IBM Cognos Performance Applications

Accounts Receivable Analysis


Understanding accounts receivable as a part of Customer and Financial Analytics.

The pre-built reports and metrics of the Accounts Receivable Analysis application help you balance strong customer relationships and cash inflow management. You can:

  • Ensure full and timely collection of customer accounts.
  • Profile customer credit performance and flag potential high-risk accounts.
  • Streamline the process and improve forecasting for A/R inflow.
  • Report on A/R accounts.
  • Evaluate the volume of A/R transactions and their effect on performance.

Accounts Receivable Analysis gives you more than 60 key performance indicators and more than 35 multidimensional reports. These metrics and reports are grouped in five key areas of analysis, answering a variety of business questions:

  • Accounts Receivable Performance
    • What is the average collection period?
    • What are the days of sales outstanding (DSOs)?
    • What percentage of A/R is past due?
  • Customer Credit
    • How does a customer's aging schedule compare with our norm?
    • What is the customer's average days to pay?
    • Does the customer take advantage of discounts offered?
  • Accounts Receivable Self-Appraisal
    • What is the value of adjustments?
    • Where are the adjustments emerging-for what customers and regions?
    • Have adjustment levels improved in response to changes in supply chain or billing processes?
  • Cash Inflow
    • What is expected cash flow, assuming no accounts take advantage of discount payment terms? What if all take advantage of discounts?
    • What is the expected cash inflow based on the expected days to pay for each account, based on their payment patterns?
  • Organizational Effectiveness
    • How has account distribution across our analysts changed as business increased?
    • How do average days to collect compare across our analysts?
    • What is the change in number of transactions processed per analyst over time?