While some of the trends are not encouraging, the data still does not give a clear picture of the precise issues companies are facing in managing the inflow of deductions. Some of the major issues that A/R leaders† are facing in this space are:

• Cross-department cooperation
• Inefficient processes
• Access to information
• Lack of resources
• Senior management buy-in

All of the above issues have to do with internal processes and teams ? internal to the organization?s† capability to rectify the issues in deductions management. Unfortunately, it is often determined that† deductions are not an area to focus transformation for an organization as the impact on business is low.† Hence, creating the buy-in for reforming deductions is often difficult as it is seen as a low priority activity for† CFOs compared to other problems with more visible impact. Regardless, reforms in deductions should still† be considered. For deductions, cross-department cooperation is one of the most complex issues. Although deductions are a† company-wide problem, the major responsibility to resolve a deduction remains with the credit and A/R† department. This creates a complex scenario because the investigation responsibility is with the A/R team while the investigation execution may include one or more different teams. To solve this contention,† companies have been experimenting with increased accountability for different teams. Cross-functional teams and vendor compliance groups have been deployed by many large firms to improve communication,† both internal and external, and resolve deductions. Inefficient processes are a major issue in deductions management as well because of the high percentage of manual tasks and the high variability in workflows for different types of cases. But even though deductions management has many challenges, it also presents many opportunities. When the gaps are large, technology helps to rapidly close the holes and allow businesses to realize considerable efficiency gains in a short time. Access to information is another definitive component necessary to resolve deduction cases. Deduction research has to be backed by documentation. But collecting all the documents and keeping them in order incurs significant costs. The rapid retrieval and association of backup documentation in a timely manner is a† game-changer for deductions. Lack of resources has also been a consistent issue for the deductions team.