Chasing late payments — a practical playbook

Most invoices are paid late for boring reasons. The invoice went to the wrong person. It is missing a purchase-order number. It arrived the day after the payment run. Paying requires finding bank details, opening a banking app and typing a reference.

Very few are late because someone decided not to pay you. That matters, because it means the effective interventions are almost all about removing friction, and almost none are about being firmer.

Before the invoice: remove the reasons it can stall

Agree terms in writing, with a date. Not "Net 30" — the actual calendar date. See invoice payment terms explained for why the shorthand gets counted three different ways.

Find out who actually pays. In anything larger than a few people, the person who hired you is not the person who pays you. Ask, at the start: who should the invoice go to, and does it need a purchase-order number? A missing PO is the most common silent rejection there is — the invoice is simply never entered.

Invoice immediately. Terms usually run from the invoice date, so a week's delay in sending is a week added to getting paid. This is the single highest-leverage habit on the list and it costs nothing.

The invoice itself

Everything in how to write an invoice applies, but three things matter disproportionately for speed:

1. A pay link, at the top. Not bank details at the bottom.
2. The due date as a date, near the amount.
3. The PO reference, if there is one, where their system will find it.

The follow-up schedule

Fixed, and automatic where possible. The point of a schedule is that it removes the decision about whether today is the day to be annoying.

3 days before due. A short, friendly note that it is coming up. This is the most valuable message in the sequence and almost nobody sends it. It catches the wrong-recipient and missing-PO failures while there is still time, and it never reads as chasing.

On the due date. Short. "Invoice 1042 is due today, here is the link."

7 days late. Still friendly, now specific: the amount, the date it was due, the link. Ask directly whether there is anything blocking it — that question surfaces the real reason more often than any amount of politeness.

14 days late. Change the recipient. Go to accounts payable directly if you have been emailing your contact, or to your contact if you have been emailing AP. A message that has been ignored twice will be ignored a third time by the same person.

30 days late. Phone. Not email. A two-minute call resolves what a month of emails did not, because you find out in real time whether the problem is a lost invoice, a dispute, or a cash-flow issue at their end — and those three need completely different responses.

45+ days. A formal notice referencing your terms and any statutory interest, with a stated date after which you will escalate. Then actually escalate.

What to do when the reason is real

"We never received it." Sometimes true. Resend, and copy a second person. If it happens twice with the same customer, your invoices are being filtered — send from a different address or check whether they need a portal submission instead of email.

"It's in the next payment run." Ask when that is, and put the date in your calendar. If it passes, that is a broken promise you can reference, which is much stronger ground than a general complaint about lateness.

"There's a query on it." Get the query in writing today. An unspecified query can sit indefinitely; a specific one you can answer or credit. If part of the invoice is disputed and part is not, ask them to pay the undisputed part now — that is a normal request and it is very often agreed.

"We're having cash-flow problems." Believe them, and get a payment plan in writing with dates. A customer paying you in instalments is better than a customer avoiding you. Stop extending credit until it is cleared.

What actually moves the number

In rough order of effect on how fast you get paid:

1. A saved payment method. A repeat customer with a card on file pays in one click. This is worth more than every reminder in this article combined.
2. Invoicing the day the work is done.
3. The pre-due reminder.
4. Shorter terms — Net 14 rather than Net 30, for customers who will accept it.
5. Deposits up front for new customers or large projects.

Notice that four of the five happen before the invoice is late.

What not to do

Do not stop working without saying so. Downing tools silently turns a payment problem into a relationship problem and gives them a counter-grievance.

Do not threaten what you will not do. "We will pass this to a collections agency on the 15th" is effective exactly once if you do it and never if you do not.

Do not let it drift past your jurisdiction's limitation period. Debts expire. Six years is common, but it is not universal and it is not a deadline you want to discover.

How this works here

Invoices carry a pay link, customers get a portal where they can save a card and settle in one click, and reminders go out on a schedule rather than when you remember. The overdue sweep runs daily, so an invoice that passes its due date is flagged the next morning rather than whenever you next look.

None of that collects a debt from someone who will not pay. It does remove the reasons the people who would pay have not yet.