Professional services · 🇦🇺 Australia
Debtor days at 71, on 30-day terms
A consultancy with no systematic collections process was financing its clients' working capital.
Australian consultancy, 30-day terms, chronic overruns. Client identity withheld — we publish names only with written permission, so this engagement is described by its shape rather than by who it was.
71 → 38
Debtor days
A$240k
Cash released
Weekly
Collections cadence introduced
The situation
- Invoices went out at month end and chasing happened only when cash got tight.
- The principal did the chasing personally and disliked it, so it happened late and inconsistently.
What we found
- Average debtor days of 71 against 30-day terms.
- No structured follow-up sequence — chasing was ad hoc and emotionally driven.
- Several invoices disputed for reasons that had never been recorded or resolved.
What we did
- Introduced a defined follow-up sequence starting before the due date rather than after.
- Moved collections off the principal's desk to a systematic weekly cycle.
- Logged and resolved the standing disputes, several of which were straightforward.
The outcome
- Debtor days fell from 71 to 38 within a quarter, releasing roughly A$240,000 of cash.
- Removing collections from the principal's personal workload improved client relationships rather than damaging them.
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