Most small business owners know roughly how much they're owed. Very few know how long it takes them to get paid. That second number matters more.
If your customers take 75 days to pay instead of 45, you're quietly lending them a month of your revenue — interest-free. You feel it as "cash is tight", even when sales are fine.
This post walks through one method: a fixed collections routine you can set up in an afternoon and run for 30 days. No new software needed to start.
The number to track: days to get paid
Accountants call it DSO — Days Sales Outstanding. In plain terms: on average, how many days pass between sending an invoice and the money landing in your account.
A rough way to work it out:
Days to get paid ≈ (money customers owe you today ÷ your sales over the last 3 months) × 90
Example with made-up numbers: customers owe you RM120,000 today, and you invoiced RM270,000 over the last three months. RM120,000 ÷ RM270,000 × 90 = 40 days.
Write today's number down. That's your starting point.
Why this is the first thing to fix: shortening the time it takes to collect is usually the cheapest cash you'll ever find. It's money you've already earned. You don't need a loan for it — just a system.
The 30-day routine
Day 1: build the list (1 hour)
Open your accounting system, or the spreadsheet you use, and list every unpaid invoice with four columns:
| Customer | Amount | Invoice date | Days overdue |
|---|
Sort by days overdue, oldest first. Most owners find that a handful of customers make up most of the overdue amount. Those are your priority.
Day 1: set your reminder schedule (30 minutes)
Decide your reminder steps once, so nobody has to think about it again. A simple schedule that works for most B2B businesses:
- 3 days before due date — friendly heads-up: "Just a reminder, invoice #123 is due on Friday."
- On the due date — "Invoice #123 is due today. Here's the payment link / bank details."
- 7 days overdue — direct and polite: "Invoice #123 is now 7 days overdue. Could you confirm when payment will be made?"
- 14 days overdue — a phone call or WhatsApp from the person who owns the customer relationship.
- 30 days overdue — the owner steps in, and new orders go on hold until the account is settled.
Write these as templates. Copy-paste is fine for now. The point is that the first reminder goes out automatically, the moment it's due — not when someone remembers.
Days 2–30: run it every week (20 minutes a week)
Pick one fixed slot — say, Monday 9am. Every week:
- Update the list.
- Send every reminder that's due.
- Note any promised payment dates next to each invoice.
- Chase any promise that was missed.
That's the whole routine. It works because it's boring and consistent, not because it's clever.
Alat percuma · 30 minitBuku Kerja Kesihatan PerniagaanNilai 8 bidang, cari halangan utama, dapatkan pelan 30 hari — percumaBuka buku kerja →Three small changes that speed things up
1. Make paying easy. Put your bank details, DuitNow QR or payment link on every invoice and every reminder. Every extra step gives a customer a reason to pay "later".
2. Invoice the same day. An invoice sent a week after the job is done starts the clock a week late. Send it the day you deliver.
3. Agree terms upfront. For new customers, put payment terms in writing before the first job — and consider a deposit for large orders.
How you know it's working
At day 30, work out your days to get paid again with the same formula.
- If it dropped, keep the routine running and look at the slowest few customers — they're now the biggest lever.
- If it didn't move, check whether the reminders actually went out every week. In most cases the schedule slipped, not the method.
A drop of even 10 days is real money. On RM90,000 of monthly sales, collecting 10 days faster puts roughly RM30,000 of cash back in your account — once, permanently — without selling anything extra.
When to get help
This routine handles most of the problem for most small businesses. It gets harder when:
- you have hundreds of invoices a month,
- your accounting system and your bank don't talk to each other, or
- the person chasing is you, and you don't have the time.
That's where an automated collections system pays for itself: reminders go out on their own, overdue invoices are sorted by how late they are, and you get a weekly number instead of a worry.
Not sure if collections is your biggest leak? The free diagnostic checks it alongside three others — owner workload, manual work and key-person risk — in about three minutes.