Follow one invoice from creation to cash and see where manual handoffs may be creating more work for finance.
For most finance teams, the ERP isn't going anywhere and it shouldn't.
It's where customer information, invoices, balances, transactions and financial history live. In fact, Flywire research found that 89% of finance professionals surveyed rely on their ERP as their single source of finance data.
But creating the invoice is only the beginning.
The invoice still has to reach the customer. Someone may need to follow up. The customer has to pay. That payment needs to match the right invoice. Exceptions need to be handled. Cash needs to be reconciled. Finance needs to know what's outstanding, what's coming in, and what needs attention.
So maybe the interesting question isn't what your ERP can do.
It's: What happens after your ERP has the invoice?
Technology conversations often focus on what an ERP doesn't do. That's probably the wrong place to start.
ERP systems are designed to provide a central view of essential financial, operational, and business information. Flywire's research found high levels of satisfaction with ERP A/R functionality and describes the ERP as the central database for transactional data.
So instead of asking, "What do we need to replace?"
A better question may be: What should happen around it?
The goal isn't to move financial information away from the ERP. It's to make sure the processes happening around that information aren't creating unnecessary work for finance.
Getting an invoice into the ERP is one thing.
Getting the payment back is another.
Getting paid can involve multiple payment methods, processors, and even currencies. If that payment information doesn’t flow back into the ERP, finance can spend more time figuring out what was paid, which invoice it belongs to, and what needs updating.
Flywire's research found that finance leaders see tighter integration between payment software and ERP as an opportunity for greater efficiency.
The goal should be pretty simple: Make it easy for the customer to pay and easy for finance to get that payment information back where it belongs.
A payment arriving doesn't necessarily mean the work is finished.
Finance may still need to determine:
Who paid?
Which invoice—or invoices—does the payment belong to?
Does the amount match?
Does an exception need attention?
What happens next?
This is exactly the kind of repetitive work worth examining.
Flywire's research into AI and finance recommends starting with high-volume, lower-risk workflows such as payment matching, reminder sequences, and data extraction before moving into more complex decisions.
The ERP remains the financial record. The technology around it can help reduce some of the work required to keep that record current.
Your ERP can tell you what’s outstanding, but the A/R team still has to decide what to do with that information.
Not every overdue invoice needs the same attention. One customer may already have a payment on the way. Another may be waiting for a question to be resolved. Someone else may have promised to pay by Friday. And another account may not have responded to the last three follow-ups and needs attention today.
Without that context connected to the financial data, collections can become a very manual process. The team may be working from aging reports, checking email for the latest customer conversation, looking through notes or spreadsheets, and deciding who to contact based largely on what they can piece together.
That makes prioritization harder. Who actually needs attention today? Has this customer already been contacted? Is there a payment on the way? Is the invoice disputed? Which accounts should the team focus on first?
This is where having data and being able to use it become two different things.
Flywire research found that 70% of finance leaders have access to data but don’t have enough insight to know who to follow up with and when, while 50% say they lack real-time visibility into invoice status and payment progress.
That’s where connecting collections activity with ERP data can make a difference. An overdue balance tells you one part of the story. Knowing what has happened since the invoice was sent gives the A/R team the context it needs to decide what to do next.
The goal isn’t just to know what’s outstanding. It’s to make it easier for the A/R team to know where to spend its time.
Think about how much A/R activity can happen outside the ERP.
Reminder emails. Questions about invoices. Payment-plan conversations. Copies of invoices. Promises to pay. Disputes. Follow-ups.
When those conversations are scattered across inboxes and other systems, even a simple customer question can mean piecing together information from several places before finance can respond.
A connected A/R process should make it easier to see both sides of the story: What does the financial record say, and what's happened with the customer since?
Want to see how connected your A/R process really is?
Don't start by counting your systems.
Pick one invoice and follow it.
Invoice Created → Invoice Delivered → Customer Follow-Up → Payment → Matching → Reconciliation → Reporting
At every handoff, ask: Does the information move automatically or does someone on the finance team have to move it?
Watch for the moments when someone has to:
Every one of those moments is worth a closer look. Because the issue may not be that you're missing technology. It may simply be that the technology you already have isn't connected where it needs to be.
One more connection is worth thinking about.
Your ERP may contain an enormous amount of financial data, but having the data doesn't automatically tell finance what's likely to happen next.
When are we getting paid?
Which customers are likely to be late?
Where should the A/R team spend its time today?
How much cash is likely to come in this week?
Flywire's research found that many finance teams have plenty of data but still struggle to turn it into useful insight.
The value of those connections isn't just getting information from one system to another. It's giving finance a clearer picture of what's happening from invoice to cash, so the team can spend less time looking for answers and more time acting on them.
The number of systems in your A/R process isn't really the issue. What matters is how well they work together.
That's why following one invoice can be so useful. As it moves from creation to payment and reconciliation, pay attention to where the process slows down or requires someone to step in. Maybe finance has to search for an email, check another system, manually match a payment, or wait for information before moving forward. Those handoffs are worth a closer look.
Your ERP doesn't need to handle every part of the process. It needs to remain the trusted source for your financial information, while the technology around it makes it easier to get from invoice to cash.
When those connections work well, finance spends less time moving information, tracking down answers, and filling in the gaps. That's what a connected A/R process should ultimately make easier.
Following one invoice can show you where the handoffs are.
Flywire asked more than 250 finance professionals how their ERP supports receivables and payments and where they see opportunities for better connections.
Explore Flywire's research, How Well Do ERP Systems Handle Cross-Border B2B Payments?
Flywire is a Founding Sponsor of The ERP Update.