AI accounts receivable software: what collections and cash application tools automate (September 2026)

Late payment in numbers: why receivables teams automate

Atradius published its 2026 Payment Practices Barometer for Western Europe on May 20, 2026. Nearly 4 in 5 companies said customers paid invoices late, and about a quarter of all B2B invoices were paid after the due date. On average, overdue invoices were settled about a month after they fell due.

Trade credit is common, so the exposure is large. 52 percent of B2B sales in the region were made on credit, from about 75 percent in the Netherlands to 22 percent in France. Bad debts averaged 1.6 percent of B2B invoiced turnover, nearly 1 in 4 companies reported losses of up to 5 percent, and more than half named liquidity pressure at customers as the main reason for late payment.

For a receivables team, that means more accounts to chase with the same headcount. Automation targets the manual steps: deciding whom to contact first, writing the reminder, reading the remittance advice and posting the payment. The same data also tells treasury when cash will arrive, which is why cash forecasting tools increasingly read receivables data.

Sources: [1][2]

What AI does in accounts receivable: 4 jobs

The first job is deciding whom to chase. Billtrust's predictive collections ranks high-risk accounts by buyer payment behavior, drawing on a network the vendor puts at more than 13 million buyers. Quadient AR, formerly YayPay, grades customers from A to E and moves a customer into a higher-touch workflow as soon as payments slip. collect.AI, part of Aareal Bank Group, predicts the likelihood of payment for liquidity planning.

The second job is outreach. HighRadius runs a dunning agent that sends and manages dunning letters, Chaser writes reminder emails with an AI email generator and adds a payer rating and a late payment predictor, and the Collections Agent of Upflow runs outreach across channels based on the receivables history. Emagia goes furthest: its Gia Collect agent places outbound AI calls in more than 23 languages and records promise-to-pay dates and amounts during the call.

The third job is cash application, matching incoming money to open invoices when remittance data is incomplete or scattered. Versapay reads remittances from email, PDFs, EDI files, AP portals and bank lockboxes with OCR and machine learning. Serrala offers matching embedded in SAP, and Invoiced matches payments automatically and adjusts its dunning cadence over time.

The fourth job is the inbox. Billtrust's Agentic Email categorizes the collections inbox and drafts replies, and Bilendo runs a dispute agent that tracks open cases and payment promises.

Sources: [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]

Agents with approval and agents that act: how far automation goes

Vendors draw the line between proposal and action in different places. Bilendo states that every action of its agents is a proposal and that a person still gives the approval; its agents cover dunning runs, disputes, credit limit decisions and portfolio risk. HighRadius advertises more than 60 AI agents across receivables workflows.

Where the agents sit in the price list matters too. Upflow includes its Insights Agent in every plan but its Collections Agent and AP Portal Agent only from the Scale plan, and its Cash Application Agent from Accelerate. Bilendo bills agent use through credits by consumption.

Vendor results are marketing figures without a benchmark behind them. HighRadius cites a 10 percent reduction in days sales outstanding (DSO), collect.AI a 72 percent DSO improvement and Agicap a DSO reduction of 20 to 40 percent. Quadient says its payment predictions are between 84 and 94 percent accurate, and Versapay reports more than 90 percent straight-through processing. None of the pages publishes a method or a sample, so your own before and after numbers are the only reliable yardstick.

Sources: [14][13][6][8][15][5][16][4][10][9]

EU late payment rules that accounts receivable software works within

In the EU, Directive 2011/7/EU sets the frame. Payment periods between businesses may not exceed 60 calendar days unless the contract expressly says otherwise and the term is not grossly unfair to the creditor. Public authorities normally have to pay within 30 days, with 60 days allowed only for specific bodies such as healthcare providers.

When a customer pays late, the creditor is owed statutory interest of at least 8 percentage points above the reference rate, plus a fixed minimum of 40 euros in compensation without the need for a reminder. Contract terms that exclude interest are considered grossly unfair, and excluding compensation for recovery costs is presumed to be grossly unfair. National rates differ: Germany, for example, sets 9 percentage points above its base rate for business customers. A receivables tool that calculates interest should apply the rules of each debtor's country.

A stricter regime did not happen. The Commission proposed a Late Payment Regulation in September 2023 with a 30 day maximum, and the European Parliament adopted its position on April 23, 2024. As of the Parliament's August 1, 2026, update, the file is blocked in the Council, so the 60 day framework of the directive remains in force.

Sources: [17][18][19]

Receivables tools in our directory and how they charge

Our directory lists 39 tools built mainly for receivables and collections, plus accounting suites such as QuickBooks Online, Pennylane and Zoho Books and payables or close vendors with a receivables module. Most are headquartered in the United States (25 of 59), and only 6 can host data in the EU according to our data.

Few vendors publish prices, and those that do use different units. Chaser's Compact plan costs £199 per month ($259 or €239) for up to 4 users at companies with less than £4 million in revenue, Core costs £599 and Complete £899, with a receivables forecast in Complete. Kolleno charges €545 per user per month billed annually (€650 monthly) for Business Pay and €995 (€1,245 monthly) for Business Plus, where AI agent support starts.

Others price by volume or outcome. Upflow charges by invoiced revenue band, from up to $10 million to more than $100 million, with no seat fees, amounts on request and a free Discover plan; its payments add-on costs $390 per month plus transaction fees. HighRadius charges no implementation fees and nothing until go-live, then a share of measured KPI improvements. Bilendo combines a platform fee with a monthly price per active business partner and per active credit limit.

Scale is a useful filter. HighRadius reports more than 1,500 companies as customers, including more than 200 of the Fortune 1000, and targets large enterprises. At the European end, Bilendo says it manages 85 billion euros in receivables and more than 30 million debtors, and collect.AI reports 20 billion euros in processed claims for more than 50 clients, including energy providers, insurers and financial institutions.

Sources: [20][21][22][8][6][15][13][5]

How to test an AI accounts receivable tool before you sign

Measure first. Record DSO, the share of overdue invoices and the time it takes to apply a payment for at least 3 months before a pilot, so the vendor's promised improvement can be checked against your own numbers.

Then check the plumbing. Ask which ERP the tool reads open items from and how often, whether cash application works with your banks' remittance formats and how disputes flow back to sales and customer service. Serrala is built around SAP, Bilendo shows synchronization with SAP and DATEV and says it is hosted in Frankfurt, and Serrala also connects Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics, Infor and Epicor.

Finally, set the rules of engagement. Decide which reminders the AI may send without approval, which customers always get a human, and whether voice agents fit your customer base and local rules on automated calls. 26 tools in the category list SOC 2, so ask for the report rather than the logo.

Sources: [11][13][20][17]