It is considered a best practice to issue invoices within one day of the completion of a revenue-generating activity. With a one-day billing process cycle, the assumption is that issuing an invoice as rapidly as possible will result in the quickest receipt of cash from customers; in short, saving one day of invoice processing time will correspondingly accelerate cash flow by one day.
However, the assumption of a one-to-one correlation between speed of invoice issuance and cash receipt is not necessarily true. In reality, customers receive and process invoices far more quickly than payment terms allow. Why, then, do some invoices take so much longer to be paid? In many cases, incorrect invoice presentation can easily double the number of days required for a customer to process a payment.
The problem is that each customer's payment processing systems vary, sometimes requiring receipt at a centralized scanning facility, an explanatory cover letter, submission through a web site, or transmission to an e-mail address. If a company submits its invoices through an incorrect communication channel, then the invoices may be shunted aside and never processed.
The solution is to add a step to the billing process, where a clerk is tasked with invoice presentation for the larger invoices. This clerk is responsible for updating a field in the customer master file that details how invoices are to be presented, based on the requirements of each customer. The clerk then references this file whenever a large invoice is to be issued to a customer, and personally handles the invoice presentation. For the largest invoices, this may call for multiple follow-up contacts to ensure that the invoice has been received and is being processed through the customer's payment systems.
The concept of invoice presentation focuses less on issuing an invoice in the minimum amount of time, and more on the ultimate goal of receiving payment in the minimum amount of time.