ezyCollect launches Aimie to tackle late SME payments

ezyCollect by Sidetrade has launched Aimie, an autonomous AI collections agent for small and medium-sized businesses aimed at firms dealing with persistent late payments.

New analysis from ezyCollect by Sidetrade shows Australian businesses are paid an average of 46 days after invoicing, against average terms of 27 days. Based on more than AUD $164 billion in Australian B2B transactions and 1.1 million buyers, companies are waiting 19 days beyond agreed terms to receive payment.

For smaller businesses, that delay can tie up working capital when cash reserves are already under pressure. ezyCollect by Sidetrade linked the issue to rising operating costs, wage pressures, higher interest rates, and regulatory changes affecting how employers and merchants manage outgoings.

Payday Super, now in effect, requires employers to pay superannuation on payday. Another rule change will prevent businesses from applying surcharges to eftpos, Mastercard, and Visa payments, adding pressure to margins and pricing decisions for many small operators.

Aimie is designed to automate collections by identifying which accounts to prioritise, spotting customers likely to pay late, and tailoring collection activity to past payment behaviour. Already used in large organisations, the tool is now being introduced to smaller businesses, which typically have leaner finance teams.

The system draws on Sidetrade's Data Lake, built on AUD $12.8 trillion in B2B transactions and more than 1.5 billion payment experiences. That dataset informs payment predictions and collection actions across customer accounts.

Cash pressure

The figures underline a long-running problem for Australian small and medium-sized enterprises, many of which must keep paying staff, suppliers, and tax obligations while waiting for customers to settle invoices. A 19-day payment gap can leave firms relying on overdrafts, delaying investment, or straining supplier relationships.

Several sectors already use ezyCollect by Sidetrade's broader platform, including construction and building services, manufacturing, food and beverage, and wholesale and distribution. Those industries often face a combination of thin margins, long payment cycles, and high working capital needs.

Aimie is intended to give smaller businesses access to data-driven collections methods typically used by larger companies with bigger finance departments. Rather than working through accounts manually, users can direct staff attention to cases where intervention is most likely to affect the outcome.

Arjun Singh, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of ezyCollect by Sidetrade, said: "As you grow, you cannot keep hiring experienced finance people just to keep pace with collections. The work grows faster than the team, and most of it goes on chasing accounts that were always going to pay, because you have no real way of knowing where to focus. Aimie changes this situation. She watches every account, knows how each customer has paid before, works out who is likely to be late, and goes after the cash that is genuinely at risk. What she gives a finance team back is time, for the customers and the hard cases where a person's judgement is what changes the outcome."

Post-acquisition launch

The launch comes roughly a year after ezyCollect's AUD $66.5 million acquisition by Sidetrade. Since joining the French order-to-cash software group, the Australian business has been able to draw on Sidetrade's broader transaction data and product development resources.

That link is central to Aimie's launch. While ezyCollect built its business around accounts receivable software for SMEs, Sidetrade has focused on order-to-cash intelligence at a larger international scale, giving the combined business access to a broader pool of payment information.

For finance teams, the practical question is whether automation can reduce the routine chasing involved in collections. Businesses often spend time following up invoices that will eventually be paid, while genuinely at-risk accounts may not receive attention early enough to prevent delays from widening.

By using historical payment patterns to rank accounts and trigger action, tools such as Aimie are part of a broader shift towards more predictive receivables management. That shift has gathered pace as businesses look for ways to protect cash flow without adding staff in back-office functions.

More than 1,500 companies across 23 countries use ezyCollect by Sidetrade's platform. Its latest Australian payment data suggests pressure on receivables remains significant, with businesses still waiting 19 days beyond terms to be paid.