The 15-Minute AR Process That Prevents a $100K Problem

Here’s something we’ve learned from helping law firms recover over $100 million in outstanding receivables: the firms with the worst AR problems aren’t doing anything dramatically wrong.

They’re just not doing the simple things consistently.

Accounts receivable doesn’t spiral because it’s complicated. It spirals because it’s ignored. The difference between a firm with healthy cash flow and one carrying six figures in aging invoices often comes down to whether someone runs a basic process every single week.

How Small Gaps Become Big Problems

Let’s trace how a manageable situation becomes a crisis.

Week 1: An invoice goes 30 days past due. It’s on someone’s radar, sort of, but there’s a trial coming up and everyone’s focused on that.

Week 3: The invoice is now 45 days old. Someone thinks about sending a reminder email, but it’s Friday afternoon and they decide to do it Monday.

Week 6: The invoice is 60 days old. At this point, following up feels awkward—it’s been so long that the first question will be “why are we just hearing about this now?”

Week 10: The invoice is 90 days old. The client hasn’t responded to the one halfhearted email that did get sent. The matter is closed, the relationship has cooled, and the invoice is starting to feel uncollectible.

Week 16: The invoice is written off. Another $5,000 that was earned, billed, and never collected.

None of this happened because anyone made a catastrophic mistake. It happened because small gaps in follow-up compounded over time.

The Compound Interest of Neglect

We’ve written before about the 93-day lockup crisis—the industry-wide pattern of law firms waiting nearly three months to collect earned fees.

What that statistic obscures is how firms get there.

It’s not that anyone decides to wait 93 days. It’s that invoices sit for a week, then another week, then another. Each delay feels small in the moment. But delay compounds.

A 30-day invoice is relatively easy to collect. The matter is fresh, the client relationship is active, and a simple reminder often does the trick.

A 60-day invoice is harder. Time has passed, memory has faded, and the conversation requires more explanation.

A 90-day invoice is harder still. Now you’re dealing with a client who may have mentally closed the book on this matter, who may be annoyed at the delay, and who has had three months to find reasons not to pay.

A 120-day invoice? At that point, many firms just write it off rather than have the conversation.

This is the compound interest of neglect. Each week of inaction makes the next week’s conversation harder, which makes it more likely to be delayed, which makes the following week harder still.

What a Basic Process Actually Looks Like

Here’s the thing: stopping this cycle doesn’t require sophisticated technology or a dedicated collections department. It requires someone doing the same simple things, every single week.

A functional AR process looks something like this:

Every Tuesday (or whatever day you pick): Someone pulls a report of all invoices over 30 days past due. They review each one and take action.

For invoices 30–45 days old: A friendly reminder email goes out. “Just checking in on invoice #1234—let us know if you have any questions.”

For invoices 45–60 days old: A phone call happens. Brief, professional, assumptive. “I’m following up on invoice #1234. I’m sure it just slipped through—is there anything preventing payment?”

For invoices 60–90 days old: More direct outreach, possibly including a discussion of payment plans or the consequences of continued non-payment.

For invoices 90+ days old: Escalated conversation about the account status and path forward.

That’s it. That’s the whole process. The magic isn’t in the specific wording or the exact timeline. The magic is that it happens every single week without exception.

Why Most Firms Don’t Do This

If the process is so simple, why don’t more firms follow it?

Three reasons:

1. Discomfort. Following up on money is awkward. We’ve written about past-due bills and what to do next—and the emotional reality is that most people will find reasons to avoid the conversation. Tomorrow feels easier than today. And tomorrow becomes next week.
2. Lack of ownership. In many firms, AR follow-up is everyone’s job and no one’s job. The attorney assumes staff is handling it. Staff assumes the attorney will address it with the client directly. The invoice sits.
3. Competing priorities. When a client matter is urgent and an AR follow-up can theoretically wait, the client matter wins every time. The problem is that AR follow-up can always theoretically wait—right up until the invoice is 120 days old and effectively uncollectible.

These aren’t character flaws. They’re predictable human responses to a task that’s important but rarely urgent, uncomfortable to perform, and easy to postpone.

The 15-Minute Reality Check

Here’s a question worth asking: Does anyone at your firm spend 15 focused minutes per week on AR follow-up?

Not thinking about AR follow-up. Not planning to do AR follow-up. Actually doing it—pulling the report, reviewing the aging invoices, sending the emails, making the calls.

For most firms we talk to, the honest answer is no. There’s occasional activity when cash flow gets tight or when a particularly large invoice catches someone’s attention. But consistent, systematic, every-single-week follow-up? It’s not happening.

And that’s how firms end up with the average law firm’s 90+ days of lockup. Not through negligence or incompetence, but through the accumulated weight of small delays.

Two Ways to Fix This

If your firm’s AR process is sporadic or nonexistent, you have two paths forward.

Option 1: Build the habit internally. Assign a specific person to own AR follow-up. Give them a specific time each week that’s protected for this work. Create accountability—maybe a weekly report to firm leadership on AR status and actions taken.

This can work, but be honest about the challenges. The person you assign probably doesn’t want this job. They’ll face the same discomfort everyone faces. And when a client matter gets urgent, AR follow-up will be the first thing sacrificed.

Option 2: Outsource the process. This is what CollBox provides—a dedicated accounts receivable specialist who handles all past-due follow-up on your firm’s behalf.

The specialist makes the calls, sends the emails, and follows up on promises to pay. They do it every week without exception because it’s their entire job. Every action is logged in a transparent dashboard. You keep 100% of whatever gets collected.

For most firms, this costs roughly one-fifth to one-sixth what it would cost to hire someone in-house. And because it’s an external service, the follow-up actually happens—it’s not competing with client matters for attention.

The Prevention Mindset

Here’s the shift that matters: AR management isn’t about collecting old invoices. It’s about preventing invoices from getting old in the first place.

When follow-up happens consistently, invoices get paid at 30 or 45 days instead of aging to 90 or 120. The awkward conversations largely disappear because you’re catching things early. Cash flow stabilizes because money arrives predictably instead of in sporadic bursts.

The firms with the healthiest AR aren’t doing anything magical. They’ve just built systems that ensure the simple things happen every single week.

What’s Your AR Really Look Like?

Take 15 minutes this week to pull your aging report. Look at how many invoices are over 30 days. Over 60. Over 90.

Then ask yourself: What would it take for someone to follow up on every single one of these, every single week, until they’re resolved?

If the honest answer is “more than we can realistically commit to,” that’s worth knowing. Because the alternative is watching those invoices age further, feeling guilty about not following up, and eventually writing them off.

You’ve already done the work. You’ve already earned the money. The only question is whether you’ll collect it—and what kind of process you’ll build to make sure it happens.

Learn more about how CollBox helps firms build consistent AR processes without adding to their internal workload.