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Collections in Outlook overview (preview)

  • Article

[This article is prerelease documentation and is subject to change.]

This article provides an overview of the collections in Outlook feature in Microsoft 365 Copilot for Finance.

Copilot for Finance is revolutionizing the collections experience for accounts receivable (AR) personnel. Through integration with Outlook, it enhances customer communications through several key features.

  • It provides a summary of customer information directly from the source enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. Therefore, it eliminates the need for manual data retrieval.
  • It offers summarization of inbound emails in Outlook. Therefore, it streamlines the communication process.
  • It helps craft customer communication emails. Therefore, it ensures clarity and professionalism.
  • It serves as single-source-of-truth storage in the ERP system for critical updates such as transactions, contact information, action items, and relevant customer communication.

This holistic approach not only optimizes the collections experience but also fosters efficiency and accuracy in AR operations.

Steady and predictable cash flow is the lifeblood of a healthy business. It provides the necessary liquidity for day-to-day operations and also facilitates strategic investment for growth. An effective collections process in AR plays a critical role in this context. By ensuring the timely inflow of revenue, the collections process drives the predictability that's essential for financial planning and stability.

AR professionals spend lots of time responding to customer balance inquiries in Outlook. In the course of this work, they must switch between Outlook and their ERP system to gather the details that they need, and to update information such as follow-up actions, contact information, and promise-to-pay dates in the ERP system. The goal of Copilot for Finance is to significantly streamline this process by letting employees connect directly to their ERP system within Outlook. As they communicate with customers, AR personnel can access valuable ERP customer data, get help composing email responses, and conveniently save communication summaries and action items back to the ERP system, all without having to switch apps.