Every business wants to turn deals into cash quickly, but many companies struggle with delays that stretch their cash cycle. These delays often happen between the sales team closing the deal and operations delivering the product or service.
In our Sales-to-Cash Engine™, steps 3 to 6 cover this critical stretch:
-
Sales Pipeline & Deal Structuring
-
Commercial Negotiations & Contracting
-
Order Management & Approval (Clean Orders)
-
Operations, Fulfillment & Delivery
When teams misalign or processes break down here, billing stalls, cash flow slows, and working capital gets tied up longer than necessary.
The Hidden Risks in Deal Structuring and Contracting
During deal structuring, sales teams sometimes promise terms or customizations that operations can’t fulfill efficiently. For example, sales might agree to a delivery timeline that conflicts with manufacturing capacity. Or contract terms might lack clarity on payment milestones, creating confusion down the line.
As a result, operations face unexpected challenges, causing delays in order fulfillment. These delays push billing and invoicing back, which directly impacts when cash hits the bank.
Why Order Management Must Be Spotless
Clean orders make clean cash flow. Yet, many organizations accept orders with missing or incorrect details, such as:
-
Incomplete customer information
-
Wrong billing addresses or contact info
-
Ambiguous product specifications or quantities
-
Missing approvals or credit holds
These errors trigger back-and-forth clarifications between sales, operations, and finance. The cycle drags on, delaying invoicing and payment collection.
Operations and Delivery: The Final Hurdle Before Cash
Even if sales and order management do their part well, operations can create bottlenecks by missing delivery deadlines or shipping incorrect goods. Such errors generate customer disputes or returns, forcing collections teams to pause payments until issues resolve.
The Clean Order Checklist: Your Secret Weapon
To prevent these delays, many companies use a Clean Order Checklist before processing orders. This checklist includes:
-
Verifying customer master data accuracy
-
Confirming contract terms and delivery schedules align
-
Ensuring all internal approvals are complete
-
Checking product and pricing details against the contract
-
Validating credit holds are lifted
By enforcing a clean order policy, you ensure orders flow smoothly from sales to operations, accelerating billing and ultimately cash collection.
Bringing It All Together
Aligning your sales, contracting, order management, and operations teams reduces friction and speeds up your sales-to-cash cycle. When every step works smoothly, you minimize delays, improve customer satisfaction, and accelerate your cash flow.
For a detailed breakdown of these steps and a downloadable Clean Order Checklist, check out our full Sales-to-Cash Engine™ Guide.
📥 Download the guide here: Sales-to-Cash Engine™ Guide.
