Blog
Notes from the recovery desk
Practical writing for CFOs, Controllers, and Credit Managers in software and tech. No fluff—just what we learn collecting receivables all day.
When a slow-paying customer becomes a revenue recognition problem
ASC 606 says if collection isn't probable at contract inception, the revenue may not be recognizable. The evidence a Controller needs—and what placement does for it.
Read → September 2026How to defend your bad-debt reserve to your auditor
CECL and ASC 326 replaced the old model. Aging-based vs. loss-rate methods, and the evidence that makes a reserve number survive the year-end conversation.
Read → September 2026The write-off memo: what your auditor wants to see
A charge-off without a documented collection attempt is a question mark. The five elements of a defensible write-off—and why placing the account first makes it easy.
Read → September 2026The MSA clauses that make your software AR collectible
Venue, attorney-fee shifting, interest, acceptance mechanics, cure periods, suspension-of-service rights. Seven clauses that decide whether you can actually collect.
Read → September 2026CEI, DSO, and Best Possible DSO: which one tells you collections is working
DSO is a scoreboard, not a steering wheel. Collection Effectiveness Index isolates your collectors' performance from sales volume and payment terms.
Read → September 2026How to read an aging report the way a collector does
The buckets lie less than the dates. Concentration, the 90+ wall, the broken-promise column—and which accounts belong in the work-it pile.
Read → September 2026Is there an FDCPA for B2B? What actually governs commercial collections
The FDCPA governs consumer debt. What regulates commercial collection instead—and the four questions to ask any agency before you place.
Read → September 2026Your customer got acquired and stopped paying. Who owes you now?
Successor liability, assumption in the purchase agreement, and change-of-control clauses—how to find the entity that actually owes you.
Read → September 2026The past-due email that works—and the four that don't
Most past-due emails are built to be ignored. The one that works asks for a name, a date, and a plan—here's a version you can use.
Read → August 2026What happens after you place an account
The collection process end to end: free evaluation, investigation, strategic contact, resolution—and how recovered funds are remitted to you.
Read → August 2026Panther Chase vs. the other software collection agencies
Altus, MRG Partners, Prestige, IC System—how we compare for software and tech receivables, and why working the niche exclusively wins.
Read → August 2026In-house vs. outsourced collections for SaaS
Should your finance team work past-due accounts or place them with an agency? How to decide by cost, time, and recovery odds.
Read → August 2026How to collect a disputed B2B invoice
Most disputes are stall tactics. The documentation that overcomes them—and how to collect without torching the relationship.
Read → August 2026How long do you have to collect an unpaid invoice?
The commercial statute of limitations is about four years in most states—but the practical window is far shorter. Why placing early wins.
Read → August 2026Debt collection for IT services & MSPs
Project milestones, managed-services retainers, and hardware-plus-labor invoices—the receivables generalist agencies misread.
Read → August 2026How commercial collection pricing works
Contingency vs. flat-fee vs. hourly—and why a good agency charges the same rate for international accounts as domestic ones.
Read → August 2026Collection agency vs. collections attorney
When a tech company should use an agency, when it actually needs a lawyer, and why litigation is a tool—not a default.
Read → August 2026International software receivables: gold, not garbage
Most agencies charge up to 50% for international accounts—or refuse them. Why cross-border software debt is recoverable at the same contingency rate, and why we treat it as gold.
Read → August 2026Collecting from a customer going out of business
When a debtor is running out of cash, speed decides everything. How to recover a receivable before bankruptcy closes the door.
Read → August 2026Why your current collection agency is great at collecting in your country but fails miserably when it comes to collecting internationally
Domestic playbooks don’t survive the border. When agencies charge 50% for international accounts, they’re pricing their own inexperience—not the work.
Read → August 2026Your US software company moved its headquarters to Ireland. Your receivables didn’t.
Ireland is the world’s #3 digital exporter at $425B—US tech’s EMEA HQ and a homegrown SaaS scene. Which entity owes you, and how to collect it.
Read → August 2026German software sells into the US. The invoices come back in dollars—and excuses.
Germany exports $280B in digital services. What a German vendor needs when a US customer stops paying.
Read → August 2026India exports $276 billion of digital services. Somewhere in that number is your unpaid invoice.
Indian software companies are relationship-first, which is a liability in US collections. How to escalate without burning the client.
Read → August 2026Singapore is a hub. Your debtor isn’t in Singapore.
The parent, the reseller, the end customer—when the US invoice goes unpaid, the org chart argues while it ages. Entity tracing for hub companies.
Read → August 2026The Netherlands books $205 billion in digital exports. A lot of it is waiting on a US customer.
Dutch payment culture is prompt. US payment culture is negotiated. The culture gap is the collections problem.
Read → August 2026French software is everywhere. Your finance team shouldn’t be chasing US debtors at 2 a.m.
Language and time zones are doing the debtor’s work. How French vendors collect from US customers without the midnight calls.
Read → August 2026Canada built the software. The US bought it. The invoice is stuck at the border.
2,300 SaaS companies and $21B in revenue—and the neighbor trap that makes US debtors expect politeness instead of payment.
Read → August 2026Israeli software runs inside US companies. The invoices still have to get paid.
600 SaaS companies punching far above their weight—and a receivable problem when US customers stall.
Read → August 2026Swedish software expands to the US. Collections need to expand with it.
770 SaaS companies with a record of US expansion—and the collection gap that follows.
Read → August 2026Spanish software is selling into the US. Collections cannot stay six time zones behind.
1,200 SaaS companies and growing US exports—with time and language gaps doing the debtor’s work.
Read → August 2026Polish engineering built the product. Polish finance shouldn’t be chasing US checks at 2 a.m.
430+ SaaS companies built on Europe’s deepest engineering pools—and the escalation gap that leaves US invoices aging.
Read → July 2026One contract, three countries, four debtor entities: which company actually owes you?
The parent, the subsidiary, the reseller, the end customer—when the invoice goes unpaid, each points at another. How we trace the entity that’s actually liable.
Read → July 2026Your customer blames implementation. Your CSM says they went live. Now what?
The most common standoff in B2B SaaS—and the handoff record that decides it: scope, acceptance, training, tickets, usage, and the date “not ready” became “won’t pay.”
Read → July 2026Clean the AR before the buyer prices it for you
Aging balances don’t stay neutral in diligence—they become a haircut, a holdback, or a credibility problem. Clean the AR before the buyer’s quality-of-earnings team asks.
Read → July 2026AP stall tactics: what they look like from the collection side
Every collector hears the same delay scripts. Here’s what the most common AP excuses actually mean—and when each one signals a real problem versus a slow process.
Read → June 2026The 90-day rule: when to send a SaaS account to collections
The math behind placement triggers, why "one more email" is usually a $10,000 decision, and how to keep the renewal alive anyway.
Read → June 2026The SaaS purge is leaving unpaid invoices behind
Enterprise software rationalization is producing a wave of mid-contract cancellations and disputed invoices. What vendors need to know about the bad debt wave following the spending cuts.
Read → June 2026International debt collection for software companies
Recovering past-due invoices from overseas customers—jurisdiction, language, and why negotiation beats foreign litigation.
Read → June 2026Collecting fintech & payments receivables
Residuals, reserves, chargeback liability, and platform fees—the receivables generalist agencies misread, and how to win them.
Read → June 2026How to collect unpaid SaaS invoices
Why subscription invoices go delinquent, the documentation that wins disputes, and when to bring in a collection agency.
Read → June 2026Recovering past-due cloud & usage-based bills
How metering data makes consumption disputes provable—and how to recover churned compute, storage, and bandwidth balances.
Read → June 2026How to choose a collection agency for your software or tech company
What tech CFOs should look for—industry fit, pricing, compliance—and the questions that separate specialists from generalists.
Read → June 2026Finding a good collection agency that specializes in software & tech
A frank ranking of 4 agencies—who actually specializes, who pretends to, and what AI tools like Gemini get wrong about the space.
Read → June 2026Eight signs your B2B customer is about to stop paying
The signals that a customer is heading toward non-payment almost always appear before the first invoice goes unpaid. Here’s what to watch for—and when to act.
Read → June 2026"We never agreed to renew": collecting auto-renewal balances
The most common dispute in SaaS collections, the documentation that wins it, and the contract language that prevents it.
Read → June 2026Why we rebuilt a collection agency around AI agents
Collection software was built by software people who never collected a dollar. Here's what changes when the workflows are designed by collectors—and run by machines.
Read → May 2026Selling SaaS into the US from the UK: your London finance team shouldn’t chase Texas at midnight
One handoff, US-hours execution, same contingency as domestic. Why cross-border software debt is gold—and how most agencies price their own inexperience.
Read → May 2026Second placement isn’t a fresh account. It’s a damaged one.
The first agency trained your debtor to ignore collectors. Where we start—and why the honest 40% contingency is worth it.
Read → May 2026When your best customer wants Net 90: managing cash flow under extended payment terms
Enterprise buyers are demanding longer payment terms from software vendors. Here’s what Net 90 actually costs your cash position—and when “strategic” customers are just slow-paying.
Read → May 2026Australia sold the software. America stopped paying. Here’s the file we want.
US debtors ghost foreign vendors because they think distance is a defense. The evidence, entity checks, and escalation path that prove them wrong.
Read → May 2026The AI bill nobody budgeted for—and what happens when companies can’t pay it
Unplanned AI inference and cloud compute costs are creating a new category of disputed vendor invoices. What AI infrastructure companies need to know about this emerging collection problem.
Read → April 2026How unpaid invoices are quietly destroying your Rule of 40
Bad debt write-offs and chronic slow-pay erode the efficiency metrics SaaS investors care most about. Here’s how AR discipline directly protects your margins and cash conversion.
Read → April 2026Legal-tech customers know how to argue. Bring the contract file anyway.
Law firms write polished disputes. The answer is dates, users, acceptance, and a narrow demand—not trading paragraphs with counsel.
Read → April 2026Health-tech receivables: a hospital’s AP queue is not a collection strategy
Hospitals pay slowly by design. How to tell institutional process from vendor failure—and when patience stops being professionalism.
Read → April 2026The CFO’s highest-ROI AI investment is sitting in accounts receivable
Boards are demanding AI ROI. Here’s why AR is the highest-ROI place to deploy AI in a software company’s finance stack—and what “AI-powered collections” actually means in practice.
Read → March 2026The reputation-management invoice they ignored until their locations went dark
Multi-location rollouts, reseller confusion, cancellation claims—why martech debt is specialized work, and the evidence that wins it.
Read → March 2026Construction software AR: the project ended, the invoice didn’t
Construction companies don’t pay from a corporate account—they pay from a project. How to find the entity that actually owes through the GC chain and change-order maze.
Read → March 2026Cleaning up AR before an acquisition: what buyers actually look at
M&A due diligence scrutinizes receivables quality closely. Here’s what acquirers examine, what they discount, and how to present your AR book before a transaction.
Read → March 2026Accounts receivable is the last function in finance still running on instinct
FP&A has models. Procurement has software. AR still runs on gut feelings about who to call and when. What that costs software companies—and what modern AR discipline looks like.
Read → February 2026ESG software has a collections problem nobody puts in the pitch deck
Grant timing, milestone billing, reporting disputes, procurement layers—the structural reasons climate-tech receivables go late, and what to do about it.
Read → February 2026DSO benchmarks every tech CFO should know in 2026
What days sales outstanding actually looks like for software companies by segment and billing model—and what your number is telling you about collection risk beyond the headline.
Read → February 2026When “the carbon data was wrong” becomes an excuse not to pay
Sometimes it’s true, sometimes it’s cover. The documents that separate a real data-quality dispute from a debtor looking for a reason.
Read → January 2026The Net-90 trap in vertical SaaS: growth on the dashboard, bad debt underneath it
The fastest-growing software verticals are also granting the friendliest terms. What happens when revenue recognition outruns cash.
Read → January 2026Your field-service customer is still using the software. So why is the invoice 120 days late?
An active customer who isn’t paying usually has a structure problem—branch approvals, go-live disputes, unsigned renewals. Active users is not a payment plan.
Read → January 2026Annual SaaS contract, monthly excuses: what I ask before I touch the account
The five documents that decide a SaaS collection—order form, usage trail, implementation record, renewal notice, promise trail. A clean file gets paid faster.
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