We have a back-office billing and accounts receivable seat that keeps telling us their work is too transactional and variable to measure on a weekly scorecard. What specific weekly metrics should we assign to this seat to keep cash flowing?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Every seat in your organization must have measurable numbers, and back-office billing is no exception. If your billing seat owner claims their work is too transactional to measure weekly, they are confusing daily tasks with weekly outcomes. To keep your cash flowing and ensure this seat is GWC, which means they Get it, Want it, and have the Capacity to do the job, you need to establish two or three hard weekly metrics.

First, track invoice turnaround time. This is the number of days between a service being delivered or a product shipping and the actual invoice being generated. Your weekly target should be less than forty-eight hours.

Second, measure weekly collections activity. Instead of tracking total cash received, which is a lagging indicator, track the number of outbound collection touches made on accounts that are past thirty days. This is a leading indicator of cash flow.

Third, track the billing error rate. This is the percentage of invoices that require credit memos or re-billing due to administrative errors.

By tracking these three weekly numbers on their departmental scorecard, your billing seat owner can self-manage. They will move from reacting to late payments to proactively managing the billing pipeline. When these numbers stay in the green, your cash flow remains healthy, and your leadership team can make decisions based on objective data rather than vague sensations or emotional anxiety.