As the end of the year approaches you are probably working on plans and budgets for next year. Before you start to set goals for your AR department and individual team members spend some time understanding what your department accomplished in the current year including successes and failures. It will be a lot easier to accurately and objectively measure how your department and team members performed if you set quantifiable goals for the current year.

Quantifiable goals have become a necessity to successfully measure, track and manage your AR department for several reasons:

  • Senior management requires quantifiable AR KPIs as part of the overall plan for your company.
  • AR team members prefer to be evaluated on objective, quantifiable goals.
  • Successful management in a data driven environment requires quantifiable goals.

Here are some suggestions to help you set quantifiable AR goals.

Set Department Goals

Start by setting realistic department goals which are consistent with the overall goals of your finance department and company. Keep in mind that you will need to establish KPIs and measure and report performance compared to them.

Work Backwards

Break your department goals down into the quantifiable individual and department goals needed to achieve the overall plan. Ask your AR team for their input on action plans to achieve the objectives.

Team Buy In

Keep your team members involved in the process of setting individual quantifiable goals. This will help to get buy in from your team, and go a long way to achieving your goals.

Timelines

Sometimes it makes sense to express quantifiable goals with a timeline for achieving them. Specific target dates can be more effective than open ended objectives.

Communicate Over and Over

You can’t communicate goals too often. Don’t just do it at the beginning of the year and intermittently thereafter. Communicate department and individual performance versus quantifiable goals as often as possible. Individual and department dashboards are a great way to get the message across.

Measure, Track and Manage

Use automated measurement and reporting tools to track and manage the performance of your department and individual AR team members compared to quantifiable goals.

  • Provide dashboard reporting on an individual and department basis to keep team members informed, motivated and on task.
  • Use Coaching Analytics to provide suggestions and advice to improve performance of individual team members.

Quantifiable AR goals provide you and your team members with the information needed to achieve your department’s KPI objectives. With automated accounts receivable and collections it is easy to set quantifiable goals and track and manage performance of your department and team members.

The key to successful automation of accounts receivable and collections is to work with an experienced software partner.

Lockstep Collect is a market leader in cloud-based credit and collection platforms. Lockstep Collect can help you automate your accounts receivable, and use dashboards and Coaching Analytics to better manage your AR team.

If you would like to learn more about how you can benefit from automation of accounts receivable and collections, please contact Lockstep Collect at www.lockstep.io.