Futureproof your Accounts Receivable before experience walks out the door

Many AR teams continue to rely on manual, time-consuming, paper-intensive processes. However, these manual processes also deeply rely on the institutional knowledge of your Accounts Receivable team.

Reuters recently revealed that 59% of frontline workers over the age of 55 plan to retire within five years.¹ Many of them will take their experience into retirement with them, leaving knowledge gaps. This creates a significant risk to your AR team and operations if not planned for well in advance.

Logically, one might turn to new hires to step into those gaps. But younger generations of workers have been raised in a digital world of tablets, smartphones and apps. Their personal lives, including their financial management, are digital — only 26% of Gen Z have ever written a paper check² — and they expect the same from their professional lives. They prefer apps and automation over manual, paper processes and spreadsheets.

Companies competing for young talent require a modern approach to workflow processes. Organizations that maintain reliance on manual processes could find recruitment and retention challenges.

Intelligent automation combines AI, business process management and robotic process automation to streamline and digitize offline processes. It can help AR teams receive, process and view payments faster and more efficiently — with more flexibility.

Digitizing and automating your manual processes is a sensible path to futureproofing and strengthening your AR operations. Intelligent automation can:

• Provide resiliency through technology/software updates
• Make you less reliant on the institutional knowledge of employees
• Create cost savings compared to continually training new employees
• Assist with forecasting and risk management for improved outcomes

At a task level, there are many benefits to intelligent automation. For example, Bank of America’s Intelligent Receivables® solution offers up to a 95% straight-through reconciliation rate. 

Today, we’re sitting on the edge of the retirement cliff. As the institutional knowledge of the current workforce begins to fade into the abyss, organizations risk falling behind competitors and the times by allowing knowledge gaps to widen, processes to erode and efficiency to plummet.

Intelligent automation solutions, like Intelligent Receivables, can not only bridge those gaps, but offer unprecedented efficiencies, predictive insights and — perhaps most important of all — provide your Accounts Receivable team more time to focus on high-value objectives that lift your business to new heights.

¹ Reuters. March 2025. “Workforce in Crisis: 72% of Managers Fear Productivity Collapse as Mass Retirement Strips Critical Skills.”

² Chime. May 2025. “Banking on the Future: Survey reveals how prepared new grads are for their next chapter.”

³ IBM. 2024. “What is AI?”