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This playbook shows how to put Erstan to work on accounts receivable: surfacing overdue invoices, reading a customer’s balance in context, and drafting collections outreach. Each recipe works two ways — ask in Chat, or run a saved agent — and every write to NetSuite pauses for your approval.
These recipes read from your own NetSuite account, so the numbers, customers, and invoices are yours. Reads (aging, balances, SuiteQL) run on their own; only actions that change NetSuite or send a message ask for approval first.

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Two ways to run a recipe

Open Chat, type the prompt, and send. Erstan finds the records, runs read-only queries, and streams back a summary you can refine in follow-up messages. Good for one-off questions and exploration. See Chatting with Erstan.

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Recipe: AR aging summary

Get a snapshot of what’s outstanding, bucketed by how overdue it is.
1

Ask for the aging summary

In Chat, send a prompt like:
Give me an AR aging summary as of today — total open receivables grouped into current, 1–30, 31–60, 61–90, and 90+ days past due.
2

Let Erstan query and bucket

Erstan runs read-only SuiteQL against your open invoices, groups them by days past due, and returns a table with totals per bucket.
3

Open the detail in Canvas

Click the query or result reference to open it in the Canvas panel, where you can read the underlying rows and export them to a document or workbook.
Narrow the picture with follow-ups in the same thread: “Just subsidiary EMEA”, “Only customers over $10,000 past due”, or “Show the 90+ bucket by customer”.

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Recipe: overdue invoices over a threshold

Pull the specific invoices that need chasing, filtered to what matters. Example prompts:
  • “List open invoices more than 30 days past due with a balance over $5,000, sorted by amount.”
  • “Which customers have the largest past-due balances right now? Show the top 10.”
  • “Show overdue invoices for Acme Corp and how many days past due each one is.”
Erstan returns a ranked list with the invoice number, customer, amount, due date, and days overdue. Open any result in Canvas to inspect the NetSuite record inline, or ask Erstan to turn the list into a document you can share with your team.

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Recipe: customer balance with context

Before reaching out, understand the relationship — not just the number.
1

Ask for the balance and history

What’s Acme Corp’s current open balance? Break it down by invoice, and note their recent payment history and any credits on file.
2

Read the grounded answer

Erstan pulls the customer’s open invoices, payments, and credit memos from NetSuite and summarizes the balance with the context behind it — useful before a call or a dunning email.
3

Add references for richer context

Turn on Knowledge so Erstan can factor in your searchable Team File notes or policies alongside the live data.

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Recipe: draft a dunning email (with approval)

Drafting a reminder is a read step. Sending it, or posting anything back to NetSuite, is a write — so Erstan pauses for you.
1

Ask for the draft

Draft a polite but firm payment reminder to Acme Corp’s AP contact covering their 3 invoices over 60 days past due. Reference the invoice numbers and amounts.
2

Review and refine the draft

Erstan writes the email in the transcript. Edit it with follow-ups — “make it warmer”, “add our payment portal link”, “offer a 10-day extension” — until it reads right.
3

Approve before anything is sent or written

If you ask Erstan to send the message or log activity on the customer record, an approval card appears with Run action / Don’t run and an expandable Before/After preview. Nothing leaves Erstan or touches NetSuite until you approve. See Approving and rejecting AI actions.
Sending outreach and writing to NetSuite (logging an activity, updating a record) are write actions. They require your approval by default. Auto-approve writes skips that prompt for the session — leave it off for collections work so you review every message before it goes out, and every change before it posts.

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Make it repeatable with an agent

When you run the same collections review every week, save it as an agent instead of re-typing prompts.
Open the Marketplace and browse the Accounts Receivable desk for ready-made agents that find overdue invoices and draft outreach grounded in your NetSuite data. Adding one creates an editable agent (or runs a guided setup that connects the services it needs). See Adding agents from the Marketplace.
Create an Assistant agent with a Chat trigger, give it instructions like “find overdue invoices and draft reminders, always pausing for approval before sending”, and attach the NetSuite tools it needs. Walk through it in Create your first agent.
Put the agent on a weekly schedule. Each run becomes a task that moves Queued → In Progress → Needs Review → Complete, so a collections owner reviews the aging summary and approves any outreach from the Needs Review queue. See Reviewing and approving agent work.
A scheduled or task-run agent still pauses for approval on writes. Decide who reviews each run and confirm the agent’s NetSuite tools use Require approval for any send or update — see Managing NetSuite: tools & write policy.

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Next steps

Approvals

How write actions pause for your sign-off, with the Before/After preview.

Reporting with SuiteQL

Go deeper on querying NetSuite and turning results into documents.

Add a collections agent

Install a ready-made agent from the Accounts Receivable desk.

Accounts payable

The sister playbook for vendor bills and payment runs.