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5 Challenges with Email and Correspondence for Accounts Receivable

accounts-receivable-paidCorrespondence to and from the accounts receivable (AR) department is critical to record and archive alongside invoices for historical reference.

Miscommunications regarding receivables due to improper documentation will quickly and unnecessarily strain the client relationship while also impacting positive cash flow.

Reports provide insight into outstanding accounts, but they cannot provide the granular context to AR workflows. Too often, the context is found in the countless emails sent between your staff and your customers. How long, where and what are the best practices for these records to be kept?

Accounts Receivable Retention Requirements

Below is a table that illustrates retention requirements for accounts receivable documentation:

Records Retention Requirement (years)
Accounts, charged off 7
Accounts, payable ledger 7
Accounts receivable 10
Accounts receivable ledger 10
Balance sheets 5
Bank deposit records 6
Bank reconcilement papers 8
Bank statements 8
Bills collectible 7
Bills of sale of registered bonds 3
Bill stubs 7
Bonds canceled 3
Bonds registered Permanently
Bonds, sales or transfer 15
Budget work sheets 3
Building permits 20
Capital stock bills of sale Permanently
Capital stock certificates Permanently
Capital stock ledger Permanently
Capital stock transfer records Permanently
Cashbooks 25
Cash receipts & disbursement records 10
Cash sales slips 3
Cash slips 3
Charge slips 10
Check records 7
Check register 10
Checks, dividend 10
Checks, expense 10
Checks, paid & cancelled 9
Checks, payroll 7
Checks, voucher 6
Checks, warrants Permanently
Correspondence, accounting 5
Correspondence, credit & collection 7
Cost account records 7
Customer ledger Permanently
Donations 7
Drafts paid 8
Earnings register 3
Entertainment, gifts & gratuities 3
Estimates, projections 7
Expense reports, departmental 7
Expense reports, employees 7
Financial statements, certified Permanently
Financial statements, periodic Permanently
Fixed capital records Permanently
General cashbook 25
General journal Permanently
General journal supporting papers Permanently
General ledger Permanently
Notes, canceled 10
Note ledgers Permanently
Payroll register 7
Petty cash records 3
Plant ledger Permanently
Profit & loss statements Permanently
Property asset summary 10
Royalty ledger Permanently
Salespeople commission reports 3
Stock ledger Permanently
Tabulating cards & magnetic tape 1
Traveling auditor reports 15
Trial balance, accounts receivable 3
Trial balance sheets Permanently
Uncollectible accounts 7
Work papers, rough 2

We recommend that you have your CPA and your attorney review your AR records retention timetable before putting it into practice.

The Top 5 AR Challenges for Managing Correspondence

What if email correspondence was easily searchable alongside invoices, POs, backup and other AR related documents? Not only would the review process be more seamless for each cycle, but it also saves the AR team time, provides sales with conversation history, and enhances customer relations.

So with all these records, what are the five challenges for accounts receivable?

  1. 90% of all business correspondence is conducted via email and the email will frequently contain attachments.
  2. All correspondence with customers regarding account receivable should be considered a business record or document.
  3. Correspondence isn’t associated with the documents they reference – this can be done by invoice number.
  4. Classification, filing, and archiving email with current technologies is unorganized.
  5. Critical email correspondence isn’t integrated with existing back-end systems

Email Manager from CMA

With the right email management software the AR correspondence classification process is simple. Your AR team doesn’t have to launch another application on their desktop to document their AR correspondence. Instead, users can tag every email directly from their Microsoft Outlook interface with values pulled directly from your document management system so you can capture the account information, invoice number and any other customized information. Email Manager the automatically uploads all email correspondence in the thread, both before and after the tagged email to your document management system without any manual intervention.

What are you doing within your firm to help accounts receivable integrate, track and archive all of their email and attachments?

Proactive Email Management Can Result in Substantial Savings

emc-eas-logoIn EMC’s 15 Minute Guide to eDiscovery and Early Case Assessment they have an example that compares the cost of a proactive eDiscovery approach to a reactive approach. As you would guess, the expenses and risks associated with eDiscovery are massive unless you are proactive and incorporate an email management solution that works in harmony with your eDiscovery solution such as EMC Kazeon.

eDiscovery Issues & Exposure

In eDiscovery, your in-house administrators need to quickly and effectively produce targeted and relevant correspondence – no more, no less. Ineffective, inefficient or nonexistent governance, information policies and procedures leave your organization exposed to potential sanctions, fines and other penalties. Email management software makes this possible by allowing all email correspondence to be discoverable along with other electronic documents in the eDiscovery process.

By the Numbers

The following highlights the different between a reactive and a proactive approach to eDiscovery based on five years of data:

Reactive Proactive
Collection $420,000 $63,000
Hold $300,000 $60,000
Inspect / Review $525,000 $368,000
Produce $255,000 $64,000
Total $1,500,000 $555,000

A proactive approach results in a 63% lower cost of eDiscovery than a reactive approach.

Additional Email Management Benefits for eDiscovery

The benefits of a proactive approach utilizing email management with eDiscovery are three-fold:

  1. Reduced costs: less data for processing, fewer services used
  2. Reduced risk: less distribution of data, greater consistency of data presented
  3. Exercise control: more control over processes, more control over data

With the right email management solution, such as Email Manager from CMA, you’ll be on the road to a proactive approach to eDiscovery. What road are you on?

5 Challenges with Email and Correspondence for Customer Service

customer-service-email-managementCustomer service reps (CSRs) are on the front lines of your organization and are in the unique position of acquiring valuable information from your most valued customers, every day. In fact, they may be a customer’s first, and only, contact with your business. Much of this correspondence is taking place over email, which is not being shared with other departments.

If customer service correspondence with customers is well-documented and shared with sales, marketing, product management, and possibly even accounting, the company can gain a competitive advantage from this market information. However, these people don’t need to be copied on every email.

How can organizations manage customer service correspondence effectively? Fortunately, third-party email correspondence modules like Email Manager from CMA now offer a way to ensure all relevant customer service email and attachments are coupled with other records in your document management system.

Customer Service Records Retention

Below is a table that illustrates best practice retention requirements for customer service records:

 Records  Retention Requirement (years)
  • Claims (loss or damage)
  • Complaints
  • Contract progress reports
  • Contracts, customer
  • Contracts, representatives, agents, distributors
  • Correspondence
  • Discount rates
  • Guarantees, warranties
  • Invoices, copies
  • Invoices received
  • Mailing & prospect lists
  • Market research studies & analysis
  • Market surveys
  • Orders acknowledgment
  • Orders filled
  • Price lists
  • Shipping notices & reports
  • Tax-exempt sales

5
5
6 years after termination
6 years after termination
6 years after termination
1
5
6
6
7
2
Permanently
5
4
8
Permanently
4
5

We recommend having your CPA and your attorney review the records retention requirements in your state before putting it into practice.

So with all these records, what are the five challenges for customer service?

The Top 5 Challenges for Managing Customer Service Email Correspondence

  • 90% of all business correspondence is conducted via email – while the client might call, the CSR is likely recording the issue electronically and then emailing the resolution to their supervisor or another department within the organization.
  • All correspondence with customers should be considered a business record or document.
  • Correspondence isn’t associated with the documents they reference – this can be done by customer name, customer number or order number we need to provide the methodology for doing so.
  • Classification, filing, and archiving email with current technologies are unorganized.
  • Critical email correspondence isn’t integrated with existing back-end systems

Extend Outlook & Document Management with Email Correspondence Management

Email Manager from CMA addresses these issues by adding value to, and empowering your CSRs by providing a simple solution for documenting customer correspondence and archiving it alongside customer records for future reference.

Within the native Outlook client, an email can be tagged once based on the nature of the conversation and then tracked for archiving. Custom fields such as account number and reason for contact can be applied within the Outlook interface to classify and capture critical correspondence in addition to subject, to, from, date, etc. Even when a customer outside your network replies, the software maintains the integrity of the indexes.

Email Manager automatically stores messages to the designated repository in a single, secure location alongside other supporting documentation about the customer. Continuity and historical access are automated, improving your records as well as enhancing customer service.

15 Questions To Ask When Developing An Email Management Policy

sedona-conference-logoMany organizations continue to struggle with how to effectively manage the continuing tsunami of email, while ensuring compliance with company policies, industry regulations and state/federal laws.

By answering the following questions, first asked at the Sedona Conference, you’ll be able to evaluate where your organization stands with email management:

  1. What are the current policies, processes, work practices, or procedures applicable to the creation, distribution, retention, retrieval, and deletion of email and other electronic communications in your firm?
  2. What contextual information does the email system generate? Don’t forget to include the attachments to those emails.
  3. What types of personal or distributed electronic devices are commonly used for handling email?
  4. What types of content are transmitted or received by email or contained within the message bodies?
  5. What user management practices are encouraged or tolerated for individual email accounts?
  6. What access to personal email archives exist on desktop and laptop hard drives and how often they are used?
  7. What is the role of the user in determining how long email is retained?
  8. When and how are existing email policies and procedures communicated to users?
  9. Who (and how many different functions) within the organization is responsible for or has email policies in place?
  10. How does the organization define a “record” and to what extent (percentage) are emails, usually based on content, included within this definition?
  11. How are emails with business significance, as defined by records schedules, treated?
  12. What are the current audit practices and capabilities to assure system integrity?
  13. Are users required to ascertain and classify email and to what extent is this accomplished?
  14. How is email integration into records management systems accomplished?
  15. How are litigation holds applied to email?

The Easy Answer

We believe the right answer to all 15 questions is to utilize email management software like Email Manager from CMA to build a bridge between Outlook and your document management system. In this way, the management, access, version control, retention scheduling, and other benefits of document management offers over electronic documents can be extended to email.

What email management practices do you have in your firm to ensure the timely and efficient integration, tracking and archiving of email and the attachments?

10 Things You Need to Know About Email Management

AIIM Logo 3Email has become the predominant means of business communication. Why then are so few organizations managing it effectively?

The following are the key findings from a survey AIIM recently conducted:

  1. On average, respondents spend more than 1.5 hours per day processing email, with 20% spending 3+ hours per day.
  2. Over 50% have hand-held access with Smartphone’s and tablets. 67% process work-related emails out of office hours with 28% confessing to doing so “after work, on weekends and during vacations.” (This was in 2009, so we’re confident the percentages have increased.)
  3. “Sheer overload” is reported as the biggest problem with email as a business tool, followed closely by “finding and recovering past emails” and “keeping track of actions.” This calls for a good tagging, tracking and archive solution.
  4. Email archiving, legal discovery, findability and storage volumes are the biggest concerns within organizations, with security and spam now considered less of a concern by respondents.
  5. Over 50% of respondents are “not confident” or only “slightly confident” that emails related to documenting commitments and obligations made by staff are recorded, complete and retrievable.
  6. Only 10% of organizations have completed an enterprise-wide email management initiative, with 20% currently rolling out a project. Even in larger organizations, 17% have no plans to, although the remaining 29% are planning to start sometime in the next two years.
  7.  45% of organizations (including the largest ones) do not have a policy on Outlook “Archive settings” so most users will likely create .pst archive files on local drives.
  8. Only 19% of those surveyed capture important emails to a dedicated email management system or to a general purpose ECM system. 18% print emails and file as paper, and a worrying 45% file in non-shared personal Outlook folders.
  9. A third of organizations have no policy to deal with legal discovery, 40% would likely have to search back-up tapes, and 23% feel they would have gaps from deleted emails. Only 16% have retention policies that would justify deleted emails.
  10. Overall, respondents plan to spend more on Email Management software in 2009 than 2008.

What are you doing to integrate, track and archive email and attachments in your firm?