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Accounts Receivable Collections Template

A collections policy, five-step reminder sequence, call script and four sheets that rank overdue accounts by what they cost and log every promise to pay.

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Pack of 8 files: 4 documents, 4 spreadsheets

Accounts Receivable Collections Template

Collections PolicyDocument
Carrying Cost BasisDocument
Dunning SequenceDocument
Escalation ScriptDocument
Aging WorklistSpreadsheet
Promise-to-Pay LogSpreadsheet
Dunning ScheduleSpreadsheet
DSO TrendSpreadsheet

Accounts Receivable Collections Template

Aging Worklist

[Company] — receivables at [date], ranked by what is at risk

Two columns decide the order, and neither of them is the age. The age rank stays on the row so you can see what moved.

Column	Where it comes from	Why it is here
Balance	Aging export	Size, which the bucket view flattens
Days past due	Original due date, never re-aged	Kept for reference, not for ranking
Age rank	Calculated	Where the aging report would have put it
Settled promises	Promise-to-Pay Log	Dated commitments whose date has passed
Promises kept	Cleared cash against the log	Behaviour, not sentiment
Carrying cost per month	Balance at the borrowing rate	What the balance costs to hold
At risk per month	Carrying cost times share broken	The sort key
Open promise	Promise-to-Pay Log	Suppresses the send until its date passes
Next step and owner	Dunning Schedule	A queued send, not a suggestion

The three rules the ranking runs on

No settled promises	Weighted at half. Untested is not the same as reliable
Partial payment	Broken for the shortfall, and the shortfall rolls forward once
Open and inside its date	Excluded from the keep rate, and the sequence holds

Fill it from your own aging export and contact history, or open the pack and let the agent build both from the source exports.

Page 1 of 1221 words

How to run an accounts receivable collections process

An accounts receivable collections process is the routine your business follows to turn unpaid invoices into cash. A good one sends reminders on fixed days around the due date and calls the costliest overdue accounts first. Every call ends with a dated promise to pay, and each promise is checked against the money that arrives. Days sales outstanding (DSO) shows whether it's working.

Rank the work by cost and behavior, not age. The oldest invoice on your aging report may come from a slow but reliable payer. A younger balance from a customer who keeps breaking promises can cost you more every month.

A man in a navy suit talks on a desk phone, one hand resting on a printed document — Start each day's calls with the costliest account, not the oldest. Photo: Carrie Allen on Unsplash

Start before the invoice is due

Some invoices go unpaid only because nobody could approve them: they went to the wrong inbox, lacked a purchase order number or didn't match the delivery. Catch those before the due date.

The US government's Prompt Payment rule is a good model of a payable invoice. A federal proper invoice¹ must include the vendor's name, invoice date and invoice number, and the contract or order number. It also needs a description with price and quantity, payment terms, banking details and a contact's name and phone number. Put the same on yours.

Then send a courtesy note about five days before the due date, with the invoice attached. A wrong amount or missing purchase order then surfaces in time to reissue.

Send reminders on a fixed schedule

Count every step from the due date, moving from automatic emails to a call to a signed letter.

A five-step reminder schedule

Step	When	Channel	What it asks for
Courtesy notice	5 days before the due date	Email, automatic	A reply if the invoice is wrong
Past-due notice	3 days after	Email, automatic	A payment date, or the holdup
Second notice	14 days after	Email with a full statement	A date for the full balance
Phone call	30 days after	Phone, by a named person	A dated promise to pay
Final notice	45 days after	Email and letter from the controller	Cleared funds by a set date

Three things pause a step: cleared funds, a promise whose date hasn't passed, and a dispute logged with the invoice, amount and owner. Once a customer has promised a date, every message quotes it back, with the amount and who gave it.

When a promise breaks, go straight back to the call, addressed to whoever made it. Restarting the polite emails hands the customer two more weeks for nothing. A late payment reminder tool can draft the emails from your invoice details.

Rank overdue accounts by cost, not age

Pull the aging report at invoice level every week. Its buckets sort balances by age, so a large balance from an unreliable customer can sit halfway down the list. Fix the order with two numbers.

First, price each balance at what the money costs you. If a credit line funds your working capital, use its rate from the loan agreement or your debt schedule. For a rate that floats over prime, the Federal Reserve publishes prime each business day in its H.15 release². With spare cash and no borrowing, use what that cash earns.

Second, score how often each customer keeps its word: of the promises whose dates have passed, what share were paid in full and on time? Multiply the monthly cost by the share broken and sort on the result. Treat an account with no promise history as 50% broken, because untested isn't the same as reliable.

An illustrative worklist, ranked by cost at risk

Account	Days past due	Balance	Promises kept	At risk a month
Customer B	45	$900,000	0 of 3	$6,000
Customer D	20	$750,000	None yet	$2,500
Customer C	75	$450,000	1 of 4	$2,250
Customer A	120	$300,000	2 of 2	$0

Made-up figures. At risk is the monthly cost at 8% a year times the share of promises broken. The oldest balance ranks last.

Federal agencies are a special case. Under the same Prompt Payment rule, an agency that pays late must add an interest penalty without the vendor having to ask³. Check that it arrives.

End every call with a dated promise

The call at day 30 has one job: a promise with an amount, a date, and the name and role of the person giving it. Anything less is a conversation. Before you dial, have the open invoices and every past promise in front of you.

ExampleOpening the call after a broken promiseAn illustrative example written for this guide. Dana, her company and the amounts are made up.

On September 3, Dana, you committed to $64,000 by the 18th. It hasn't arrived, and the $52,000 you promised for August 21 didn't either.
Before we agree on a new date, I need to know what stopped both. When does your next payment run go out?

Facts from the log. Amounts, dates and a name, read from the promise log, not from memory.
The payment run. A date that falls between the customer's payment runs can't be kept, so ask when they pay before you agree to one.

Ask whether the full amount is approved for that run, and who signs it off. Then read the promise back aloud, and log it before your next call while the wording is exact.

Score each promise once its date passes, against cash that actually cleared. A partial payment is a broken promise for the shortfall. Put every live promise in your 13-week cash flow forecast in the week it falls due.

Handle disputes and escalate by the rules

Log a dispute like any other fact: the invoice, the amount contested, who on your side owns it and the date raised. Pause only the contested amount and keep chasing the rest. Escalate any dispute still open after 15 days to the controller.

After two broken promises on a large balance, call someone above accounts payable, such as the finance director. Credit holds, payment plans, settlements and write-offs belong to whoever your policy names, usually the controller. Never threaten a step your business hasn't approved. If the final notice passes unpaid, send a formal demand letter for the unpaid invoice before involving an agency or a court.

Know when to call a lawyer

In the US, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act covers debts individuals owe for personal, family or household purposes⁴, not invoices owed by businesses. If a customer is an individual buying for personal use, or files for bankruptcy, stop and get legal advice. A bankruptcy filing triggers an automatic stay⁵ that suspends collection activity on debts from before the filing.

Measure your collections process with DSO

Days sales outstanding (DSO) is the number of days of sales sitting unpaid. The Credit Research Foundation, which surveys companies' receivables each quarter, calculates DSO⁶ from the last three month-end receivable balances and the quarter's credit sales. Its Best Possible DSO counts only receivables not yet due, so the gap between the two is days lost to late payment.

In CRF's second-quarter 2026 survey⁷, median DSO was 37.5 days, and the median share of receivables not yet due was 87.9%. Your own trend matters more, so pick one definition and never switch it.

Put DSO in dollars as well. At $100,000 of sales a day, 10 days over target ties up $1 million, which costs $80,000 a year at 8%. When DSO rises, find the accounts behind it. If the rise is spread across every customer, look at your terms or billing instead.

Before this week's calls

The aging report is at invoice level and pulled this week
Every balance is priced at the same written rate
Every live promise has an amount, a date and a name
Broken promises go back to the call, not the first email
Every dispute has an invoice, an amount, an owner and a date

The template at the top of this page has the policy, reminder sequence, call script and four sheets ready to fill in. Edit with AI opens it in River, which builds the ranked worklist from your own aging export and call notes.

How to use this template

Use the files as they are, or open them in River. Send River your aging report at invoice level, a year of invoice history, whatever record you keep of collection calls and emails, and your borrowing rate. River prices every balance at that rate, pulls each dated promise from your notes, checks it against what cleared and ranks the worklist.

Where a note gives only two of the amount, date and name, River marks the gap for you to fill rather than guessing. It drafts each message with the last promise in the first line, and nothing is sent until you approve the queue.

Download it or open it in River
Get the four Word documents and four CSV sheets free, or open the template in River and send your aging export.
Set the rate and policy
Record your borrowing rate, its source and the date you read it in Carrying Cost Basis, then fit Collections Policy to your terms.
Rank accounts and log promises
Let River build the Aging Worklist from your export, or fill it yourself, then log each promise as calls end.
Send, call and measure
Approve each week's Dunning Schedule, call wherever a promise broke, and add a DSO Trend row when each month closes.

What's in the template

#	Account	Balance	Days	Age #	Kept	Cost/mo	At risk/mo	Next step
1	Halbrook Fabrication	1,340,000	47	6	0 of 4	8,933	8,933	Escalation call to the CFO
2	Ferncastle Mining Supply	1,720,000	38	7	1 of 3	11,467	7,644	Escalation call to the treasurer
3	Ostrander Marine	612,000	84	3	1 of 5	4,080	3,264	Final notice, log attached
4	Novantis Fabrication	892,000	19	10	none yet	5,947	2,973	First call, get a commitment
5	Threlfall Bros Contracting	534,000	133	1	1 of 6	3,560	2,967	Hold, commitment live to 2 Oct
6	Rhoscombe Utilities	428,000	71	4	0 of 2	2,853	2,853	Escalation call
7	All other, 61 accounts	575,000	22	9	9 of 14	3,833	1,369	Automatic sequence
8	Kilbourne Rail	1,105,000	26	8	1 of 1	7,367	0	Hold, commitment live to 15 Oct
9	Weatherby Plant Services	986,000	112	2	2 of 2	6,573	0	Hold, commitment live to 8 Oct
10	Ardleigh Energy Group	748,000	61	5	3 of 3	4,987	0	Hold, commitment live to 10 Oct
	Total	8,940,000			18 of 40	59,600	30,004	Eight of ten rows moved

ID	Made	Account	Who gave it	Amount	Promised	Outcome	Late	What broke it
P-021	2 Jul	Ostrander Marine	Dena Whitlock, AP Supervisor	150,000	17 Jul	Kept	0	The one that landed. It was the only date on their payment run
P-022	8 Jul	Halbrook Fabrication	Row Iveson, AP Manager	450,000	24 Jul	Broken	68	Sent 90,000 of 450,000 on the day. Only that much had ever been approved
P-029	4 Aug	Ferncastle Mining Supply	Sasha Iremonger, Group Treasurer	520,000	21 Aug	Broken	40	Treasury deferred the run after a covenant test, and told us three days late
P-033	13 Aug	Ardleigh Energy Group	Tom Bassford, Financial Controller	290,000	28 Aug	Kept	0
P-035	19 Aug	Halbrook Fabrication	Row Iveson, AP Manager	500,000	5 Sep	Broken	25	No reason offered, three unreturned calls since
P-041	3 Sep	Ferncastle Mining Supply	Sasha Iremonger, Group Treasurer	640,000	18 Sep	Broken	12	Second miss running. The covenant test is still not cleared
P-044	10 Sep	Halbrook Fabrication	Row Iveson, AP Manager	272,000	26 Sep	Broken	4	Offered unprompted while the 500,000 was already broken
P-047	25 Sep	Threlfall Bros Contracting	Marcus Rean, Financial Controller	253,000	2 Oct	Open		Names the customer paying them and the date, which is new

Send	Account	Step	Message	Owner	Names	Status
1 Oct	Halbrook Fabrication	4 restart	Escalation call	Controller	P-035, P-044	Queued
1 Oct	Ferncastle Mining Supply	4 restart	Escalation call	Collections lead	P-041	Queued
2 Oct	Ostrander Marine	5	Final notice, log attached	Collections lead	5 promises	Queued
2 Oct	Rhoscombe Utilities	4 restart	Escalation call	Collections lead	P-045	Queued
3 Oct	Threlfall Bros Contracting	Hold	Nothing sends	Controller	P-047	Held
5 Oct	Novantis Fabrication	2	Invoice now past due	Automatic		Queued
8 Oct	Weatherby Plant Services	Hold	Nothing sends	Automatic	P-043	Held
9 Oct	Weatherby Plant Services	4	Call and log a commitment	Collections lead	P-043	Scheduled
15 Oct	Kilbourne Rail	Hold	Nothing sends	Automatic	P-046	Held

Month	Revenue	Month-end AR	DSO	Change	Days over target	Cash over target	Interest a year
Mar 2026	3,340,000	7,510,000	69.9		7.9	846,703	67,736
Apr 2026	3,410,000	7,690,000	69.9	+0.0	7.9	870,000	69,600
May 2026	3,520,000	7,940,000	70.4	+0.4	8.4	942,857	75,429
Jun 2026	3,680,000	8,210,000	70.4	+0.1	8.4	981,209	78,497
Jul 2026	3,590,000	8,480,000	71.5	+1.1	9.5	1,128,571	90,286
Aug 2026	3,620,000	8,720,000	72.9	+1.3	10.9	1,300,440	104,035
Sep 2026	3,540,000	8,940,000	75.7	+2.8	13.7	1,615,824	129,266

Collections PolicyHow accounts are ranked, what counts as a promise, what pauses a reminder and who approves holds.
Carrying Cost BasisThe borrowing rate behind every ranking, with its source and date, the DSO definition and federal late-payment interest.
Dunning SequenceFive steps dated from the due date, with drafts of the four written notices and notes for the call.
Escalation ScriptCall openings after a broken promise or with no history, three questions for a firm date, and what to log.
Aging Worklist sheetEvery account priced at your borrowing rate, with promises kept, cost at risk and its aging rank.
Promise-to-Pay Log sheetEvery dated promise: the amount, the date, who gave it, what cleared, how late and why it broke.
Dunning Schedule sheetEvery queued send and call, with its date, channel and owner, and every hold with its reason.
DSO Trend sheetDSO each month on one definition, with the cash and yearly interest above target and what moved it.

Common questions

What is an accounts receivable collections process?

An accounts receivable collections process is your written routine for collecting what customers owe. It sets when reminders go out, who calls and when, what counts as a promise to pay, how disputes are logged and who approves a credit hold or write-off. Writing it down means anyone on the team takes the same next step.

How often should you review accounts receivable?

Review it every week: pull a fresh aging report, re-rank the overdue accounts and let reminders go out on their scheduled days in between. Measure DSO once a month, after the books close, on the same definition each time. A weekly rhythm catches a broken promise within days instead of a month later.

Which overdue accounts should you call first?

Call the accounts costing you the most, which are not always the oldest. Work out what each balance costs a month at your borrowing rate, then weight it by the share of that customer's past promises that broke. A big balance from a customer who keeps missing dates outranks an older one from a customer who pays when they say.

What is a promise to pay?

A promise to pay is a customer's commitment to pay a stated amount on a stated date, given by a named person. Record all three, plus their role and the day of the call. If any piece is missing, it is too vague to hold anyone to, and you will not be able to score it later.

What is a good DSO?

A good DSO is close to your payment terms, and steady or falling when you measure it the same way each month. For comparison, the Credit Research Foundation's survey found a median DSO of 37.5 days in the second quarter of 2026. The gap between your DSO and your Best Possible DSO shows how many days late payers cost you.

Is this accounts receivable collections template free?

Yes. Download the four Word documents and four CSV sheets with no signup. They come filled in with a made-up company's receivables (nine named customers and 61 smaller accounts), so you can see how the ranking works before you clear them. Edit with AI opens the same template in River.

What does Edit with AI do?

It opens the template in a free River workspace. River asks for your aging report, a year of invoice history, your collection notes and your borrowing rate. It prices every balance, pulls each dated promise from your notes, ranks the worklist and drafts the next round of messages. Nothing is sent until you approve the queue.

Sources

eCFR. “5 CFR 1315.9 — Required documentation.” ecfr.gov (opens in a new tab)
Federal Reserve Board. “Selected Interest Rates (Daily) - H.15.” federalreserve.gov (opens in a new tab)
eCFR. “5 CFR 1315.10 — Late payment interest penalties.” ecfr.gov (opens in a new tab)
FTC. “Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.” ftc.gov (opens in a new tab)
U.S. Courts. “Chapter 11 - Bankruptcy Basics.” uscourts.gov (opens in a new tab)
Credit Research Foundation. “Directions, Formulas and Definitions for completion of the NSDTR.” crfonline.org (opens in a new tab)
Credit Research Foundation. “National Summary of Domestic Trade Receivables Results Summary.” crfonline.org (opens in a new tab)

Written by

Chandler Supple

Co-founder & CEO, River

Chandler has spent the last six years working in AI, building tools for millions of users and Fortune 100 companies. In 2025, he co-founded River to build a new kind of operating system for AI agents.

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Reviewed by

Brian Joseff, Co-founder, River

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Accounts Receivable Collections Template

[Company] — receivables at [date], ranked by what is at risk

The three rules the ranking runs on

How to run an accounts receivable collections process

Start before the invoice is due

Send reminders on a fixed schedule

Rank overdue accounts by cost, not age

End every call with a dated promise

Handle disputes and escalate by the rules

Measure your collections process with DSO

How to use this template

Download it or open it in River

Set the rate and policy

Rank accounts and log promises

Send, call and measure

What's in the template

Aging Worklist

Promise-to-Pay Log

Dunning Schedule

DSO Trend

Common questions

Sources

Chandler Supple

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