Accounts receivable automation software: VA vs QuickBooks vs a chaser

For a small wholesale, trades or service business, accounts receivable automation comes down to three options: hire someone to chase invoices, use the reminders built into your accounting software, or run a tool that reads your aging report and sends the 30, 60 and 90-day reminders. This page compares them on the things that decide it: what gets sent, what gets logged, and who has to remember.

The free check above runs a real aging export through the third option, so you can see its output before comparing anything.

What are your options for automating accounts receivable?

Option A is a part-time AR or collections assistant. Option B is the reminders inside QuickBooks. Option C is an aging-driven chaser such as Past-Due Invoice Chaser. Larger finance teams also buy full AR automation suites, which are built for enterprise volumes and multiple systems; this page is about the owner-run business that works from a single QuickBooks aging report.

What does a collections VA cost and do?

A real posting on OnlineJobs.ph for a part-time AR and collections assistant asks for daily aging review plus structured 30, 60 and 90-day emails and calls. Postings we found for this work ranged from about $378 a month for 87 hours up to $1,000 or more for a full-time AR specialist. That person can call, read replies and use judgment. The costs are training, supervision, access to your books and customer emails, and the day they are out.

What do QuickBooks reminders do?

QuickBooks Online can send invoice reminders itself, and its automatic reminders can be set to go a chosen number of days before or after an invoice's due date. If you already use them, keep them. What they do not do: read an uploaded aging report, put all of one customer's late invoices into one email, keep a per-invoice log of reminders and outcomes (paid, promised date, disputed), or send you a weekly past-due summary. Options vary by QuickBooks plan and version, so check yours. More in automatic invoice reminders in QuickBooks.

What does an aging-driven chaser do?

Past-Due Invoice Chaser works from your QuickBooks A/R Aging Detail export, as CSV or Excel. It:

• buckets every invoice by days past due;
• sends one plain-text email per customer at 30, 60 and 90 days past due, listing every invoice due a reminder;
• logs each invoice: reminders sent, paid, promised date, disputed, your notes;
• emails you a past-due summary every Monday: total, change since last week, top customers and who needs a call.

The first batch waits for you to review it and press Send. Replies go to your inbox.

How do the three compare?

Where a column says "no", that is a limit, not an oversight. If you need calls or reply handling, a person is the right tool. The chaser covers the routine emails and tells you who needs a call.

Which should you choose?

Choose by volume and by what you want left for people:

1. A few late customers: send the emails yourself using the samples.
2. Dozens of late invoices and an aging review that keeps slipping: automate the routine rounds.
3. Disputes, large balances or customers who need a phone call: keep a person for those, whichever option you pick.

Start with the aging report you already have. The guide to reading it shows what to look at first.

What should you check before you commit to any of them?

Run a real week through it. Take this week's aging report and ask four questions of each option. Who decides what goes out, and when? Where does each customer's email address come from? What record exists afterwards of what was sent and what the customer said? What happens the week the person or the tool is not there?

For the chaser, the answers are concrete. You approve the first batch, then it sends on weekdays from 8:00. You paste a customer and email list once, because the aging report has none. The log shows each reminder and your marks. And it keeps going without you, although it only knows about payments from your next upload or your own mark. Customers without an email on file are never sent anything and are listed, so you can call them.

FAQ

Is there free accounts receivable automation software?

The free run of Past-Due Invoice Chaser buckets an aging export and shows the emails, without signing up. Sending reminders is the subscribed product.

Does it connect to QuickBooks?

No. You export the A/R Aging Detail report and upload it, then map the columns once.

Will it email my customers without asking me?

The first batch waits for your review and Send. After that, reminders go out on weekdays from 8:00, at most one email a day to each customer.