Finance & FP&A

How to track ar aging and run collections as Professional Services Founders

Finance & FP&AFor Professional Services Founders2 apps12 steps~24 min to set up

You invoice on net-30 terms, half your clients pay on net-45 or net-60 in practice, and you find out when your bookkeeper sends you a QuickBooks export at month-end — three weeks after the problem started. Your AR aging lives in a spreadsheet that someone updates manually from QuickBooks or Stripe, then pastes into a Slack message. You have no automated collections process: a senior consultant remembers to send a polite nudge, or they don't. Retainer clients let invoices stack up and then dispute line items from six weeks ago. At 12 people, a single 60-day-overdue client can meaningfully hurt your payroll run.

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Finance & FP&AFor Professional Services Founders2 apps12 steps~24 min to set up

Outcome

What you'll set up

A live AR aging dashboard that buckets every open invoice by 0-30, 31-60, 61-90, and 90+ days past due — pulled directly from QuickBooks or Stripe, updated daily, no manual exports

An automated collections workflow that drafts and sends escalating follow-up emails from your Gmail account when invoices cross age thresholds — first nudge at 7 days past due, firmer note at 30, escalation flag to you at 60

A cash exposure view that shows your total outstanding AR alongside your runway so you can see in one place whether a slow-paying client is actually a cash problem

The Starch recipe

Apps, data, and prompts

The combination of Starch apps, the data sources they pull from, and the prompts you use to drive them.

Apps used

Runway Analysis

Data sources & config

Starch syncs your QuickBooks data on a schedule (invoices, payments, vendors, customers — 20+ entity types) and your Stripe charges and payouts on a schedule. Plaid bank feeds sync on a schedule for the cash exposure view. Gmail connects as a scheduled-sync provider so the collections automation can draft and send follow-up emails from your actual account. Slack is connected from Starch's integration catalog; the agent queries it live to post escalation alerts.

Prompts to copy

Build me an AR aging dashboard that pulls all open invoices from QuickBooks, groups them by client and by days past due (0-30, 31-60, 61-90, 90+), and shows me the total dollar amount at risk in each bucket. Highlight any invoice over $5,000 that's been open more than 45 days.

Create a collections automation: every Monday morning, check QuickBooks for invoices that are 7, 30, and 60 days past due. For 7-day overdue invoices, draft a polite reminder from my Gmail and send it. For 30-day, send a firmer note referencing the invoice number and amount. For 60-day, don't send — just flag the client to me in a Slack message so I can handle it personally.

Add a panel to my AR aging dashboard that pulls my Plaid bank balance and Stripe pending payouts and shows me whether my total outstanding AR is greater than 30 days of operating expenses — I want to see that ratio at a glance.

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Walkthrough

Step-by-step

1 Connect QuickBooks: Starch syncs your invoices, payments, and customer records on a schedule. No export needed — the data refreshes automatically and every invoice status change (paid, partially paid, voided) is reflected in your dashboard.

2 Connect Stripe if you also collect payments there: Starch syncs charges, invoices, and payouts so clients who pay by card appear alongside your QuickBooks AR in the same aging view.

3 Connect Plaid to pull your operating bank balance: this is what makes the cash exposure panel real — you're comparing outstanding AR against actual cash, not an accounting estimate.

4 Connect Gmail: Starch syncs your messages and can send on your behalf, which is what makes the automated collections follow-ups come from you rather than some generic noreply address.

5 Connect Slack from Starch's integration catalog so the agent can post escalation alerts to you or your ops channel when an invoice crosses the 60-day threshold.

6 Describe the AR aging dashboard in plain language — tell Starch which buckets you want, which clients to prioritize, and whether you want it sorted by dollar amount or by days overdue. Starch builds the view against your live QuickBooks and Stripe data.

7 Describe the collections automation: specify your escalation thresholds (7 days, 30 days, 60 days is a reasonable starting point for a consultancy), the tone of each message, and which step triggers a human handoff. Starch drafts the automation and shows you the email templates before activating.

8 Review the email drafts Starch generates for your first batch of overdue invoices — the Email Triage app surfaces these for your one-click approval so you're not writing them from scratch but you're still signing off before anything goes out.

9 Add the cash exposure panel: describe what you want to see (total AR vs. 30-day burn, or AR vs. next payroll run) and Starch wires Plaid and Stripe data into the same dashboard surface.

10 Set the automation cadence: every Monday morning Starch checks aging, queues the appropriate follow-ups, sends the ones below your escalation threshold, and Slacks you a summary of what it did and what needs your attention.

11 Review the first two weeks of automated follow-ups manually — check reply rates, adjust the email tone if clients are responding badly, and raise or lower the dollar threshold at which Starch escalates to you vs. handles automatically.

12 Once the rhythm is stable, the only AR task left on your plate is the 60-day escalations: Starch surfaces those with the full invoice history and the client's email thread so you walk into that conversation prepared.

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Worked example

March 2026 AR close — Meridian Strategy Group

Sample numbers from a real run

Accenture-tier fintech client (retainer) — Invoice #2024	28,500
Regional bank transformation project — Invoice #2019	14,200
PE-backed SaaS company — Invoice #2021	9,750
Law firm operating efficiency engagement — Invoice #2017	6,400
Total AR outstanding	58,850

It's March 31. Meridian Strategy Group has $58,850 in open AR. The AR aging dashboard — built against QuickBooks scheduled sync — shows Invoice #2017 ($6,400, law firm client) at 62 days past due: it slipped through because a senior consultant meant to follow up and didn't. Invoice #2019 ($14,200, regional bank) is at 38 days — in the 31-60 bucket. The fintech retainer (#2024, $28,500) is current at 12 days. Starch's automated collections workflow already sent a 7-day nudge on the bank invoice two weeks ago and a 30-day reminder last week; the client replied saying 'check is processing.' The law firm invoice triggered a 60-day Slack alert to the founder this morning with the full invoice history attached — no email went out automatically because that client relationship warrants a call. The cash exposure panel shows $58,850 in AR against a $31,200 monthly burn (from Plaid) and $44,000 in the operating account. The ratio flags: if the two oldest invoices don't pay in the next two weeks, April payroll gets uncomfortable. The founder calls the law firm, the bank payment clears three days later, and March closes with $14,200 still aging — one client, visible, actively managed.

Measurement

How you'll know it's working

Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) — average number of days from invoice date to payment, tracked monthly by client and in aggregate

AR aging distribution — percentage of total outstanding AR in each bucket (0-30, 31-60, 61-90, 90+) as a leading indicator of collections health

Collections follow-up response rate — what percentage of automated nudges result in payment or a payment commitment within 5 business days

Cash coverage ratio — total outstanding AR as a multiple of monthly operating expenses, so you can see whether slow payers are a real cash threat or just annoying

Overdue AR by client concentration — which single client represents the largest AR exposure, because at 12 people, one slow-paying enterprise client is a meaningful risk

Comparison

What this replaces

The other ways teams handle this today, and how the Starch version compares.

QuickBooks + manual AR aging report

QuickBooks can generate an AR aging report, but you have to remember to run it, export it, and then separately decide what to do — there's no automated follow-up and no connection to your cash position or email.

Kantata (fka Mavenlink) or Deltek

Purpose-built PSA tools with AR tracking built in, but they're priced and scoped for 50-200 person firms, take months to implement, and you'd still be exporting data to understand your cash exposure.

HubSpot Deals + manual invoice tracking

HubSpot tracks pipeline well but isn't designed for AR aging — you'd be maintaining a parallel system for invoices, and collections follow-up would still be manual.

Harvest + Float

Harvest handles time tracking and basic invoicing; Float does cash flow forecasting. Together they still leave AR collections as a manual process and don't connect to your bank balance or automate follow-ups.

Dedicated AR automation tools (e.g., Tesorio, Versapay)

Purpose-built for AR collections with strong automation, but they're built for finance teams at mid-market companies — overkill for a 12-person consultancy and another tool to onboard, maintain, and pay for.

On Starch RECOMMENDED

One platform — runway analysis, founder inbox all running on connected data. Setup in plain English; numbers stay current via scheduled syncs and live agent queries.

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FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Does this work if my invoices are in QuickBooks but some clients pay through Stripe?

Yes. Starch syncs both QuickBooks and Stripe on a schedule, so invoices created in QuickBooks and payments collected through Stripe can appear in the same aging dashboard. You describe the view you want — 'show me all open invoices regardless of payment method, mark ones where a Stripe payment is in flight' — and Starch builds it against both data sources.

Will the automated follow-up emails come from my actual email address or some generic sender?

They come from your Gmail account. Starch syncs Gmail and can send on your behalf, so the follow-up arrives in the client's inbox as a message from you, threaded into the existing invoice conversation if you want it that way. You review and approve the email templates before anything goes live.

What if my QuickBooks has report views disabled — can I still get AR aging data?

Yes. Starch's QuickBooks integration currently has report views (P&L, Transaction List) paused pending a connector fix, but entity-level data — invoices, payments, customers, bills — syncs normally. AR aging is built from invoice entities directly, not from a QuickBooks report view, so this limitation doesn't affect the aging dashboard.

Can Starch actually send the follow-up emails automatically, or does it just draft them for me to send?

It can do either, and you set the threshold. Most founders set it so Starch sends nudges automatically up to a certain age — say, 30 days past due — and surfaces anything older for human review before sending. The 60-day escalation almost always warrants a personal note, so Starch flags it to you rather than auto-sending.

Is my financial data stored in Starch or just queried live?

QuickBooks, Stripe, and Plaid are scheduled-sync providers, meaning Starch syncs and stores the data on a schedule in its own database. That's what makes the AR aging dashboard fast and the automations reliable — they're running against Starch's copy of your data, not hitting QuickBooks live every time. Starch is not SOC 2 Type II certified today, so if your firm has compliance requirements at that level, that's worth knowing upfront.

What if a client uses a payment method that isn't Stripe — checks, ACH, wire transfers?

Those payments typically show up in QuickBooks when you record them, which Starch syncs. They'll also appear as transactions in your Plaid bank feed. You can describe a reconciliation logic — 'mark an invoice as likely paid if a matching ACH credit appears in Plaid within 3 days of the due date' — and Starch will flag those for your confirmation rather than continuing to chase them automatically.