Accounts receivable follow-up

Requirements describe capabilities the pattern needs in your environment, not the vendors you must buy. Any system that fills a requirement satisfies it — that’s what makes the catalog portable across the long tail of SMB tooling.

1. ar_register

   REQUIREDREADrequest

   Open invoices with their aging, customer, and terms.

   DATA SHAPE

   Per-invoice: customer, amount, issue date, due date, current age, status, payment history of this customer.
   COMMONLY FILLED BY

   • AR module of the accounting system
   • billing system with invoice records
   • ERP receivables ledger
2. customer_relationship_context

   REQUIREDREADrequest

   Information that should affect collection approach: is this customer in active expansion, has there been a service issue, are they a strategic relationship.

   DATA SHAPE

   Per-customer: account status, active deals, recent support issues, account owner, any explicit hold flags.
   COMMONLY FILLED BY

   • CRM with account state
   • customer success platform with account health
   • structured account flags maintained by the team
3. collection_template_library

   REQUIREDREADcorpus

   Approved language for each stage of follow-up: friendly reminder, firmer follow-up, final notice. Tone matters; templates encode it.

   DATA SHAPE

   Per-stage templates with variables for invoice details, optional segment-specific variations.
   COMMONLY FILLED BY

   • templates maintained by AR or finance leadership
   • library inside the AR tool
   • approved drafts from prior collection cycles
4. customer_communication_channel

   REQUIREDWRITErequest

   How follow-up messages reach customers. Usually email; sometimes portal notifications.

   DATA SHAPE

   Personalized email or notification with invoice details, payment options, and contact for questions.
   COMMONLY FILLED BY

   • email send from the AR team mailbox
   • customer portal notification
   • billing system with built-in notifications
5. internal_alert_route

   REQUIREDWRITEevent

   Where account owners (account managers, customer success, sales) get notified when an AR issue might affect the relationship.

   DATA SHAPE

   Per-account alert with context: invoice details, customer status, suggested action, urgency.
   COMMONLY FILLED BY

   • chat alert to the account owner
   • task created on the account record
   • weekly digest to commercial leadership
6. human_call_queue

   REQUIREDWRITEbatch

   When email isn't enough — high-value invoices, persistent delinquency, customer issues — the pattern surfaces accounts for human calls with full context.

   DATA SHAPE

   Per-account: amount at stake, history of touches, suggested talking points, customer relationship context.
   COMMONLY FILLED BY

   • call queue for the AR specialist
   • task list in the CRM for the account owner
   • weekly review with prioritized accounts
7. payment_event_feedback

   REQUIREDREADevent

   When invoices get paid, the pattern needs to know to stop the follow-up sequence and learn from what worked.

   DATA SHAPE

   Payment events linked to invoices with date and amount.
   COMMONLY FILLED BY

   • payment events from the AR module
   • feed from the bank reconciliation pattern E19 if also live
   • payment processor event stream