Payment reminder template: three letters for an overdue invoice

The three letters below are HelloCRM's own default wording; the invoice's details go in place of the square brackets. You can rewrite them, but keep the structure: each states the same facts, only more firmly.

1. First reminder (3 days after the due date). Subject: Reminder: invoice [invoice number]. Text: Dear [customer name], a friendly reminder that invoice [invoice number] was due on [due date]. The amount still open is [amount]. If you have already paid, please disregard this message. [payment link] Kind regards, [company name]
2. Second reminder (10 days after the due date). Subject: Second reminder: invoice [invoice number]. Text: Dear [customer name], invoice [invoice number] is [number of days] days overdue and [amount] is still open. Please settle it in the next few days, or let us know if something is wrong with it. [payment link] Kind regards, [company name]
3. Final notice (30 days after the due date). Subject: Final notice: invoice [invoice number]. Text: Dear [customer name], invoice [invoice number], due on [due date], is [number of days] days overdue. Please pay the outstanding [amount] within 8 days. [payment link] Kind regards, [company name]

The first letter assumes the buyer forgot: it reminds them and gives a way out ("if you have already paid"). The second states a fact (so many days overdue) and asks for an answer: pay, or say if there is a problem. The third sets a deadline.

If a buyer answers the second letter by saying something is wrong with the invoice, pause the reminders for that invoice and talk it through. If they are right, an issued invoice is put right with a storno or a corrective invoice; which one, your accountant will tell you.

At that point letters have done what they can: call, and ask what happened and when they can pay. An agreement to pay in instalments often brings more than another notice. If that does not work either, discuss the next step (late-payment interest or debt collection, for example) with your accountant or a lawyer; their rules are not the subject of this article.

Meanwhile it is worth deciding whether the customer gets new work or deliveries while the old invoice is open. That is better fixed in advance as a rule than argued over case by case.

In the Invoicing module, payment reminders are switched on in the settings, and until you switch them on not a single letter goes out: mail to your customers is your decision. You can change the days and the wording, with up to five steps; the texts can carry the invoice number, the amount, the due date, the days overdue, the customer's and your company's name, and a payment link.

• Each step sends one letter, even if the run starts twice.
• If the invoice has been paid or cancelled in the meantime, the next letter does not go.
• Reminders can be paused on one invoice while it is in dispute.
• It does not write to an address that bounced or complained, and says so on the invoice.
• Every letter is on the timeline of the invoice, the contact and the company.

Overdue items are also shown aged: who owes, and since when. To automate more (opening a task for the owner when an invoice goes overdue, for example), the Automations module can start a workflow on an overdue invoice. The modules are paid add-ons, each with a free 3-day trial.

• The first letter only goes out after a month, when it is harder to ask.
• The letter states the full amount although the buyer has already paid part of it.
• It does not say how to pay, and the buyer has to ask.
• A notice goes out for an invoice already paid, because nobody recorded the payment.
• Each letter goes out in a different tone, worded by a different colleague.