Collections Agent watches every customer's payment behavior and builds your AR team a daily work queue. Use it to catch customers who are starting to pay slowly before any invoice is overdue, send a payment link or reminder in one click, convert customers with a saved card into autopay, and work overdue accounts through to a payment plan.
Who gets the most out of it
For AR team members: Start the day in Look Ahead instead of an aging spreadsheet. Each row says who needs attention, why, and what to send, so you can work the queue top to bottom without opening each account.
For AR managers and controllers: Track open balance, overdue balance, aging, and portfolio DSO from one dashboard, and see how much of your collecting already runs on autopay.
For sales reps: AR notes appear in the Sales Portal, so a rep heading into an account knows what collections has already said to that customer.
Availability
Collections Agent lives in Finance Hub. To open it, switch to Finance Hub with the hub switcher at the bottom left of the sidebar, then click Collections.
Note: If you don't see Finance Hub in the hub switcher, or don't see Collections inside it, it hasn't been enabled for your account or your role. Contact your Pepper account team.
Key terms
A few terms appear everywhere in Collections Agent. The rest of this article depends on them.
DSO (Days Sales Outstanding). How many days of a customer's recent sales are currently tied up in unpaid invoices. Collections Agent counts backward through the customer's actual order history until it adds up to their outstanding balance, so a customer who orders in large, occasional loads is measured fairly rather than averaged into a misleading number.
Payment terms. The customer's terms, such as Net 15, Net 21, or Net 30. DSO is always read against terms. When DSO climbs past terms, the customer is slipping, often before any single invoice is technically overdue.
Health color. Every customer gets a color based on DSO against their terms:
Green: Paying within terms.
Yellow: A few days past terms. Worth watching.
Red: Well past terms. Needs action.
Gray: Not enough recent order history to calculate DSO yet.
Aging buckets. Your overdue balance split by how long it has been past due: 0–14 days, 15–30, 31–60, 61–90, and 91+. Older buckets are harder to collect and are highlighted more strongly.
Behavior. How a customer actually pays, classified automatically as reliable, unreliable, on autopay, or not enough history. Behavior decides how urgently a customer is surfaced and which action is suggested.
Quick start: working your daily queue
Open Look Ahead. Customers who need you most are at the top.
Read the note on each row to see why the customer is there.
Click the suggested action to send it, or open the dropdown next to it for an alternative.
Snooze anything that can wait, and Dismiss anything already handled.
Switch to Recover for customers who are already overdue.
Home
Home is your portfolio dashboard. The headline numbers across the top:
Open balance: Everything currently owed to you.
Overdue balance: The portion that is past due.
Due today: Invoices coming due today.
Portfolio DSO: Your typical customer's DSO across the book, so you can track portfolio health over time.
Autopay snapshot
Below the headline numbers, the autopay snapshot shows how much of your collecting already runs on its own:
Customers on autopay
Reliable manual payers
The amount expected to clear automatically today
Customers with a payment method on file who aren't on autopay yet
That last group is your best list of autopay conversion targets.
Aging report
The aging report breaks your past-due balance into the five aging buckets. Recent slippage shows in yellow, and the 61–90 and 91+ buckets show in red.
Look Ahead
Look Ahead is your daily work queue. It lists customers with invoices coming due soon, sorted so the ones that need you most rise to the top.
Each row shows:
Customer name, with badges for anything special, such as on credit hold or already overdue
DSO chip, for example "42d / Net 30," colored by health
Upcoming balance
A short note explaining why the customer is in the queue
A suggested action you can take from the row
Customers are grouped by urgency:
At-risk: Unreliable payers, or customers with little payment history. Highest priority.
Manual: Generally reliable, but they pay by hand, so a nudge helps.
On-track customers pay on time on their own and stay out of the queue.
Changing the look-ahead window
Use the Run bar in the top right to set how far ahead the queue looks, then click Run to refresh it.
Filtering and sorting the queue
Use the filter above the table to show one kind of action only, for example every customer you would send a payment link to today.
Click a column header to sort by customer name, days past terms, or amount owed. The queue paginates so a large book stays manageable.
Suggested actions
For every customer, Collections Agent recommends the action most likely to get you paid, based on how they pay and whether they have a payment method saved. The recommendation is the primary button on the row. Alternatives are in the dropdown next to it.
Action | What it does | Best for |
Send payment link | Emails the customer a secure link to pay the selected invoices. No login required. | Customers with no saved payment method, or anyone you want to pay now |
Send reminder | Sends a reminder about an upcoming or due invoice | Reliable payers who need a nudge |
Send statement | Emails a statement of every open invoice, with a pay button | Customers with several open invoices |
Enroll in autopay | Sets the customer up to pay automatically on their existing due dates | Customers with a payment method already on file |
Propose a payment plan | Offers to split an overdue balance into scheduled installments | Larger overdue balances where one payment isn't realistic |
Approving, snoozing, and dismissing suggestions
Every suggestion takes one of three responses.
Approve. Sends the action right away. The row updates to show what was sent and when, with an Undo option.
Snooze. Moves the suggestion aside for now. It comes back later.
Dismiss. Clears a suggestion that isn't needed. You pick a reason:
Customer already paid
Not actually overdue
Customer disputed
I contacted the customer directly
Wrong suggestion
Other, with a note
Dismiss reasons help Collections Agent stop surfacing suggestions your team has already handled.
Note: A dismissal applies to your whole team. Everyone sees the suggestion cleared, not just you.
Recover
Look Ahead keeps customers from falling behind. Recover is for customers who already have. Overdue accounts are grouped by where they are in the collection process:
Needs action: Overdue, with nothing in motion yet.
Pending plan: You've offered a payment plan and are waiting for the customer to accept.
On a plan: The customer accepted a plan and is paying it down.
An invoice moves into Recover once it passes your grace period, set in Settings.
As an account moves through the steps (send a link, require a payment method before the next order, propose a plan, escalate) Collections Agent counts your attempts and suggests the next step.
Look Ahead vs Recover
| Look Ahead | Recover |
Who's in it | Customers with invoices coming due soon | Customers with invoices past the grace period |
Goal | Get paid on time | Collect what's already late |
Typical actions | Reminder, payment link, statement, autopay | Payment link, payment method requirement, payment plan, escalation |
The customer panel
Click any customer to open their panel:
Summary: Oldest overdue invoice, last payment, DSO, terms, behavior, and overdue, upcoming, and total balances.
Activity: A timeline of what your team has done (reminders, links, autopay enrollment) and payments received.
Open invoices: Every outstanding invoice with its due date and balance.
Notes: Context that stays with the account for the whole team, such as "owner pays after their Friday AP run."
Organizing accounts on the Collections page
The Collections page gives your AR team an account-by-account view of the whole book: balances, aging, and payment setup, along with the tools below.
Adding signals
Signals are tags that guide outreach. Two are built in:
Do not contact: This customer shouldn't be contacted, for example during an active dispute or at the customer's request.
Sales rep only: Route everything through the customer's sales rep, not the AR team.
You can also create custom signals, such as "VIP," "High-touch," or "Seasonal." Custom signals are shared across your organization, so everyone tags customers the same way.
Assigning an AR owner and AR contact
AR owner: The person on your team responsible for collecting from this customer.
AR contact: The person at the customer you reach out to about payments.
Setting follow-up dates and notes
Set a follow-up date on any account to remind yourself to circle back. Notes are visible to the whole team and appear on the customer's timeline and in the Sales Portal, so AR and sales stay in sync.
Changing settings
In Settings you can adjust:
Run times: When Look Ahead and Recover refresh each day, and your default look-ahead window.
Grace period: Days past due before an invoice moves into Recover.
Customer behavior rules: How far back to look at payment history, how many payments make a customer "established," and how much lateness still counts as reliable.
Recover thresholds: The balance above which a payment plan is suggested instead of a single link, and how many attempts before escalating.
Payment plan defaults: Cadence (weekly, biweekly, or monthly), duration, and start date.
Reminder message: Your reminder email template, with placeholders for customer name, invoice number, amount, due date, and pay link.
Things to know
Approving sends immediately. Links, reminders, and statements go to the customer as soon as you approve.
Dismissals are team-wide. One person's dismissal clears the suggestion for everyone.
Autopay doesn't change terms. It charges the saved payment method on the customer's existing due dates.
Gray DSO fills in over time. Customers with too little recent order history aren't scored until they place more orders.
On-track customers never appear in Look Ahead. Customers who pay reliably on their own are left out of the queue on purpose.
Best practices
Work the autopay targets first. Customers with a payment method on file who aren't on autopay are the cheapest wins on Home. Every conversion is one fewer row in tomorrow's queue.
Dismiss with an accurate reason. Reasons are what keep handled customers from resurfacing. "Wrong suggestion" used as a catch-all teaches the queue less than the real reason.
Leave a note when you talk to a customer off-platform. If you call, a teammate looking at the account later only sees the call if you wrote it down.
Set Do not contact the moment a dispute starts. It's the first thing a teammate sees before sending anything.
Frequently asked questions
A customer is in my queue but none of their invoices are overdue. Their DSO has drifted past their terms, meaning they're paying more slowly than usual. Catching it now is usually the difference between a quick nudge and a hard collection later.
What does "42d / Net 30" mean? About 42 days of the customer's recent sales are tied up in unpaid invoices, against Net 30 terms. They're running roughly 12 days behind.
The DSO on a customer is gray or blank. There isn't enough recent order history to calculate DSO reliably. It fills in as the customer places more orders.
A suggestion I was about to work on disappeared. A teammate likely dismissed or approved it. Dismissals apply to the whole team. Check the customer's Activity timeline to see what was done.
I approved an action by mistake. Click Undo on the row.
A snoozed suggestion came back. That's expected. Snoozing hides a suggestion temporarily rather than clearing it. Use Dismiss if it's no longer needed.
A customer who always pays on time isn't in my queue. On-track customers stay out of Look Ahead because they don't need a nudge.
Will enrolling a customer in autopay change their terms? No. Autopay charges their saved payment method on their existing due dates.
I don't see Collections Agent. It hasn't been enabled for your account or role. Contact your Pepper account team.
For admins
Settings apply to your whole organization, so changes to the grace period, behavior rules, or Recover thresholds change what every AR team member sees in the queue.
Questions about Collections Agent? Contact your Pepper account team.