Automating Collections in QuickBooks Online for Contractors
Plenty of 10 to 75 million dollar contractors run their books on QuickBooks Online. It is capable accounting software, but it was not built to chase money. The aging report tells you who is late; it does not draft the email, track the promise to pay, or follow up next Tuesday. That last mile is still manual, and it is where the cash leaks out.
What "automation" should and shouldn't mean
For industrial AR, automation does not mean blasting generic reminders. Your customers are repeat relationships, and a tone-deaf dunning sequence can cost you the next job. The right model is recommend-and-approve: the agent reads the ledger, prioritizes by amount and age, drafts a follow-up in your voice for the specific situation, and a person approves before anything sends.
What it looks like in practice
Connect QuickBooks Online over a secure link, and the agent works from your real receivables: it surfaces the invoices worth chasing first, drafts the outreach, tracks responses and promised-payment dates, and escalates the exceptions a human should see. Your team stops building the chase from scratch every morning and starts approving a prepared queue. The books stay in QuickBooks; the follow-up stops being the thing that never gets done.
Brae connects to QuickBooks Online and works your receivables for you, drafting prioritized collections outreach your team approves, with Viewpoint Vista in development. A person approves every send.
Frequently asked questions
- Does QuickBooks Online automate collections?
- QuickBooks Online can send automated invoice reminders (up to three scheduled around the due date). It does not prioritize the oldest and largest invoices, vary tone by customer, escalate seriously past-due accounts, or measure the cash the effort freed.
- What is missing from QuickBooks Online’s built-in reminders?
- Prioritization by amount and age, per-customer adaptation, escalation for accounts that have drifted past terms repeatedly, and a measurable outcome against a baseline. Those are the pieces a dedicated collections workflow adds.
- How does construction change what “collections automation” needs to do?
- Retainage, pay applications, lien waivers, and change orders all sit outside the reminder-email model. Automation that ignores them either annoys good customers or misses the balances that actually matter.
More on QuickBooks & AR Automation
What an AI Collections Agent for QuickBooks Online Actually Does
An AI collections agent connects to your QuickBooks Online receivables and drafts prioritized, per-customer follow-up your team approves. Here's how it works and how it differs from built-in reminders.
How to Choose AR Automation for a Construction Company
The best AR automation for a construction company handles retainage, pay applications, and lien waivers — not just reminder emails. Here's how to evaluate the options.
The AR Clerk You Can't Hire: Augmenting a Lean Finance Team
Hiring a dedicated collections person is hard to justify and harder to fill. Here's how a lean industrial finance team adds AR capacity without adding headcount.
- Step 1
See the cash opportunity in your own numbers.
Estimate the working capital tied up in your receivables. These are founding-partner targets we design around — not guarantees.
- Step 2
Ready to work with us?
Building this with industry operators. Brae is partnering with a small group of industrial finance leaders to shape an AI agent for accounts receivable.