Business & SaaS · free calculator
Accounts receivable aging cash impact
Quantify the cash impact of slow-paying customers — outstanding AR, average days sales outstanding (DSO), and cost of capital tied up.
Annual cost of slow-pay
Show the work
- Avg AR outstanding$534,247
- Annual bad debt write-off$45,000
- Opportunity cost on tied-up cash$53,425
AR is a loan — to your customers — at no interest
Every dollar in accounts receivable is a dollar you've delivered the work for but haven't collected. While it sits in AR, it's tying up your operating capital at your cost-of-capital rate. Plus a percentage will never collect (bad debt).
The math
avg AR = (annual revenue ÷ 365) × DSO days
opportunity cost = AR × your cost of capital
bad debt = revenue × bad debt rate
total cash cost = opportunity cost + bad debtDefault scenario: $250k/mo, 65-day DSO, 10% cost of capital, 1.5% bad debt rate:
- Avg AR outstanding: ~$534k
- Opportunity cost: $53k/yr
- Bad debt: $45k/yr
- Total: $98k/yr in slow-pay costs
The DSO benchmarks
- <30 days: best-in-class (subscription / autopay businesses)
- 30-45 days: healthy net-30 enforcement
- 45-60 days: typical B2B services
- 60-90 days: enterprise sales (large clients delay)
- >90 days: collections problem; restructure terms
Actions that cut DSO
- Net 14 + 2% discount for early pay: classic 2/10 net 30 treatment
- Auto-charge ACH/credit card: convert slow-payers to instant-pay
- Mid-month + month-end invoicing: don't wait for month-end batch
- Aggressive collections at day 31: most B2B companies don't even start follow-up until day 45
- Stop work / suspend service on >60 days outstanding
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