Lotus Communications adopts PayNow features for pre-payment and collections
Lotus Communications, one of the largest privately owned radio groups in the U.S., uses PayNow pre-payments and the collections tool to cut manual work, reduce days outstanding and improve cash flow.
Lotus Communications47 stations in California, Nevada, Washington and Arizona · Published June 13, 2025
Cash-in-advance buys and collections management were manual and inefficient.
PayNow pre-payments and the collections tool, with AE access built in.
Time savings, reduced days outstanding and increased cash flow.
The challenge
Cash-in-advance buys and collections management were manual and inefficient
The company has been using PayNow for almost three years. They were an early adopter of the platform and immediately saw increased adoption among their customers for electronic payment remittance.
The organization had two areas related to payments where challenges arose: a high volume of cash-in-advance (CIA) ad buys and managing collections. In both situations, manual work was necessary, creating lots of inefficiencies.
The solution
PayNow features enable smoother workflows
The company was able to use the pre-payment capabilities to streamline the process. With this feature, they can:
- View and filter lists for pre-payment requests to monitor their status
- Edit or cancel a request
- Generate requests quickly
- Add multiple stations for pre-payments
- Include a custom message to the customer
- Allow advertisers to make the payment via guest checkout
- Receive notifications when the pre-payment is complete
Spaulding said, “With pre-payments, it’s almost completely eliminated the need to do any type of manual Excel version of an invoice to clients.”
The collections tool also made a difference. It’s a valuable resource for finance and business managers while also offering access to account executives. It’s a controlled environment where salespeople only see their customers. From the dashboard, users can send a guest checkout link, process a payment or launch an email with a payment request.
Spaulding noted, “I love that AEs have access and that, every month, I can go through aging for standard collection emails to clients that are 60-90-120 days and easily send them a payment reminder statement. It’s a huge timesaver.”
I’d say the efficiency on my end with the reduction in the amount of time to run through the aging and ask for payments. I also believe it’s helped reduce days outstanding and increase our cash flow.
The results
Time savings, reduced days outstanding and increased cash flow
By fully embracing PayNow and all its features, Lotus has had some great wins. Spaulding relayed that she has seen improvements in efficiency, days outstanding and cash flow.
The metrics from PayNow demonstrate this. They’ve had year-over-year growth in PayNow payments of 34.3%. Their Las Vegas market now sends 93% of invoices electronically, and over one-third (35%) of these result in payments in the portal.
- Less time spent running through aging and asking for payments
- Reduced days outstanding
- Increased cash flow
