Receivables are perishable. Treat them that way.

The decay curve

Industry experience—ours included—is consistent: collectability drops month over month from the day an invoice goes past due. Debtors deprioritize creditors who don't escalate. Contacts change jobs. Companies quietly wind down. Documentation goes stale. By the time an account crosses its first birthday, recovering it costs more effort and returns less money.

Our own pricing reflects the same curve: 25% under 12 months, 33% over. The discount isn't generosity—fresh accounts genuinely are easier to collect, and our 85.3% success rate on large claims applies specifically to accounts placed within 12 months of delinquency.

The tech-specific wrinkle

Software and internet receivables decay faster than traditional trade debt. Subscription customers who stop paying have usually already migrated to a competitor—your leverage (service continuity) evaporates the moment they finish onboarding elsewhere. Usage-based balances become harder to evidence as logs age. And startup debtors can vanish entirely between funding rounds.

What strong credit teams do

• Set a placement trigger, not a feeling. Pick a day—60, 90, or 100 days past due—and place automatically when an account crosses it.
• Use soft intervention early. Under 100 days, a soft audit recovers revenue without burning the renewal.
• Document while it's fresh. Contracts, usage logs, renewal notices, and dispute emails gathered at 60 days are worth double what they are at 600.
• Don't let small balances pile up. Ten aging $8K accounts are an $80K problem that placement triggers would have prevented.
• Review the aged book quarterly. Either it's worth pursuing—place it—or it isn't—write it off and clean your balance sheet. "Pending" is the most expensive status in AR.