accounts receivable goal 6: Attract and retain top accounting and finance talent 

With increasing numbers of employees leaving their jobs or disengaging in their roles, finance leaders must focus on reducing turnover by fostering an environment that promotes long-term remote work and prioritizes employee satisfaction. 

Digitizing the billing and payment process helps maintain work-from-home continuity by eliminating the tedious aspects of managing receivables and allowing AR professionals to engage in more strategic work. In fact, 73% of finance executives cite the ability to attract and retain accounting and finance talent as a key benefit of AR automation. 

How to achieve this accounts receivable goal: The right technology 

• Advanced automation: By automating manual, routine, and error-prone tasks, AR departments can shift from transactional duties to becoming integral members of the customer service team. This shift opens up opportunities for AR professionals to focus on more strategic initiatives, which can enhance career development. 
• Electronic invoicing and digital payment acceptance: Streamlining the AR process with electronic invoicing and digital payment systems eliminates the need for physical presence in the office, enabling remote work for AR teams while still ensuring efficient billing and collections. 
• Cloud-based collaboration tools: With cloud-based tools, team members can easily communicate and collaborate from any location, supporting long-term remote work options and meeting employee expectations for flexible work arrangements. 

Accounts receivable goal 7: Offer shared access to information and data for both your AR team and customers over the cloud 

Providing your customers and AR team with continuous access to complete, shared invoice and account information eliminates manual workflows and enhances the customer experience. This not only streamlines processes but also offers a competitive edge that can differentiate your business in the marketplace. 

According to 65% of finance executives, offering cloud-based shared access to data and information is a top benefit of AR automation. 

How to achieve this accounts receivable goal: The right technology 

• Cloud-based supplier and customer portals: These portals give both your AR team and customers real-time visibility into full invoice and payment histories, ensuring that all relevant information is readily available in one central location for quick access. 
• Integrated internal communication channels: Enable your AR team to collaborate efficiently by sharing documents, answering questions, and requesting information from colleagues—all within the same platform. 
• Collaborative communication tools: Facilitate real-time, cloud-based discussions between your AR team and customers, especially for issues like invoice line-item disputes. This allows customers to raise concerns directly, while your team can address them quickly, ensuring smoother collections and better customer relationships. 

Bottom line 

In 2025, managing accounts receivable is about more than just collecting; it's also about increasing productivity, enhancing client satisfaction, and utilizing automation to achieve sustained financial success. Although technology can expedite procedures, companies must strike a balance between automation and human interaction to preserve solid bonds and guarantee smooth operations. 

Establishing specific goals for AR, such removing manual labor, streamlining payments, and improving teamwork, can help businesses increase cash flow, lower errors, and improve their financial standing. The secret is to put in place the appropriate solutions that improve productivity and customer happiness while freeing up your AR team to concentrate on strategic expansion.