How to create better integrated experiences for the AR team

This article is sponsored by Invoiced by Flywire.

Digitization through automation and AI is upon us. Yet for many companies, outdated technology and manual processes result in startling losses of productivity and revenue. Capitalizing on the latest AR automation capabilities requires a well-planned ERP integration strategy to optimize accounts receivable performance, minimize IT impact, and improve user efficiency. 

Living without the integration of AR automation and ERP

Across industries, organizations struggle to make the most of their existing technology. Manual accounts receivable (AR) processes result in significant productivity losses, adding days of labor to common tasks and negatively impacting key performance metrics.

Old, ineffective approaches to AR often result from a lack of ERP integration and limited native ERP tools. Companies living with sub-optimal systems and processes miss out on wide-ranging benefits like accelerated cash flow, enhanced accuracy and compliance, real-time visibility, scalability without added personnel, and customer experience.

How ERP integration is done

ERP integration can be a key IT strategy for solving business challenges. While it is not a magic bullet, connecting the tools you already use to run your company can provide tremendous insight and value.

Accounting tools for asset management, compliance, financial reporting, human resources, manufacturing, procurement, risk management, and supply chain management are common subsets of ERP. ERP integration allows all your organization’s back-office data, processes, and tools to be readily and centrally available to the organization. 

For example, it’s difficult to know how many goods you need to manufacture if you don’t know how many are being sold or how much stock you already have in inventory. Are some of those warehoused products already allocated? You should check your supply chain records regarding pending shipments. And before sending out those orders, you should always be able to check if that customer is delinquent in their payments. These types of questions can quickly compound, especially as the answers spill out of core ERP into other key applications. 

Improving the integration experience

Organizations have a variety of tools and strategies that can connect their ERP software with other critical systems. Typically, the integration approach you choose will follow one of the following three models.

• A point-to-point integration model is the easiest to visualize. Point-to-point integration involves software that directly routes data between two different applications: two circles connected by a single line. This strategy works well for small environments, but a new application added to the integration chain will need a rapidly growing collection of data bridges that can increase complexity.
• Alternatively, organizations can adopt a “hub and spoke” or enterprise service bus (ESB) model. In this approach, an ESB provides a centralized integration hub that can connect to external applications through individual adapters. Rather than coding unique pathways between each pair of applications, the individual tool only needs to be able to communicate with the centralized ESB. And the ESB, in turn, manages the routing between the various connected applications.
• Many businesses rely on cloud-based integration platforms, also known as iPaaS, to support their operations. Rather than worrying about software licenses and maintaining a robust IT infrastructure, many businesses have opted for service-based solutions, which means that the underlying software runs in an external cloud environment rather than on-premises.

In the context of integrating an ERP system with a best-of-breed AR solution, organizations can benefit from improved process automation, data consistency, seamless communication, enhanced compliance, and financial performance gains. To achieve ERP integration, organizations should develop a plan, identify their priorities, manage their data carefully, prioritize security, and implement user-friendly interfaces. 

What's next: AI in AR

Both AI and automation can prove invaluable in reinforcing and accelerating the work of an accounts receivable team. Given the importance of I2C operations on your overall revenue and cash flow, boosting their efficiency should be a priority. And in many cases, financial decision-makers have already begun to lean heavily on AI to optimize AR.

Commonly, these efforts focus on either augmented decision-making or process acceleration. For example, AI can be beneficial in analyzing existing financial data to build more accurate forecasts for highly variable operations, such as those related to cash flow. Similarly, this technology can help monitor high-volume workflows to identify abnormalities or errors and even recommend how those issues can be addressed. This might resemble AI-powered fraud detection, flagging a suspicious transaction for further review, an algorithm-driven cash application, or dispute management.

At the same time, artificial intelligence can be leveraged to support process streamlining and automation, such as using generative AI to create and distribute personalized dunning messages without direct human intervention. For example, recent data suggests that among a group of chief financial officers (CFOs) surveyed, 78% had already invested in AI, reporting at least a “somewhat positive” return on their investment (ROI). And among mid-level CFOs, 78% plan to spend more on AI throughout 2025.

Automating key workflows can boost efficiency by eliminating much of the unnecessary time loss associated with more manual processes. Rather than waiting for the right employee to become available to initiate the corresponding action, an agent can take the necessary actions, such as following up on an in-process invoice, even outside of regular office hours, provided oversight is required for key approvals. This time savings can drive down costs by freeing up employees to focus on more challenging issues.

Conclusion

For many organizations, a disorganized approach to ERP integration means falling short of the full potential of the AR process, resulting in wasted resources. Through an automated, integrated approach, powered by providers like Invoiced by Flywire, companies can achieve AR success they never previously thought possible. 

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Photo by Jaanam Haleem on Unsplash