The order-to-cash process is notoriously time-consuming and resource intensive. Order processing is the core function of many companies. But as a business grows, managing all the moving parts from initial receipt of order through payment can quickly become highly complex.
Ordering systems may need to accept multiple currencies and calculate variable tax and duty rates, shipping departments need to select alternate carriers when a preferred shipping partner is experiencing delays, and finance teams must be alerted to overdue payments in need of follow-up.
While automation can help expedite order-to-cash, even automated processes often require human intervention due to the complexity of individual accounts.. The logical ‘if-then’ structure of process automation means that every possible action must be defined and placed into the process flow in exactly the right place. One small error can lead to a cascade of issues that delay delivery and have a negative impact on customer experience.
What if you could make your process automation more intelligent? Agentic automation adds AI agents to your automated workflows, replacing a series of logic-based steps with an intelligent, outcome-focused agent connected to all the data needed to understand context and execute a solution. Intelligent automation can help increase productivity and alert departments to potential issues with data or operations.
What Is Order-to-Cash?
Order-to-Cash describes everything that takes place between a business receiving an order and the fulfillment of that order — including the customer receiving their purchased goods or services and the business receiving and processing payment.. When treated as a collaborative, interconnected process, order-to-cash helps teams like sales, finance, and support provide high-quality service, providing a rewarding customer experience that can lead to customer loyalty and repeat purchases.
The 7 Stages of the Order-to-Cash Process
- Order Management: A customer accepts a quote or makes a purchase order. The order is then validated by comparing order and invoice data like product, quantity and price, and inventory is validated against the ordered quantity. Once confirmed, the order moves to fulfillment.
- Order Fulfillment: This step can look different from company to company. For example, a professional services firm will need to provision the staff resources to be put in motion toward a service, while a manufacturer will pick the order from their warehouse, pack it for shipping, and give it to a carrier.
- Delivery: Executing and tracking physical delivery with third-party shipping companies, or managing and tracking service activation and usage. This stage often requires interfacing with third-party tools to pass shipping, exception, and delivery information to the shipper and customer.
- Invoicing: Generating an invoice for the order, which may also include accounting for the customer’s location and contract terms. Once the order is priced, the invoicing stage also requires calculating taxes and shipping, as well as accounting for approved exceptions to pricing and policy based on the contract with an individual customer. Finally, the invoice is delivered to the customer’s finance contact.
- Collection: Taking payment of invoices according to accepted payment types, managing invoice or customer account credits, and tracking overdue invoice payments and contacting customers to collect.
- Reconciliation: Once an order is received and payment is collected, account ledgers are updated based on cash receipt. Revenue is fully recognized once the transaction has been deemed complete according to organizational accounting practices.
- Reporting: Reporting on revenue in the period it is received and analyzing revenue and customer trends to improve business outcomes, update forecasting, and set new goals.
Order-to-Cash Challenges
Ensuring that data is properly formatted and endpoints are properly mapped between systems so that data is reliable, clean, and business-ready across all relevant software programs is one significant reason why order-to-cash processes all too often rely on manual data entry. While it can seem like a solution to complex integrations, the potential for human mistakes and disputes as orders move through major stages can damage customer and vendor relationships.
There are several common recurring challenges that signal a breakdown in the order-to-cash process. The following issues are flags that it’s time to modernize your integration strategy:
Delayed Cash Flow
Relying on manual processes across the order-to-cash process slows collections by up to 70%. When the invoicing process is managed with spreadsheets and manual data entry, orders spend more time in receivables and delay revenue recognition and cash liquidity.
Declining Customer Relationships
Manual data and invoicing processes can lead to more delays, either through errors or through the need for escalation. Every time a customer is sent an incorrect invoice or receives inconsistent communication, their trust in your brand is damaged. Customers want simple, streamlined processes for paying invoices and completing orders.
Inconsistent Forecasting
When the data for different stages of the order-to-cash process is locked into disconnected software tools, financial operations teams are constrained in their ability to effectively forecast working capital. Without an accurate picture of the company’s current cash position, executive teams can’t comfortably hire, acquire, or spend to support growth..
Lower Productivity
Disconnected systems reduce the ability to close deals and collect payments. Instead of reaching out to more prospects, salespeople wind up helping finance teams investigate errors and correct invoices. Time spent on errors is time that could be used on growing opportunities and reaching sales targets.
Manual errors reduce productivity and slow down transactions that could otherwise be smooth and resolved quickly with modern data and application integration. Over time, manual error rates cause significant hurdles to scaling your business for growth.
Using Agentic iPaaS To Automate Order-to-Cash
Data is the backbone of AI agents. Without a constant, end-to-end data flow, Agents lack context for the data they have, limiting their solution capabilities. The more complete your data, the better your intelligent solutions can perform. An integration platform as a service (iPaaS) solution integrates every business application into a single, unified data ecosystem.
Let’s break down some examples of how integration and automation improve order-to-cash, and go a step beyond to explore how agents can improve the process.
Order Processing Automation
Traditional iPaaS: With API-first integration, a business connects its ordering software to a single integration platform to synchronize data and automate workflows through the order-to-cash process. Once an order is made, that data in your CRM triggers an invoice generation process in your ERP, notifying the sales person and the customer with a standardized message.
Agentic Solution: While the customer is creating their order, an agent provides in-stock alternatives to an out-of-stock item they showed interest in, increasing order value. After the order is placed, an agent validates it for pricing errors as well as applied discounts and policies.
Real-Time Data Synchronization
Traditional iPaaS: Businesses have better visibility into up-to-date inventory and shipping information, reducing customer discrepancies and improving analytics for agile decision-making.
Agentic Solution: A supplier-connected agent is able to access real-time supplier availability and performance data, assisting procurement teams in vendor selection based on pricing, inventory, and past supplier performance.
Customer Communication
Traditional iPaaS: Once an order is updated as shipped, an automated workflow triggers an invoice creation process that is then attached to an email template sent to the buyer via CRM.
Agentic Solution: When a customer reaches out to a sales representative, an AI Agent provides deeper context on the customer’s website activity and third party intent data to provide a more personalized buying experience. When an order is received, the faster it’s processed, the sooner the company will receive payment. Rather than continuing to rely on slow and error-prone human processing, agentic order-to-cash can expedite the process in multiple ways. And because the organization’s entire suite of business applications is integrated, agents can take data from multiple input sources, process it, and automatically carry out tasks using other output tools.
How To Build AI Agents
The Boomi Enterprise Platform provides an all-in-one integration, automation, and AI activation solution. Inside the platform, Boomi Agentstudio provides a single point of control for AI agent lifecycle management, giving teams one place to design, govern, and orchestrate AI agents. And, it’s not just limited to agents built within Agentstudio — that governance and orchestration also extends to agents from Amazon Bedrock, Salesforce Agentforce, and Microsoft Copilot, with API support to upload custom agents.
To build custom agents that work alongside humans across business processes, Agent Designer lets developers start by describing the agent’s goal in natural language. No code is required. The platform automatically generates an agent profile that developers can customize, connect to tools such as APIs or master data sources for context, and integrate with any system to take action.
Agent Templates also streamline this experience by simplifying the agent building process with predefined prompts and guardrails.
Unlock Value From AI-Powered Order-to-Cash With Boomi
An order-to-cash process powered by AI can be transformational, from reallocating resources to higher-value tasks to getting paid faster. Learn more about how to realize the expansive benefits of application integration with agentic automation for order-to-cash with Boomi.