Daily — keep the record true
- Record payments received through every channel, including cheques and transfers.
- Apply each payment to specific invoices; leave nothing unapplied overnight.
- Issue receipts for payments taken.
- Log any inbound customer contact about money against the record.
- Flag anything that arrived and cannot be matched to an invoice.
Weekly — work the list
- Re-prioritise by exposure and recoverability, not age alone.
- Follow up every promise that came due since the last review.
- Resend anything with no evidence of delivery.
- Route disputes to their owner with a resolution date.
- Review the top customer balances and the concentration among them.
Monthly — look at the shape
- Compare aging distribution against the previous two months.
- List balances past 90 days and decide: chase, plan, credit or write off.
- Review credits and discounts given, and who approved them.
- Check for completed work that was never invoiced.
- Confirm collected-this-month against your bank, with your accountant.
Quarterly — change the inputs
- Revisit payment terms for customer segments that consistently run late.
- Adjust deposit and progress-payment requirements where risk showed up.
- Review who holds approval rights and whether the thresholds still fit.
- Decide whether any customer should be moved to prepayment.
- Retire process steps nobody actually performs.