Situation
A supplier to a $34B national grocery chain had nearly $3M in aged receivables. The backlog grew after the retailer launched a new invoice portal—without training the supplier’s finance team.
Invoices over 90 days old were misrouted, rejected, or delayed, which strained cash flow, damaged the customer relationship, and risked non-compliance with the supplier’s AR securitization program.
To fix it, the supplier brought in an experienced interim finance manager to streamline coordination with the retailer’s processing center and implement simple, repeatable recovery steps.
Action
The interim manager worked hands-on with the team to:
- Recover overdue receivables.
- Reconcile a complex web of misapplied cash and short payments.
- Create a playbook for resolving invoice disputes.
- Organize the underlying data infrastructure for AR BI
Result
The supplier recovered $2M in payments – unlocking critical funds. Communication with the retailer also improved, leading to quicker dispute resolution and a stronger, more collaborative relationship.
