Collect payments for goods or services
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 | 15 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 15 occupations that perform it.
- Receive cash and checks and make deposits.
- Count money and make bank deposits.
- Record, collect, or pay off bets, issuing receipts as necessary.
- Receive and process advance registration payments, mail letters of confirmation, or return checks when registrations cannot be accepted.
- Collect rents for post office boxes.
- Collect fees, commissions, or other payments, according to contract terms.
- Collect fees for licenses.
- Receive and process payments from customers, using electronic transaction services.
- Contact customers to collect payments on delinquent accounts.
- Collect taxes from individuals or businesses according to prescribed laws and regulations.
- Collect payment upon job completion.
- Bill customers for repair work, and collect payment.
- Explain cable service to subscribers after installation, and collect any installation fees due.
- Collect coins and bills from machines, prepare invoices, and settle accounts with concessionaires.
- Collect coins from vending machines, refill machines, and remove aged merchandise.
- Collect payments and record data pertaining to funds and expenditures.
- Issue and cash money orders.
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
Step-by-step workflows that name this activity, with the prompts to paste and what to keep for yourself.
Others for scheduling, planning and resource control
Who does this work
15 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Agents and Business Managers of Artists, Performers, and Athletes
- Coin, Vending, and Amusement Machine Servicers and Repairers
- Compliance Officers
- Credit Analysts
- Driver/Sales Workers
- Food Service Managers
- Gambling Managers
- Home Appliance Repairers
- Lodging Managers
- Mechanical Door Repairers
- Online Merchants
- Postmasters and Mail Superintendents
- Tax Examiners and Collectors, and Revenue Agents
- Telecommunications Line Installers and Repairers
- Treasurers and Controllers
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 deposits, payments or fees | 27 |
| 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.