Is your team struggling with chasing down payments, overdue invoices, and navigating awkward conversations with customers about money? Is all of that struggle sapping your organization and team’s time, energy, and resources?
Every minute you and your team spend chasing unpaid invoices is a minute you’re not focusing on growth, new projects, and delivering the kind of exceptional service that will set your restoration business apart. You and your team can’t afford to spend endless hours trying to get paid for work you’ve already delivered.
It’s time to reorient your business from surviving to thriving. How?
Expand your collections team.
While we get that no one’s perfect, every time your team makes a mistake it costs you. Support your team in leveling up their performance by taking something off their plate.
Discover our 5-step process to strategically expand your collections team to supercharge your cashflow, success rate, and morale:
Step 1: Assess Your Expansion Need
Before you go on a hiring frenzy, explore and analyze where you are right now. What’s working? What’s….definitely not working?
If I had to guess, you’re probably feeling the pressure. You’re growing. You’ve got more customers, projects, and payments coming in—or rather, payments that should be coming in. But you’re also starting to stress fractures in your process. The team is stretched thin, invoices are slipping through, and you’re starting to wonder: “How long can we keep this up?
First of all, take a deep breath. You’re already ahead of the game because you’re thinking about the solution instead of just getting bogged down in panic. Then, take one more deep breath. Feel better?
Now, let’s take the first step towards strategic expansion and assess your organization’s need for personnel growth by examining your workload capacity, your growth projections, and your team’s skills gap.
Workload Analysis: Are You Running at Full Capacity?
Gain Insights with AR Workflow AR Workflow is an accounts receivable automation platform that we’ve designed specifically for the restoration business. AR Workflow also lets you monitor and analyze the four metrics above with ease. Get a real time pulse on your team without having to add to your plate.
Growth Projections: Are You Ready for What’s Next?
Once you’ve analyzed your team’s workload, the next question is if your organization as a whole would be well-served by expanding the team.
Whether it’s taking on bigger projects, expanding into new markets, or dramatically growing your customer base, we know that you’re hungry to grow. And we know that you know more growth also means more invoices, payments, and a lot more pressure on your accounts receivable process.
Nows the moment to take the time to evaluate your current systems to see if there are any systems adjustments to make before you go a-hiring.
Here are the six metrics that’ll indicate where and what might need a slight adjustment:
Customer Acquisition Rates:
Customer acquisition rate refers to the speed at which you are gaining new customers. If your acquisition rate is climbing, it’s a positive sign of growth.
Use the workload analysis above to evaluate where your process blockers may be. If your team is within bandwidth, customer acquisition rate is growing, but you’re still losing money - it might be time for a systems audit. If your team is stretched on bandwidth, first get onto a manageable workload and then your system areas for growth will be easier to spot.
However, rapid growth can strain your accounts receivable (AR) processes if your team or systems aren't prepared.
Revenue Growth vs. Overhead Costs:
Next, assess whether your revenue growth is outpacing overhead costs. Sustainable growth should allow for strategic team expansion rather than triggering cost concerns. If revenue per account is steadily increasing, this may signal an opportunity to invest in your team by adding key roles or upgrading skills to drive even greater efficiency. If overhead is growing disproportionately to revenue, revisit team and process efficiency.
AR Turnover Ratio:
Your AR turnover ratio measures how efficiently you convert accounts receivable into cash. A strong, consistent ratio indicates a healthy cash flow. If the ratio is declining, it signals potential inefficiencies, such as delays in invoicing or collections, that need resolution before scaling. Again, check your team’s bandwidth to assess whether this is a team or systems change.
Overdue Payment Trends:
Monitor trends in overdue invoices. If they’re rising, even without scaling, the issue could worsen with growth. Make sure to address this in your workflow systems or team bandwidth before you expand.
Forecasted Workload:
Project the workload increase based on growth projections (e.g., doubling your customer base). Assess whether your current team size, skill set, and tools should be able to handle the projected volume. If so, explore systems changes. If you’re strapped on bandwidth, it’s time to grow that team.
Mind Your Skill Gaps: Does Your Team Have the Right Expertise?
Once you’ve assessed where your organization is and what your potential is for growth, it’s time to decide in what directions you want to expand your team.
Strategic expansion is not just about adding more people to the mix—it’s about making sure you have the right people with the right skills.
Take a moment to identify the gaps in your team’s expertise and bring in people who can enhance your overall skill diversity. Maybe you’ll need someone who’s an expert in negotiating payment plans or someone who can handle high-value accounts with finesse. A well-developed team has an abundance of these skills at all levels of management and in all positions of your workflow.
How’s your team looking?
Here’s five skills that we’ve found best set teams up for success. As you read, assess whether your team is rich or lacking in these skills. Then, hire accordingly.
Skill Diversity:
Ensure you have a mix of technical skills (e.g., proficiency in AR tools and software), interpersonal skills (e.g., customer negotiation, dispute resolution), and strategic skills (e.g., financial forecasting and process optimization). This allows you to deal with any circumstances or new challenges that will arise in your next chapter of growth.
Role Coverage:
Confirm that all critical roles in your accounts receivable process are adequately covered. These often include invoice follow-up specialists, account negotiators, analysts to track AR metrics, and a team lead to oversee strategy and escalation. If not, make sure to hire with an eye toward coverage in this strategic expansion.
Adaptability:
A strong team is flexible and can quickly adapt to new tools, processes, or customer needs. Look for gaps in how your team handles change—whether it’s new software implementation, scaling operations, or compliance updates. When hiring, aim to include hires new employees who seem adept at being flexible and adaptable in places where your team has previously faltered.
Communication Strength:
Evaluate whether internal communication flows smoothly. Miscommunication can lead to delays or errors, so fostering a culture of collaboration and clear reporting is critical. If you’re lacking in strong communication, aim to hire future team members who have a knack for clarity, concision, and empathy.
Problem-Solving Abilities:
Identify whether your team is proactive in resolving issues, such as late payments or invoice disputes, or if these issues frequently escalate without resolution. If you’re low in easy resolutions, hire with an eye toward problem-solving skills.
How to Evaluate Problem-Solving Skills Focus on candidates who demonstrate both critical thinking and initiative. Use behavioral interview questions to uncover how they’ve handled complex challenges in the past:
"Can you walk me through a time when you identified and resolved a recurring issue in your previous role?"
"How do you approach situations where there’s no clear solution or when you need to make decisions with incomplete information?"
Look for answers that show an ability to:
Identify Root Causes: Candidates focus on understanding the core problem rather than just addressing symptoms.
Generate Solutions: Hire candidates who propose innovative, practical, or efficient solutions.
Take Ownership: We love a candidate who takes the initiative to resolve issues without unnecessary escalation.
Follow-up: Prioritize candidates who ensure the solution is implemented and generate a way to track its effectiveness.
Signs of Skill Gaps in Your Current Team
As you explore growing your team, you might be curious as to what the signs are of a team in need of some strategic hire.
Here are four skills gap red flags to keep an eye on during your next expansion:
Lack of Specialized Skills:
As you grow, your team might need expertise in areas like analytics, automation tools, or legal compliance for collections. If you’re often coming up in scenarios where your team's skills don’t align with what’s required, it’s time to hire with an eye toward skills specialization.
Inconsistent Performance:
If errors or missed follow-ups are localized to specific team members, it could indicate a training gap or lack of expertise. As you explore hiring, see how you can support current team members in growth or adjust responsibilities for a higher full-team average in success.
Over-Reliance on Key Individuals:
A balanced team doesn’t depend too heavily on one or two high-performing individuals. If certain tasks only succeed because of specific team members, you need more skill redundancy. Hire in such a way that your superstars don’t get burnt out and can afford to take a break.
Inefficient Processes:
If simple tasks take longer than expected or require excessive back-and-forth, it could be a sign of process inefficiency or unclear role definitions. Work to either adjust your systems or hire someone who might support in such a venture.
Your business deserves the best, and that means building a team with specialized skills that will help you handle the complexity of growth.
Step 2: Structure Your Team for Success
Now that you know your team’s morale, your goals for growth, and the skill gaps you need to fill, read on for how to strategically expand that team.
Hiring the right people is the first step toward building a high-performing collections team that can scale with your business. It’s critical that you then structure your team in a way that maximizes efficiency and drives results.
Set up your team to win by building clarity in roles; clear structure; and permission to specialize.
Here are the three concepts to keep in mind:
Define Clear Roles and Responsibilities
If everyone’s doing everything, no one’s doing anything well. Develop clear roles within your collections team, so each person knows exactly what their responsibilities are and how they contribute to the larger picture.
Here’s our AR Workflow recommendation for team structure:
When everyone knows their role and can focus on their area of expertise, magic happens. Give it a try and watch your team start hitting their targets consistently.
Create a Hierarchy for Accountability
You can’t afford to have confusion on your team. Establish a clear chain of command where there’s a General Manager overseeing the entire collections process, delegating tasks, and ensuring accountability.
A clear hierarchy is key to keeping everything moving smoothly. Beyond that, it gives you the ability to monitor performance and make adjustments quickly. Make sure that people not only know their roles, but who they report to and who they’re responsible for.
Specialization Equals Efficiency
Specialization drives efficiency. When your team members are assigned to tasks based on their strengths, the whole process runs smoother.
Here’s a simple four-step approach to identify each team member's ideal specialty:
Step 1: Ask About Strengths: Have each team member share what they feel most confident handling—early collections, dispute resolution, or maintaining customer relationships.
Step 2: Review Performance: Look at recent project results to see who consistently excels in specific tasks. For example, someone who quickly closes early-stage collections might enjoy specializing in that expertise.
Step 3: Rotate Tasks Temporarily: Try rotating team members through different types of collection tasks for a few weeks to see where they perform best.
Step 4: Get Peer Feedback: Ask team members to share what they think each person does particularly well. Sometimes, teammates notice skills you might overlook.
Using this information, match team members to roles that play to their strengths, leading to better outcomes and happier, more focused employees.
Step 3: Leverage Technology to Optimize Performance
Now that you’ve identified your goals and built the right team, it’s time to give them the tools they need to perform at their best. That’s where AR Workflow comes in.
As always, many tools can help you do the job better. That said, we designed AR Workflow specifically for the restoration industry, and we think that it’s the best tool out there to make your work as easy as it should be.
When you empower your expanded team with AR Workflow, you're supercharging their performance with automation, real-time tracking, and streamlined communication.
Here are four ways AR Workflow truly can make a difference in your work:
Task Assignment:
Get the Right People on the Right Jobs One of the best features of AR Workflow is its ability to assign tasks to the right team members based on their expertise. No more guesswork. No more scrambling.
Routine follow-ups? Those go to the junior collectors. High-priority accounts? Those are assigned to the AR specialists. Was that fast and easy? You bet it was.
AR Workflow makes it easy to ensure the right people are working on the right tasks, every single time.
Shared Notes and Documentation:
Keep Everyone in Sync Communication breakdowns are where many teams fall apart. With AR Workflow, your team has access to shared notes and documentation, so everyone is working from the same playbook.
Let your team collaborate in real time. No more missed details, no more duplicated work, and no more confusion. Create a seamless, collaborative environment where everyone knows what’s happening at all times. Accelerate your business and energize your team with AR Worklow’s centralized, organized project notes and documentation.
Centralized & Standardized Communication:
Stay Connected and Professional The communication tools in AR Workflow allow your team to stay connected without the constant ping of disruptive emails or unnecessary meetings.
Updating an account’s status, asking for input, or strategizing on the best approach for a tricky customer? Everything happens within the platform. And best yet, that communication is easy to label, organize, and follow.
Beyond that, you can standardize communication with templates, streamlining communication and boosting professionalism. Stop letting your team waste time re-writing the same email time after time. Instead, they can see everything that’s happened and have access to exactly what to say and automate when to say it. Less human error, less effort. It’s truly a dream come true.
Performance Monitoring:
Track, Measure, and Improve How do you know if your team’s crushing it? You track it.
AR Workflow provides detailed reports and analytics so you can see exactly how your team is performing. Start tracking:
Step 4: Invest in Your Team
It’s one thing to build a team, but it’s another thing to put together and then support a high-performing team. You’ve got to invest in training and development, so your people are always growing, learning, and pushing your business forward. Here are our top 3 ways to keep your team in top shape:
Audit Your Onboarding
When you bring new people onto your team, you need to give them the tools to succeed.
Take a moment to analyze your on-boarding process.
Are you providing comprehensive onboarding that includes both technical training (how to use AR Workflow, the specifics of your collections process) and soft skills (negotiation techniques, communication strategies)?
Have you recently asked new hires how their on-boarding process was and if there’s any things they’d adjust or add?
Does your on-boarding set-up your new hires for success in skills, knowledge of company culture, and a deep understanding of your organizations year-long and long-term goals?
If so, great. If not, take a moment to level-up and update your onboarding. The better their onboarding experience, the faster they’ll hit the ground running. They often say the first 100 days are indicative of an employee's success? Why not make sure those first 100 days really count?
Continuous Learning: Keep Sharpening the Saw
The most successful teams are the ones that are constantly learning and evolving. Offer ongoing training opportunities—whether through workshops, online courses, or conferences—to keep your team ahead of the curve.
We’ve actually built AR Workflow to support your team’s continuous learning with in-app resources and industry insights. Here’s how:
In-App Training and Updates: AR Workflow provides built-in guidance and updates on best practices to keep your team informed about new features and optimized processes.
Metrics-Based Learning: Use AR Workflow’s analytics to identify areas where your team may need additional support or training, like improving follow-up success or reducing response time for overdue invoices.
Industry Insights: Stay up-to-date with AR Workflow’s content on collections trends and industry best practices. Share these insights with your team to keep them sharp and ready for any changes in the collections landscape.
By combining AR Workflow’s resources with external training opportunities, you can empower your team to evolve continuously and keep your collections process at its best.
When they’re up-to-date on the latest industry trends, your collections process stays cutting-edge.
Skill Development: Build Expertise in Critical Areas
Focus on developing key skills that will have the biggest impact on your collections process.
For us, we’ve found these skills to include negotiation tactics, dispute resolution, and customer relationship management. The more your team hones these skills, the more effectively they’ll navigate the complexities of accounts receivable.
Pay attention to local conferences, leadership events, publications and books. Where have you recently derived the most value and growth? Don’t be afraid to share that with your team
Step 5: Keep Your Team Strong by Managing Workload and Avoiding Burnout
You’re so close to a successful and strategic expansion. You’ve done the analysis, hired well, and are working to support your team’s constant growth.
Something still nagging at you? Good - that means you know about burnout and workload management.
The last step to success is making sure your team’s workload is balanced and employees are challenged enough to make their work feel engaging and purposeful. Otherwise, you risk burnout or disengagement, both of which lead to lower performance and higher turnover.
Here’s a quick refresher of three ways to keep your team going strong:
Distribute Work Evenly
If some players are working too hard, they’re going to get burnt out. And then they’re going to need a break and everyone’s going to be stuck in a lurch. The solution? Distribute work evenly.
With AR Workflow, you can monitor the workload of each team member and make sure tasks are distributed and assigned evenly.
AR Workflow lets you monitor and balance your team's workload effectively with:
Real-Time Task Tracking: The platform provides a dashboard displaying each team member's assigned tasks and their current status, allowing you to see who is handling what at any given moment.
Detailed Analytics: Access reports that analyze task completion times and workloads over specific periods, helping you identify patterns and make informed decisions about task assignments.
If one person is taking on too much, you can adjust in real time and keep everything balanced and your team going strong.
Offer Flexibility and Support
A happy team is a productive team. If possible, offer flexible work arrangements—remote work, flexible hours, whatever makes sense for your business and company culture.
With AR Workflow, your team can easily be a work-everywhere team who still can access everything without a problem or excuse. We’ve built AR Workflow for modern times and industry leaders. This is the tool you can’t afford to not use.
Encourage Wellness and Breaks
We all need breaks. But many team members (especially our overachievers) hate to take them. The way to support your team is by setting a good example.
Make it clear that it’s okay to take breaks, recharge, and practice self-care.
Encourage your team to take time for themselves. Beyond that, explore the feasibility of offering a variety of wellness resources for your employees. This might look like stress management workshops, employee assistance programs, or something else unique to your workers or area.
Lastly, make sure you also exhibit the self-care practices and patterns of rest you’d like your team to practice. If you take breaks, they’ll feel comfortable doing so as well.
Healthy teams perform better—period.
By utilizing these analytics tools, you can gain valuable insights into your payment workflows, make informed decisions, and implement targeted strategies to improve payment speed and consistency. Get more organized and spend less time on repetitive admin with AR Workflow.
We’re invested in your success. Literally. Try a 14-day Free Trial of AR Workflow to see the difference and build the company that always gets paid, on time.
Turn Theory into Success with AR Workflow
Expanding your collections team isn’t just about adding more people—it’s about amplifying your impact.
When you strategically expand your team and support them in growth and rest, you’re scaling your business without the extra stress and weight that often comes with next-level growth. We’ve seen the results of strategic team expansion and management across decades of consulting work. It truly can make a difference.
When you take the time to analyze your team, understand the lay of the land, hire strategically, empower your team with tools like AR Workflow and invest in their development, you’re setting your business up for sustained growth, faster payments, and unstoppable momentum.
Make all of the above easier with AR Workflow. Let us be your first and simplest team expansion.
We’re invested in your success. Literally. Try a 14-day Free Trial of AR Workflow to see the difference and build the company that always gets paid.
So, what are you waiting for? Start implementing these strategies today. Take action. Make it easier, make it faster, and make it better for your customers. Find the best tool for you.
The result? A business that’s more profitable, more efficient, and more successful than ever. And you’re more organized and spending less time on admin. Grow your business without the stress. Your business deserves it, and so do you.
We’re invested in your success. Try our 14-day free trial and see the AR Workflow difference for yourself.
Turn Theory into Success with AR Workflow
While the above may all sound well and good, how are you going to work this advice into already existing workflows and project processes? We know you’re already overworked, exhausted, and pushed to your limit.
Being professional, organized, and befriending your adjuster can be easy. We like to use all of the above with AR Workflow. While there’s plenty of project management tools out there, we designed AR Workflow for our industry and restoration professionals like you
Consolidated Documentation
Remember what we said about thorough documentation and transparent communication?
That can start with AR Workflow.
With AR Workflow you’re always ready for questions or conversations. Keep all photos, notes, communications, and status updates in one place. Save time, while you level up the quality of your project management. Build comprehensive dossiers for each project to accelerate project completion, easy communication, and your payment timeline.
Customized Analytics & Insights
AR Workflow helps you keep your own stress low and your head clear with easy-to-understand, real-time insights and analytics on your project. By knowing what’s going on, you’ll be able to successfully communicate and negotiate skillfully with your adjuster. Make data-driven decisions, standardize operating procedures, and refine your process. Success starts with these real-time AR Workflow insights.
Automated Email & SMS Reminders
Lastly, AR Workflow keeps your communication with your adjuster consistent and professional with reminders, automation, and customizable email and SMS templates. Communicate clearly to accelerate your project, and always be ready and prepared for a successful encounter with your adjuster.
Sound like the kind of business you’d like to be running? We think so.
Try our 14-day free trial and see the AR Workflow difference for yourself.
The Path to Faster Payments and Long-Term Success
The restoration business is tough, but when you master the art of working with insurance adjusters, you unlock the door to faster payments, repeat business, and long-term success.
Understand their challenges, build trust through professionalism and consistency, and document everything with precision. When you do this, you’re not just another contractor—you’re the contractor they trust and want to work with. And use this article to guide your success to becoming “that contractor.”
By leveraging tools like AR Workflow to streamline your documentation, communication, and project management, you make it even easier for adjusters to say “yes” to your claims. And the more “yeses” you get, the faster you’ll get paid and the stronger your relationship with your adjuster.
This is your time. Step up and become the contractor who makes adjusters’ lives easier. It’s time for your business to take off. Faster payments, stronger relationships, and endless opportunities are all within your reach—go after them by adjusting your relationship with your adjuster. That change starts today!
Click here to sign up for your free, 14-day trial
Take Back Control of Your Payments
and Your Restoration Business
Mortgage companies might be shaping the future of restoration payments, but that doesn’t mean you have to be at their mercy. By understanding their processes, building strong relationships, streamlining your operations, and managing your cash flow, you can take back control of your payments—and your business.
This is your business. Rise above the challenges, take control of the process, and create the space for exponential growth. The future is in your hands—are you ready to seize it?
Click here to sign up for your free, 14-day trial