Using data management best practices helps to ensure that your customer master data is clean and current. Valid and up-to-date master data increases productivity and cash flow by reducing errors, disputes, unauthorized deductions and chargebacks.
Here are the 4 most important times for your accounting team to use data management best practices.
Onboarding
The onboarding process is critical to getting new customer relationships off to the right start. Setting up customer profile master data correctly the first time with department email addresses and valid Taxpayer Identification Numbers (TIN) is key to establishing reliable contact information. This is very important if your operations are paperless, automated and provide a self-service portal.
Anniversary
On an annual basis your team should screen customer master data to ensure that you are remaining in compliance with documentation, and contact information is correct and up to date. Periodic updating can help to avoid problems and keep operations running smoothly. If you have hundreds or thousands of contacts, over the course of a year you may have a significant number of accounts where updates are needed. This can be a real challenge if you only have personal email addresses for your contacts.
Reactivation
When accounts which had become inactive are reactivated, it’s just as important as with onboarding new customers to get the master data for reactivated accounts set up correctly. Reactivating correctly can be particularly important if you have gone paperless, automated business processes and added a self-service portal since the customer went inactive.
Data Refresh
Data management techniques can also be used in batch mode to refresh your entire database and cleanse customer master data. When you begin to notice email bounce backs and increases in data errors it may be time to do a thorough data refresh to find other problems that you may not be aware of.
Data management best practices should not just be something your team uses occasionally, or when problems are discovered after the fact. They should be an integral part of your accounting operations. Your accounting team should use best practices whenever they manage data.
It is easier and more effective to use data management best practices when you have automated accounts receivable operations. With automated credit and collection solutions you can increase productivity and accelerate cash flow with clean and current master data.
Lockstep Collect, a leader in cloud-based credit and collection platforms, can help you collect cash in 4 ways:
- Cloud-based solutions
- Automated customer communications
- Customer self-service
- Collections Activity Management
Lockstep Collect is an experienced software partner that can help you maximize your collections and cash flow in the new normal.
If you would like to learn more about how you can benefit from automated credit and collection solutions, please contact Lockstep Collect at www.lockstep.io.
