Today’s economy is volatile and liquidity is king. For CFOs, one of the fastest ways to unlock working capital is to reduce Days Sales Outstanding (DSO), the time it takes to turn invoices into cash. But traditional approaches, manual billing, fragmented onboarding, and approval delays, create bottlenecks that keep revenue trapped in process.
That’s why leading finance teams are turning to AI automation to accelerate the order-to-cash (O2C) cycle, eliminate delays, and free up cash. In this guide, we explore how AI agents are transforming O2C operations, and how you can reduce DSO with automation—starting with onboarding.
Why DSO Still Slows You Down
DSO isn’t just a metric, it’s a daily constraint on your company’s ability to grow. When billing is delayed because customer data hasn’t been registered, contracts are stuck in legal, or invoices are incorrect, the consequences ripple across finance:
- Missed cash flow targets
- Increased borrowing costs
- Poor customer experience
- Strained finance and AR teams
And while most CFOs already monitor DSO, few have the tools to act on it at the operational level. That’s where AI automation steps in.
The Real Bottleneck: Onboarding and Billing Gaps
Before you can send an invoice, the customer needs to be fully onboarded. That means collecting documents, verifying data, assigning internal codes, and activating the customer in your ERP. For many companies, this process takes days or weeks and involves HR, legal, compliance, and finance.
AI agents can reduce that onboarding time to minutes by:
- Conversing with the customer to collect documents via chat
- Validating tax IDs, business addresses, payment terms, and legal information
- Auto-generating contracts and onboarding forms
- Registering the customer in your ERP and triggering invoice creation
By automating the front-end of the O2C process, companies eliminate friction before the first invoice ever goes out—and reduce DSO with automation right from day one.
The AI-Powered O2C Flow
AI agents now handle entire segments of the procurement and billing cycle. Here’s how CFOs are deploying automation to improve cash velocity:
- Automated Customer Onboarding
Collect documents, validate info, and register customers—without manual intervention. - Invoice Generation from ERP Events
AI detects key billing triggers (goods delivered, services rendered) and generates accurate invoices instantly. - Payment Reminder Agents
Friendly, AI-driven follow-ups ensure timely payments without harming relationships. - Dispute Resolution Triage
AI classifies payment disputes, gathers evidence, and routes cases for resolution, reducing time-to-collection.
Benefits Beyond Finance
Reducing DSO with automation does more than improve cash flow:
- Customer satisfaction improves thanks to faster onboarding and fewer invoice errors
- AR and finance teams can focus on strategy instead of chasing paperwork
- Compliance and audit-readiness are strengthened by AI-driven data validation and logging
- Growth scales faster, as onboarding no longer becomes a bottleneck
How to Get Started
You don’t need to rip and replace your tech stack. Our AI agents integrate with your existing ERP and CRM systems (like SAP, Oracle, Salesforce, or Microsoft Dynamics) and operate in parallel with your teams.
Start with one high-impact area:
- New customer onboarding
- Requisition-to-order flow from procurements’ side
- Supplier registration
- Invoice generation from delivery events
- Scheduling order delivery according to each of your customers’ order reception terms and schedules.
Then expand as you see results.
It’s Time to Automate Cash Flow
CFOs looking to improve liquidity shouldn’t wait for the customer to pay, they should start by speeding up their own internal processes. With AI agents in place, finance teams can:
- Shorten time-to-bill
- Improve data accuracy
- Scale without hiring
- And most importantly, reduce DSO with automation
Ready to accelerate cash flow without extra overhead? Our AI agents are built for finance and ready to onboard your next customer.
Book a demo and see how fast your team can move.