Calculator
The Directors

Christopher de Zeeuw
Director

Jacques Correia
Technical Director
DSO ROI Calculator
Your money is sitting in
someone else’s bank account.
Here is what it is worth to get it back.
Your numbers. Your potential.
Choose your currency and change the three orange fields. Results update instantly. Currency changes the symbol; it does not convert amounts.
Once-off cash released
Cash equivalent, as a share of revenue
Explore the Calculations tab for every step, or Sensitivity to compare improvement levels.
Calculations — every step of the working
Inputs follow Your Numbers. Adjust the annual interest rate below.
What released cash earns in the bank, or what your overdraft costs.
- Defaults: 45 days DSO, 30% improvement and 9% annual interest. All are editable assumptions.
- Revenue is spread evenly across a 365-day year.
- Cash released is once-off. Interest earned or finance cost saved is recurring while that cash remains available.
- Three-year interest is simple interest, without compounding.
- Figures exclude VAT and are before tax. Software costs, bad-debt savings and staff-time savings are not included.
- The annual revenue comparison expresses cash released as a share of revenue; it is not additional sales or profit.
What is DSO?
Days Sales Outstanding answers one question:
A simple way to picture it
Think of your business as a tap and a bucket. Sales are the tap. Cash in the bank is the bucket. DSO is how long the water spends in the pipe in between.
At a DSO of 45 days, roughly 45 days’ worth of sales is sitting in that pipe — invoiced and earned, but not in your account. Shorten it to 31.5 days and the cash tied up in the missing 13.5 days is released.
The one piece of maths
For example, a business invoicing R60 million a year sells about R164,000 a day. At 45 days, about R7.4 million is owed to it. Reduce DSO by 30% and about R2.2 million comes back as cash.
Why a high DSO hurts, even when sales are good
- Your customers hold cash you could use to pay suppliers or invest.
- An overdraft can mean paying interest to borrow money you have already earned.
- Growth can tie up more cash in the debtors book.
- Older debts may become harder to collect.
- Your team spends time chasing invoices.
What actually brings DSO down
- Invoices reach the right person as soon as they are raised.
- Proof of delivery, signed orders and invoices are linked.
- Documents are easy to find, reducing requests for copies.
- You can see who owes what and how old it is.
- Automated follow-up helps keep collections moving.
These are the processes Capisol Collect is designed to support. Use the Sensitivity tab to explore the workbook’s 10%–40% improvement scenarios.
Sensitivity — compare the possibilities
Both tables update with your inputs. Orange highlights the workbook’s default 30% improvement.