Order to Cash Process Automation: How to Streamline Your Financial Workflows

Modern financial teams cannot afford to have a slow and manual Order to Cash process. From delays in collections to missed follow-ups, every inefficiency impacts cash flow and decision-making.

The good news is that it is now possible to automate key steps with low-code solutions: quickly, securely, and without relying on IT.

What is the Order to Cash (O2C) Process?

The Order to Cash (O2C) process covers everything from when a customer places an order to when you receive, reconcile, and report the payment. Each step involves multiple departments (sales, billing, collections, finance) and connects various systems and handoffs along the way.

In most financial teams, O2C includes:

• Order validation
• Invoice issuance, which may involve gathering details from multiple sources
• Sending documents such as XML, invoices, or payment instructions to the customer
• Payment follow-up, often via email or phone calls
• Bank account verification to confirm payment receipt
• Reconciliation of the payment in your ERP or internal system
• Reporting for internal needs or compliance reasons

What makes O2C complex is how each step depends on the previous one. If someone issues an invoice late, your payment will be delayed. Outdated or incorrect customer data can lead to disputes. Manual follow-ups can let overdue accounts slip through the cracks.

The Order to Cash (O2C) process plays a critical role in business performance across several key areas:

• Cash flow: Slow collections or billing mean waiting longer for money to come in
• Customer relationships: Communication or documentation errors can create tensions
• Team productivity: Repetitive manual steps consume time that could be spent on more valuable work
• Forecasting: Lack of transparency makes revenue forecasting difficult

Why O2C is so problematic in most companies

At first glance, the O2C cycle seems simple. But behind the scenes, it is often patched together with manual solutions, scattered spreadsheets, and last-minute coordination that consume time and resources.

Here are some of the main pain points:

• Manual invoice generation means manually extracting data from CRMs or contracts, which slows down billing and increases the likelihood of errors, especially as volume grows.
• No visibility into payment status leaves financial teams constantly checking bank records or waiting for customers to confirm they have paid.
• Reactive follow-ups lead to inconsistent or delayed collections, with no simple way to track overdue invoices in one place.
• Disconnected systems (ERPs, CRMs, and banks rarely communicate seamlessly), forcing people to copy and paste between platforms just to keep the process moving.
• Frequent human error: A mistyped tax ID, missing invoice, or small data entry mistake can delay payments and create more work.

The result? Slower cash flow, frustrated customers, and teams bogged down in repetitive tasks instead of focusing on more strategic work.

As these problems become routine, people tend to accept them. But once you really look at the process, it becomes clear how much better things could work with automation: it goes beyond technical upgrades and truly drives financial performance.

What can be automated in the O2C process

You don’t need to automate everything at once to see results. Some of the biggest wins come from targeting small repetitive tasks that slow you down and lead to errors.

Here are five areas in O2C where automation makes a real difference:

1. Invoice Generation and Delivery

• Automatically create invoices as soon as an order is approved
• Extract customer and contract details directly from your ERP or CRM
• Send invoices and attachments (like XML or payment slips) to customers immediately

All of this reduces delays and manual errors.

2. Payment Tracking and Confirmation

• Monitor PIX, payment slips, or bank deposits received
• Quickly match payments to their corresponding invoices
• Send confirmations and update your internal records automatically

This means you’re not stuck reconciling payments manually or chasing missing information.

3. Overdue Invoice Follow-Ups

• Identify unpaid invoices as soon as they are overdue
• Schedule reminders via email or WhatsApp
• Flag overdue cases for internal review if necessary

Reminders are sent on time, every time, so there’s no need to rely on someone’s memory.

4. Data Synchronization Between Systems

• Update your ERP or CRM as soon as payments are confirmed
• Mark deals as invoiced
• Send updates to dashboards or reports without manual work

This way, all your systems stay synchronized, and you avoid tedious copy-pasting.

5. Automated Reporting and Compliance

• Automatically create daily cash inflow reports
• Group receivables by customer or by how long they’ve been open
• Export SPED or NFe data in the required format

This frees your team to spend less time on formatting and more time on analysis.

How Financial Teams Can Automate O2C with Low Code

Many financial teams hesitate to automate because it seems like heavy IT work or something only technical experts can handle. This may have been true in the past, with solutions requiring custom code, consultants, or complex integrations.

Things are different now. Today, there are tools that allow finance professionals to create and manage automations with low code, often using visual builders, pre-defined components, and just a touch of scripting for custom tweaks.

Instead of handing everything off to IT, finance teams can drive improvements themselves, moving faster and with fewer roadblocks.

1. You can use what’s already built

Modern automation tools let you create workflows using simple blocks and rules. There’s no need to develop full applications from scratch. You can automate things like invoice sending, payment waiting, and ERP updates using straightforward configurations.

Any lightweight scripting (like reformatting a file or parsing a bank return) is kept separate and reusable. You’re not building a new system, just shaping individual workflows.

2. Less reliance on IT

IT teams are often overwhelmed, and waiting weeks for a small change or report can slow down finance. Low-code and no-code tools give finance more independence. IT can still step in for things like security, but finance won’t be stuck in line for every tweak or improvement.

This makes finance more agile and able to test and implement new ideas quickly.

3. Keep your current systems

You don’t need to replace your ERP or CRM for automations to work. Many low-code solutions help bridge the gaps between what you already use. You can move data, add logic, or make transformations—all without major infrastructure changes.

This is especially useful if you’re working with older systems that are difficult or expensive to change.

4. Start small, scale as you see results

There’s no need for a massive overhaul. Start with something manageable, like automating an invoice process or payment follow-up. As you see success, you can add more features, steps, or integrations.

This keeps things low-risk and allows your team to build confidence and momentum along the way.

Low-code automation empowers finance professionals, providing the tools they need to design and refine their own workflows. It improves accuracy, speed, and visibility, offering a flexible approach that delivers real operational advantages.

A Real-World Example: Optimizing O2C with Low Code at Dabble

Dabble, a Brazilian e-commerce studio specializing in synthetic product photography, was facing bottlenecks in their onboarding (and indirectly, in their order-to-cash process). The team relied on too many emails, forms, and data copies to Airtable, handling each order individually.

They had a few options:

• Build a custom solution (but that meant dealing with React, APIs, hosting, and maintenance.)
• Use standard form tools (but these couldn’t elegantly handle product variations or dynamic customer needs.)
• Or try low-code automation (with Abstra).

So, Dabble’s CTO, PJ, used Abstra to create a dynamic, intelligent form powered by concise Python scripts:

• The form could change quickly (requesting additional product details or file uploads as needed, based on customer responses).
• Python scripts ensured all data was normalized and formatted before even reaching Airtable, avoiding errors from the start.
• Data flowed directly into their database, eliminating manual transfers or repeated work.

The impact was immediate:

• 5× more orders processed, all with the same team (no need to hire more people).
• No more back-and-forth emails. The entire intake process was moved to a streamlined online form.
• The approach set them up to scale even further. Next, they automated delivery forms for 3D subcontractors.

CTO PJ summarized:

“We increased the number of orders we can process by 5×. The manual back-and-forth email sending is now serialized into an online form, which we can iterate on quickly using just Python.” abstra.io

Why this matters for O2C

• Dynamic order capture: Finance teams can use similar forms to collect order or invoice data directly into the right systems, making it easier to keep the process smooth and accurate.
• Built-in data hygiene: Adding just a bit of code upfront means cleaner, more reliable data flowing into your ERP, reducing reconciliation headaches.
• Easy to update: Like Dabble, you can implement, test, and improve workflows in just a few days or even hours, rather than waiting weeks or months.

This goes beyond faster onboarding. It demonstrates how simple tools and low-code solutions enable teams to scale and optimize workflows that previously relied heavily on IT support.

Getting Started: First O2C Automations You Can Build Today

You don’t need to reinvent your entire O2C process to make progress. In fact, the best way to bring automation to your financial workflows is to start with those repetitive, high-friction tasks that follow clear rules and consume your team’s time.

Here are three practical O2C automations to try right away (little to no IT help needed):

1. Automated Invoice Creation and Delivery

Scenario: After each closed contract, someone manually creates and sends the invoice.

Automation idea:

• Trigger invoice creation automatically as soon as a deal is marked “closed” in your CRM or when a contract is uploaded.
• Populate customer information, amounts, due dates, and payment details using a pre-defined template.
• Send the invoice to the customer, including any necessary attachments like PDF, payment slip, or XML NFe.

What you need:

• A platform like Abstra or a similar automation tool
• Basic scripts to extract and validate data from the CRM
• Email integration (Gmail, Outlook, etc.)

2. Payment Follow-Up Flow

Scenario: Your team manually checks bank statements and only follows up on unpaid invoices when someone remembers.

Automation idea:

• Integrate with your bank or payment gateway (PIX, invoice, etc.) to check payment status daily.
• Automatically identify overdue invoices based on due dates and missed payments.
• Send follow-up reminders at regular intervals (e.g., 3, 7, 14 days after the due date) via email or WhatsApp.
• Highlight accounts that may need manual attention.

What you need:

• Access to a payment API or statement export
• Conditional logic and message templates
• Optional integration with your ERP or BI system

3. Customer-Facing Order Forms That Feed Directly Into Your Financial System

Scenario: Sales or onboarding teams send back-and-forth emails to collect customer details, then someone types everything into an ERP or spreadsheet.

Automation idea:

• Build a smart intake form that adjusts based on the customer or service
• Automatically validate key details like tax ID, payment preferences, and invoice data
• Send this information directly to your ERP, CRM, or billing tool in the correct format

What you need:

• A form builder with conditional logic and scripting support
• Basic code for data formatting and validation
• A way to connect the form to your backend system (API, webhook, or spreadsheet)

Start Small. Improve Quickly.

You don’t need to take on massive projects. These automations are manageable, can be implemented bit by bit, and can be owned by your finance team instead of needing developers for everything. That’s the shift: you’re empowered to make changes directly.

If you use a tool like Abstra, you’ll be surprised how quickly you can set up these workflows, test them, and keep improving as you see what works best.

Final Thoughts

Order-to-Cash processes used to feel set in stone, tied to legacy systems, always needing IT, and slow to change. But that’s not how things work anymore.

Finance teams now have the power to simplify, automate, and take real control of their workflows with low code. You can start small, make quick wins, and keep building. No more stagnation or waiting for permission.

The teams that make the most progress are the ones that decide not to tolerate inefficiency anymore and start shaping their own daily routines. It doesn’t take a revolution. Just the right tools and the mindset that finance can (and should) lead the way when it comes to automation.