Don’t Let Disputes Disrupt Your Cash Flow

Disputes often surface in indirect ways, such as underpayments, delayed payments, or vague emails from customers.

Rather than relying on collectors to notice and act, Fazeshift’s dispute agent can

• Flag partial payments or discrepancies as potential disputes
• Analyze incoming emails for common dispute phrases. For example, searching for keywords, such as “overcharged,” “wrong item,” or “never received.”
• Automatically log the dispute and assign a category to it, such as pricing, delivery, or service.
• Automatically prioritize a case based on customer size, dispute amount, or aging.
• Activate set workflows that can route a dispute to the right person or team, such as sales, customer success, or operations, with the necessary context and notify the right people.
• Leverage the pre-defined workflows to escalate cases automatically if they’re not resolved within a certain number of days and update the status of disputes.

AR platforms connect with CRMs though APIs or native integrations to exchange customer, invoice, payment, and dispute data in real time.

When a discrepancy or dispute is logged in a self-serve portal, email, or customer service interaction, this info automatically flows into both systems. Customer profiles in the CRM immediately update to reflect dispute status so sales and support teams see the latest account health at a glance.

Since a CRM can access invoice-related data, communication history, order details, and payment behavior, disputes or discrepancies appear as clear flags or tickets linked directly to the customer record. This unified view lets sales, support, and AR teams quickly understand the context without switching tools.

When a discrepancy is logged in an accounts receivable automation platform like Fazeshift, automated workflows generate tasks or cases assigned to the right team members. Service level agreements and priority levels are set based on customer segment, dispute type, or amount, while notifications and reminders keep teams on track to resolve disputes quickly.

Attachments like invoice copies, contracts, or correspondence are shared and stored centrally in a CRM but can be accessed by accounts receivable automation platforms like Fazeshift to include in auto-responses to payment questions from customers.

When changes to invoice status, credit memos, or payment plans made in an accounts receivable automation platform like Fazeshift, updates are automatically made in the CRM to ensure everyone is aligned.

Automated and personalized messages can be triggered from an accounts receivable automation platform like Fazeshift to keep customers informed of dispute progress. When customers respond, their responses are automatically logged in the CRM and automation platform to speed up the resolution process. 

AI-driven accounts receivable tools classify and route customer billing disputes faster through a combination of different techniques, such as machine learning and natural language processing.

AI-driven accounts receivable tools like Fazeshift can detect a dispute before it's formally flagged by scanning emails or payment notes for keywords and phrases like “overcharged,” “missing items,” “wrong invoice,” and “credit due.” These automation tools can also monitor customer behaviors, such as repeated payment delays, to anticipate potential issues and flag partial payments or any deviations as a potential dispute.

When a dispute is detected, it can be automatically classified into categories, such as pricing error, duplicate charge, contract mismatch, credit not applied, missing goods or services, or tax or fee discrepancy.

After this happens, disputes are routed based on the type of issue; customer segment or account tier; invoice or contract owner; or region or entity. Disputes can be assigned automatically with relevant information and supporting context, such as the invoice number, payment record, and customer history. 

Each dispute category can launch a specific workflow, such as notifying the billing team, automatically assigning a task, escalating a case if it’s not resolved within a certain amount of days, looping in sales or an account manager with a templated response, pulling relevant contract or invoice details, or offering partial credit or refund if conditions are met.

Automation platforms like Fazeshift can also automatically generate a case record that includes relevant communication history, a suggested resolution path, who needs to be involved, the dispute type and severity, and invoice and payment data.