AI Agents for IFS
Accounts Receivable
On a project ledger the receivable that was never raised is usually a bigger number than the receivable nobody paid.
- Project receivables bill on an event, not a schedule. The entitlement that was never invoiced is usually larger than the overdue balance everyone is watching.
- Half of what project receivables needs is in the contract, not the ledger. An agent reading only IFS can chase what was billed and cannot tell you what should have been.
- In a worked review of 34 live projects, 940,000 had no invoice behind it. 479,000 of that was pure billing needing nobody's judgement.
- An uncertified claim is not a receivable. Chasing it as one damages the relationship and wastes the collector's time.
- A payment short by exactly the retention percentage is not a short payment, and a recurring contra deduction is a commercial conversation rather than a collections queue.
AI agents for IFS accounts receivable compare contract entitlements and certification status against what was actually billed, return the work that has been done but never invoiced, and apply cash when the customer pays against their own certificate rather than your invoice. ChatFin reads the contract alongside the ledger through the published IFS Cloud interfaces, and raises and clears nothing itself.
The order of work matters here. Most receivables improvement starts with collections, and on a project ledger that is the second problem. The first is entitlement. Milestones reached with no invoice raised, applications submitted with no certificate chased, variations delivered with no written instruction and retention released and never billed. In a worked portfolio of 34 projects that came to 940,000.
On a project ledger the invoice is an event, not a routine
Ordinary receivables bill on a schedule. Project receivables bill when something is achieved, certified or accepted, and every one of those is a document somebody has to produce. The receivable that never got raised is a bigger number than the receivable nobody paid.
ChatFin reads contract milestones and certification status against what was actually billed, and returns the entitlements with no invoice behind them. It raises nothing itself.
What an agent reads, and the contract is half of it
Half of what project receivables needs is in IFS and half is in the contract. An agent that reads only the ledger can chase what was invoiced and cannot tell you what should have been.
| Source | What it gives | Why receivables needs it |
|---|---|---|
| Customer invoices and open items | The balance and the ageing | The obvious half |
| Project and activity structure | What was delivered and when | The link between work done and the right to bill |
| Contract terms | Milestones, rates, retention, payment terms | The entitlement. Not in the ledger at all |
| Certification and acceptance records | Whether the claim is agreed | An uncertified claim is not a receivable and should not be chased |
| Customer master | Terms, contacts, payment behaviour | Behaviour matters more than stated terms for prioritising |
IFS Cloud exposes this through OData style projections via its API gateway, with IFS Connect handling messaging. Confirm the projection set in your own release before scoping.
ChatFin reads the contract alongside the ledger. Where the contract is not available in a readable form, it says so and limits itself to what was billed.
A worked entitlement review, 940,000 never invoiced
A portfolio of 34 live projects. The agent compares contract entitlements and certification status to what was actually billed, and returns 940,000 with no invoice behind it.
| Cause | Amount | Projects | Action |
|---|---|---|---|
| Milestone achieved, invoice never raised | 412,000 | 9 | A billing list with the milestone evidence attached |
| Application submitted, certificate outstanding | 288,000 | 6 | Chase certification. Not a collections call |
| Variation delivered with no written instruction | 141,000 | 4 | Commercial escalation. May not be recoverable at all |
| Retention released, never invoiced | 67,000 | 11 | Dated release list, straightforward billing |
| Rate applied below the contracted rate card | 32,000 | 3 | Credit and rebill, once commercial confirms |
Two of the five lines are pure billing, worth 479,000, and they need nobody's judgement. The variation line is the one that may never be recovered, and the earlier it surfaces the better the chance.
Cash application when the payer pays by certificate
Project customers frequently pay against their own certificate rather than your invoice, which breaks reference matching before it starts.
Match on the certificate number first
It is what the payer used. If it is on your invoice, this is the highest confidence path and it is often ignored.
Then on the application number, then the project
A payment against a project with one open application is unambiguous even with no reference at all.
Expect the contra deductions
Main contractor deductions for site services, plant hire or insurance are routine and should be recognised as a category rather than treated as disputes.
Hold retention deductions separately
A payment short by exactly the retention percentage is not a short payment, and treating it as one wastes everyone's time.
Work in progress is the receivable nobody has raised yet
Cost incurred and not billed is a balance somebody has to justify every month, and it is the same population as the entitlement review looked at from the other side.
| Category | What it means | How it should age |
|---|---|---|
| Billable, milestone not yet reached | Correct and expected | Not aged. Attach the milestone date so it stops being reviewed |
| Billable, invoice simply not raised | A billing failure | Aged from the milestone date |
| Cost booked to the wrong project | A coding error | Corrected, not aged |
| Variation not agreed in writing | A commercial risk | Aged, and escalated |
| Not recoverable | A provision | Provided for, with the evidence |
Reporting one work in progress number hides all five. The first category is healthy and the fourth may never be recovered, and a single figure treats them identically.
ChatFin rebuilds work in progress at project level into those five categories with the transactions behind each, and proposes provisions rather than posting them.
Collections against a main contractor
Chasing a main contractor is not the same job as chasing an ordinary trade debtor, and treating it the same is how a commercial relationship gets damaged over a certificate timing difference.
ChatFin ages against the contractual entitlement date rather than the invoice date where the contract makes that distinction, and reports the contested line rather than the held balance.
Where this underperforms on IFS
Three, all upstream of any tool.
ChatFin reports the share of the portfolio it could read entitlements for before it reports a figure. An entitlement review over 60 percent of projects is a partial answer and it should be labelled as one.
Deeper in IFS receivables
Three use cases sit under this hub, in build and shown rather than linked.
Worked on this page
AR inbox automation · Open AR analysis · Bank payment to open invoice matching
Covered as sections here
Milestone billing · Cash application · Contra deductions · Retention · Collections support · Certification chasing
Questions IFS receivables teams ask first
What should a project finance team look at before chasing overdue invoices?
Entitlements that were never invoiced. On a project ledger billing is triggered by an event rather than a schedule, so the failure mode is an invoice that was never raised rather than one that was not paid. In a worked portfolio of 34 live projects, 940,000 had no invoice behind it, and 479,000 of that was pure billing needing no judgement. ChatFin returns that list with the milestone evidence attached.
How does cash application work when the customer pays by certificate?
Match on the certificate number first, because it is what the payer used, then the application number, then the project. A payment against a project with one open application is unambiguous even with no reference at all. Contra deductions for site services, plant hire or insurance are routine and should be recognised as a category rather than raised as disputes. ChatFin holds retention deductions separately, because a payment short by exactly the retention percentage is not short.
Can an agent chase an uncertified application?
It should not, and telling the difference is the point. An application for payment is a claim until somebody certifies it, so chasing it as a receivable damages the relationship and wastes the collector's time. ChatFin separates certified from uncertified and routes outstanding certification as a chase to the commercial team rather than as a collections call. Where certificates live in email rather than the system, it says it cannot make that distinction.
Find the invoice that was never raised, first.
ChatFin compares contract milestones, certification status and the rate card against what was actually billed, and returns every entitlement with no invoice behind it, grouped by cause.
It applies cash on the certificate and application references the customer actually used, holds retention deductions separately, and raises and clears nothing itself.
Bring one portfolio and its contracts. The entitlement review takes an hour.
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Bring a portfolio and its contracts.
We will run the entitlement review through ChatFin, show the evidence behind every line, and tell you the share of the portfolio we could read contracts for.