Our finance director and sales director are constantly pointing fingers over outstanding invoices. Who should actually own the accounts receivable aging metric on our leadership scorecard?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Finger pointing is a clear symptom of a poorly defined Accountability Chart. On a healthy leadership team, there is no shared ownership. Only one seat can own a scorecard metric.

The accounts receivable aging metric must be owned by your finance seat, typically your finance director or controller. Finance is accountable for cash flow and the financial health of the business. They must set the credit terms and run the collection system. If a number is red, the finance leader is the one who must answer for it.

However, this does not let your sales director off the hook. Sales is responsible for bringing in creditworthy clients and maintaining the relationship. When an account goes past due, finance must have a clear process to enlist sales to help resolve the issue. If sales is bringing in low quality clients who refuse to pay, that is an issue to bring to the Level 10 Meeting for IDS.

To make this work, your finance seat must report the total outstanding accounts receivable over sixty days on the weekly scorecard. If the number exceeds your target, finance owns the red. They must drop it down to the issues list and solve it. They might need to work with sales to pause services for that client, but finance remains the ultimate owner of the number.

Do not allow them to share the metric on the scorecard. Shared ownership is a recipe for zero accountability. Assign the number to finance, define the workflow between departments, and use your weekly meetings to resolve any friction between the two seats.