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The following represents a composite scenario built from patterns across Stuut's manufacturing customers. Specific figures are illustrative based on typical mid-market manufacturing revenue profiles.
When AR teams can't contact every past-due account because they lack capacity, working capital gets trapped in receivables. That coverage gap shows up directly in your DSO.
This case study draws on real outcomes from Stuut's manufacturing customer portfolio, including results from Bishop Lifting (45 branches) and PerkinElmer, to build a representative picture of what DSO improvement looks like when you remove the manual bottlenecks. The company profile is composite, built from patterns across Stuut's mid-market manufacturing customers, but the mechanics and outcomes are grounded in documented deployments.
The composite company in this case study reflects typical mid-market manufacturing characteristics. Based on Stuut's data across its mid-market manufacturing customer portfolio, DSO in this segment typically ranges from 45 to 60 days before automation. The composite company entered with DSO above this range.
Before Stuut, typical mornings started with exporting aging reports into Excel, sorting by balance and days overdue, and starting calls. Analysts in this scenario logged into multiple customer portals to confirm invoice receipt, a routine task common across mid-market manufacturing AR teams. They resent documents and manually matched remittance PDFs to open invoices. Cash application backlogs were common. AR teams at this portfolio size typically contact only a fraction of accounts each day because manual outreach doesn't scale.
High DSO wasn't one failure. It was three compounding bottlenecks that most AR teams in manufacturing recognize: neglected long-tail accounts, slow cash application, and manual follow-up that couldn't scale with invoice volume.
DSO is commonly calculated using the formula: DSO = (Total Accounts Receivable / Total Net Credit Sales) x Number of Days in the Period, where net credit sales excludes cash sales and returns. Even moderate DSO reductions can free millions in working capital. The math is simple. The operational causes of high DSO are not.
Strategic accounts consumed all available capacity. The company's largest accounts required custom follow-up: escalated calls, portal submissions, specific contact routing, and deduction investigations before payment would clear. A two-analyst team typical of mid-market manufacturers at this revenue scale could handle strategic account volume but had no remaining capacity for the rest of the portfolio.
Long-tail accounts received no proactive outreach. Many active customers never received a reminder. Without any outreach, Net 30 invoices could drift past their due dates because customers with no urgency to pay simply didn't. Hiring more collectors creates a scaling problem rather than solving one, so teams in this position have no realistic path to full portfolio coverage.
Manual cash application created a structural lag. When payments arrived with incomplete remittance references, analysts left them in a suspense queue while they investigated. Backlogs meant the aging report was always behind reality, which made prioritization harder and obscured which customers actually still owed money.
The company needed full portfolio coverage without adding headcount. That's where autonomous execution changed the equation.
After connecting Stuut via API, the analysts opened the exception dashboard each morning instead of pulling an aging export. Stuut contacts routine accounts overnight via email, SMS, and AI-powered voice calls, with contextual knowledge of each account's open invoices, payment history, and interaction record. The exception dashboard surfaces only accounts requiring human judgment, such as disputed invoices, silent key accounts, or deductions needing a credit memo investigation.
You can see how this compares to legacy tools in the AR platform comparison checklist. Platforms with longer implementation timelines mean teams wait months before seeing results. Stuut's standard go-live completes in 6 to 10 days. Tools focused on workflow organization still require the team to do the actual outreach work.
The API connection completed in Stuut's standard 3-to-4-day integration window. The AR Manager answered workflow questions and helped configure communication rules to match the team's existing tone and customer relationship practices. Stuut connects via API without modifying ERP configuration. Charts of accounts, customer portal setup, and payment processing stay exactly as they are. Full go-live, including the first autonomous outreach runs, is designed to complete within Stuut's standard 6-to-10-day go-live window, depending on data quality and configuration complexity.
The team learned two skills: how to read the exception dashboard, and how to review AI-generated communications before they sent. During rollout, the AR team reviews AI-generated communications before they send, refining tone and accuracy to match the company's existing customer relationship practices. Stuut refines communication patterns over time as it processes more account interactions, though improvement pace depends on portfolio size and data volume.
The company started Stuut on long-tail accounts that previously received limited outreach. Stuut ran autonomous outreach on these accounts and collected on aged invoices. The team watched the AI handle these accounts and built confidence in the communication quality before expanding. This pattern matches what Bishop Lifting achieved: Stuut automated 91% of outbound communications across 45 branches and reduced overdue receivables by 35%, unlocking $3M in working capital inside six weeks.
In the following weeks, the company expanded coverage to mid-tier accounts and activated AI-powered voice calling for accounts that hadn't responded to email or SMS. The call agent carried contextual knowledge of each customer's account, open invoices, and interaction history. For manufacturing environments where phone-based collections remain standard practice, voice calling expanded the team's coverage depth without adding any headcount.
Stuut achieves a 95%+ automated match rate across its customer portfolio, with exceptions flagged for rapid resolution rather than queued in a suspense file. In this scenario, the cash application backlog cleared on the same day payments arrived, consistent with how Stuut's automated matching works in live deployments.
In this representative scenario, DSO dropped approximately 12 days over six months, moving into the 45-to-60-day range typical for mid-market manufacturing, consistent with the 37% reduction in past-due AR Stuut delivers across its customer portfolio. Using representative daily revenue figures for a mid-market manufacturer, a 12-day DSO reduction translates to approximately $2.3M in freed working capital, though actual results depend on company-specific revenue and AR balance.
DSO reductions free working capital that directly funds operations: raw material purchases, payroll, and growth investment that previously required credit facility drawdowns. PerkinElmer reduced overdue invoices from 50% to 15% in one year, collected $300M through Stuut, and used the improved cash position to support two acquisitions.
Stuut reduces manual tasks by 70% across its manufacturing deployments, covering routine work like invoice chasing, remittance parsing, cash application data entry, and portal logins. That capacity shifted from operational to strategic work.
The table below illustrates a representative daily shift for a mid-market manufacturing AR analyst, based on workflow patterns Stuut has observed across its customer portfolio.
In this scenario, most of the day went to work that required no specialized knowledge. Across Stuut's manufacturing customer portfolio, analysts typically shift from operational tasks to strategic work.
Razvan Bratu, Head of Quote to Cash at Honeywell, described the shift directly:
"We're collecting faster from the in-scope customers, our cash flow is improving, and our team has more time for white-glove service. The platform handles the routine work so our people drive increased real business value." - Razvan Bratu, Head of Quote to Cash, Honeywell
Teams typically report that concern about AI taking over their roles resolves quickly once routine tasks are removed and strategic work expands. The change becomes tangible: no more pulling up the same spreadsheet for the hundredth time, no more logging into customer portals to resubmit an invoice already sent twice. The analysts kept ownership of their key accounts and gained time to actually work them.
The bottom tier of your customer portfolio often contains receivables waiting to be collected. When teams manage hundreds of accounts with limited analyst capacity, accounts that receive no proactive outreach tend to pay later, which raises DSO. Full portfolio coverage is often the fastest DSO lever available to mid-market teams. Bishop Lifting reduced overdue receivables by 35% after Stuut covered all 45 branches autonomously, and it requires no customer-facing process change at all.
The communication audit trail shows interactions Stuut has had with each customer, providing visibility into outreach activity and customer responses. You can review how this compares to other platforms in the Stuut vs. Versapay comparison.
Use this sequence to build confidence and prove results before expanding coverage:
The AR software comparison and HighRadius alternative analysis for SAP environments are useful if you're evaluating multiple options before committing to a rollout approach.
If you want to see exactly how this rollout works for a manufacturing business similar to yours, book a demo with the team to walk through a live Stuut workflow.
DSO improvement typically begins as long-tail accounts that previously received no outreach start paying after first contact. In this representative scenario, DSO dropped approximately 12 days over six months, consistent with the 37% average DSO reduction Stuut delivers across its manufacturing customer portfolio.
The analysts shifted from spending most of their time on manual data entry and routine follow-up to focusing on complex disputes, payment plans, and strategic account management. Stuut's 95%+ automated match rate means payment matching shifted to same-day automated processing.
Outreach became more consistent and timely. During rollout, the AR team reviews AI-generated communications before they send, refining tone and accuracy to match the company's existing customer relationship practices. The communication audit trail gives the team visibility into every message sent on their behalf.
Manufacturing companies with large portfolios and limited analyst capacity see the strongest DSO improvements because full portfolio coverage was previously impossible without headcount. Bishop Lifting's results across 45 branches reflect this. When teams manage hundreds of accounts with limited analyst capacity, coverage gaps often translate to higher DSO.
DSO (Days Sales Outstanding) measures the average number of days it takes to collect cash after a sale. In manufacturing, elevated DSO often reflects manual follow-up gaps, slow cash application, and neglected accounts trapping working capital in the AR balance.
Cash application: Matching incoming customer payments to open invoices in the ERP by parsing remittance documents from bank files, emails, or PDFs. Stuut automates this at a 95%+ match rate, reducing the process from days to minutes.
Remittance: The information a customer sends alongside a payment to identify which invoices it covers. Incomplete remittance data is a common cause of unapplied cash backlogs.
Aging buckets: The classification of outstanding AR by how many days have passed since the invoice was due: 0-30 days (current), 31-60 days (past due), 61-90 days (past due), and 90+ days (past due). The 90+ day bucket represents the highest collection risk. Manual processes typically mean only the largest balances in each bucket receive active outreach.
Days Sales Outstanding (DSO): Calculated as (Total Accounts Receivable / Total Net Credit Sales) x Number of Days in the Period, where net credit sales excludes cash sales and returns. DSO reductions free working capital by converting receivables to usable cash faster.
Short-pay: A customer payment less than the invoiced amount, typically caused by a deduction, dispute, or early-pay discount applied without prior notification. Short-pays require investigation to determine whether the deduction is valid.
