Collect deposits, payments or fees
Part of the output can be produced by software today.
An agent can propose the plan, chase the replies and keep the record current. To actually change anything it needs write access to a calendar or work system, and a person still owns the tradeoffs when two plans collide.
| How automatable | Partly automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Scheduling, planning and resource control |
| Jobs that do it | 27 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | Tools and auth, Builders |
| O*NET activity | Monitoring and Controlling Resources (4.A.4.c.3) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 27 occupations that perform it.
- Collect fines and respond to complaints about fines.
- Collect money from students for school-related projects.
- Collect coins deposited in meters.
- Perform various cash handling tasks, such as collecting payments, making bank deposits, or managing petty cash.
- Receive payments and post amounts paid to customer accounts.
- Receive, record, and bank cash, checks, and vouchers.
- Receive checks and cash for deposit, verify amounts, and check accuracy of deposit slips.
- Issue various permits and licenses, such as marriage, fishing, hunting, and dog licenses, and collect appropriate fees.
- Call customers to collect payment on delinquent accounts.
- Determine charges for services requested, collect deposits or payments, or arrange for billing.
- Compute bills, collect payments, and make change for guests.
- Perform office duties, such as telemarketing or customer service inquiries, maintaining staff records, billing patients, or receiving payments.
- Send out notices and accept fine payments for lost or overdue books.
- Accept payment on accounts.
- Collect and record customer deposits and fees and issue receipts, using computers.
- Collect payment for merchandise, record transactions, and send items, such as checks or money orders for further processing.
- Receive payment and record receipts for services.
- Prepare customer invoices and accept payment.
What we would actually use
One recommendation rather than a shortlist, because a shortlist is just your problem handed back. This is what we would buy for scheduling, planning and resource control, and what it costs.
Scheduling is a connector problem rather than an intelligence one, and $9 a month of Make covers both the calendar and the chasing. An agent platform priced per seat adds nothing you would notice here.
Chosen for the cheapest thing that does the job, not the best funded. Nothing on this site is sponsored, and the full landscape is there when you want to disagree with us.
The rest of the category
Context, not alternatives to weigh up. We name the layer rather than promise a named product does your specific task.
Matched from the kind of work, not from vendor marketing. Check any of them can reach the system your records actually live in — that connection, not the model, is where these projects stall.
How people actually do it
No workflow names this activity yet, but these automate the same kind of work, with the prompts to paste and what to keep for yourself.
Who does this work
27 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Bill and Account Collectors
- Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks
- Court, Municipal, and License Clerks
- Credit Authorizers, Checkers, and Clerks
- Customer Service Representatives
- Hotel, Motel, and Resort Desk Clerks
- Insurance Claims and Policy Processing Clerks
- Interviewers, Except Eligibility and Loan
- Library Assistants, Clerical
- Library Technicians
- Loan Interviewers and Clerks
- Mail Clerks and Mail Machine Operators, Except Postal Service
- Medical Secretaries and Administrative Assistants
- New Accounts Clerks
- Office Clerks, General
- Office Machine Operators, Except Computer
- Order Clerks
- Parking Enforcement Workers
- Postal Service Clerks
- Postal Service Mail Carriers
- Receptionists and Information Clerks
- Reservation and Transportation Ticket Agents and Travel Clerks
- Secretaries and Administrative Assistants, Except Legal, Medical, and Executive
- Stockers and Order Fillers
- Switchboard Operators, Including Answering Service
- Teaching Assistants, Preschool, Elementary, Middle, and Secondary School, Except Special Education
- Tellers
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Collect fares or payments”. In practice they tend to be done by the same person, in the same sitting.
| Activity | Jobs |
|---|---|
| Collect payments for goods or services | 15 |
| Collect fares or payment from customers | 11 |
Method. The activity, its taxonomy placement and the occupations that perform it come straight from the public-domain O*NET 30.3 database. The automatability band is ours: we map each of O*NET’s 41 generalized work activities to how much of its output current software can produce, assuming a person still reviews and owns the result. It is a coarse three-way judgment on purpose. A precise-looking percentage here would be invented.