What it means
A customer tells a collections team it will pay an agreed amount on a specified date. A promise can guide cash planning, but only verified payment shows whether it was kept.
Cash collection promise kept rate measures the share of qualifying due promises satisfied under a stated amount, timing and allocation rule. Define a promise as the customer's authorised commitment, recording amount, due date, currency and covered invoice or account.
An internal guess is not a customer promise, and a message forwarded by a third party may not prove the customer made the commitment. Keep the source and verify when needed.
Set the due cohort by scoring promises whose due dates fell in the measurement period, since future promises are not yet kept or broken. State whether the rule requires funds received or sent, allow only the grace period that a contract or collection policy defines, and do not silently extend it to improve the rate.
Check the full amount, because a small partial payment does not necessarily satisfy a full promise, and make any threshold rule explicit. Match the account by verifying that received cash applies to the relevant customer and promise rather than another account with a similar payer name.
For repayment plans with several promised dates, decide whether the unit is each instalment or the entire plan. Track revised promises by preserving the original and revised terms instead of overwriting history, and avoid routine re-ageing, because repeatedly replacing a missed promise with a new one can make performance appear better while cash never arrives.
Oracle documents a collections report that reconciles promises to pay with broken promises and payment progress, which shows how specific commitments can be monitored. APQC measures invoice lines paid on time under invoice terms, a related but different metric, since a promise date may come after the original invoice due date.
A customer replying on the promised date is not the same as paying, and a receipt that later bounces or is reversed may invalidate a previously kept status, so define a settlement window. Use value-weighted analysis, because ten small kept promises can mask one large missed amount, and report count rate and promised-value performance separately.
A promise due yesterday without visible bank data may be pending verification, not definitively broken, and a disputed invoice should not be treated as a routine broken promise without context. Segment fairly by dispute and payment rail, keep reports within appropriate access, and use the metric for forecast and process analysis, not as permission to alter a payment plan without authorisation; a high rate is useful only if collectors record genuine commitments and do not exclude difficult customers.
In practice
Real-world examples.
Example
A customer promises $5,000 by Friday and verified funds arrive Friday, so the instalment is kept under a receipt-date rule.
Example
A customer pays $2,000 of a promised $5,000; it is not fully kept unless the declared threshold permits that outcome.
Example
A promise is replaced after its due date; the original miss remains visible instead of disappearing from the cohort.
Formula
Calculation
Illustrative count rate = qualifying due promises satisfied in full within the stated window / all qualifying promises due in the cohort x 100
Illustrative value rate = verified cash received against qualifying promises / total promised value x 100
Worked example. A fictional team has 90 qualifying promises due in a month, and 72 are met in full.
- Count rate = 72 / 90 x 100 = 80%.
- If the 90 promises total $450,000 and verified cash against them is $360,000, the value rate = $360,000 / $450,000 x 100 = 80%.
- If instead the 18 missed promises include the three largest at $40,000 each, the value rate would fall well below the count rate, which is why both are shown.
Show unresolved verification separately.Case study
Seen in the real world.
This entirely fictional case follows Granite Services. Its collections dashboard showed nearly every promise kept because missed commitments were overwritten with new dates. Finance preserved the original terms, linked cleared receipts and separated revised plans.
The resulting rate was used to adjust cash forecasts rather than to assume all unpaid amounts were lost. The team also compared the count rate with the value rate each month and asked collectors to record the cause of each miss, such as a payment-rail delay, an unclear invoice reference or a customer cash constraint. The case does not authorise contact with any real debtor, and it shows only how a measure can be built to be honest.
Watch out
Common mistakes.
- Treating a customer statement of intent as a received payment.
- Overwriting missed promises with later dates and losing the original outcome.
- Counting small partial payments as full performance without an explicit threshold.
Questions
People also ask.
Is this the same as invoices paid on time?
No. The promise date can differ from original invoice terms.
Can a promise be revised?
Yes, when authorised, but keep the earlier version and its status.
What if cash is reversed later?
Review the kept status under the declared settlement and reversal rule.
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