How can I stop chasing unpaid invoices by email?

Why do invoices and sign offs keep slipping?

Because the process lives in somebody's inbox and somebody's memory.

An invoice goes out. Nobody writes down when it falls due, or if they do, it is in a spreadsheet nobody opens until the bank balance looks thin. When the chasing starts, it starts late, by hand, with a slightly different email each time. Meanwhile the purchase order that needed a director's sign off is sitting in a thread with eleven replies, and nobody can tell whether it was approved or just acknowledged.

None of this is anyone being lazy. It is a process with no clock and no owner. Reply all is not a process.

When is an invoice actually late?

It depends on what you agreed, and the default is earlier than you might think.

GOV.UK's guidance on late commercial payments says that if you agree a payment date, it must usually be within 30 days for public authorities or 60 days for business transactions. You can agree a longer period than 60 days between businesses, but it has to be fair to both sides. If you do not agree a payment date at all, the law says the payment is late 30 days after the customer gets the invoice, or after you deliver the goods or provide the service if that is later.

That last point matters more than it sounds. If you never state terms clearly and wait sixty or ninety days before chasing because it feels polite, the law's default clock started a long time before that. Put your terms on the invoice and in the agreement, so the due date is a fact rather than a feeling. GOV.UK's invoicing guidance is clear that you can set your own payment terms, such as discounts for early payment or payment upfront, so use that freedom deliberately.

What can you charge when they pay late?

Two main things, set by late payment legislation, and you can choose whether to use them.

The first is statutory interest. GOV.UK sets it at 8% plus the Bank of England base rate for business to business transactions. You cannot claim it if your contract sets a different rate of interest, and if you decide to add interest, the guidance says to send a new invoice.

The second is a fixed sum for the cost of recovering the debt, which you can charge on top of the interest. The amount depends on the size of the debt, and you can only charge it once for each payment. GOV.UK also says you can claim reasonable costs each time you try to recover the debt.

Amount of debt	Fixed sum you can charge
Up to £999.99	£40
£1,000 to £9,999.99	£70
£10,000 or more	£100

Using either is a commercial choice, and leaving them out is reasonable with a good customer who is late once. The point is to know they exist, so the reminder sequence can mention them calmly at the right stage rather than as an angry afterthought.

What does a chasing process that runs itself look like?

A clock, a sequence and a record.

The clock is the due date, captured when the invoice is raised, not worked out later. Your accounting software probably already holds it. If yours lives in a spreadsheet, it needs to be a proper date in its own column.

The sequence is a short set of reminders, written once and agreed in advance, that go out on fixed days relative to the due date. A friendly note before it falls due. A plain reminder on the day. A firmer one after a week or two. Then a named person picks up the phone. Each message can pull the invoice number, amount and due date straight from the record, so nobody retypes them.

The record is a log of what was sent and when. When a customer says they never got the reminder, you can see exactly what went and to whom.

Stage	When	Who	What
Before due	A few days before the due date	Automatic	Friendly reminder with the invoice attached
Due	On the due date	Automatic	Plain reminder and how to pay
Overdue	After a week or two	Automatic, signed by a named person	Firmer note, mention of interest and recovery costs
Escalation	When the sequence ends	A person	Phone call, then a decision

The timings in that table are yours to set. What matters is that they are written down and the same every time.

If you work in Google Workspace and your invoices are tracked in a sheet, Apps Script's installable triggers can run a script on a schedule to check due dates and send the reminders. One thing to know before you build it: installable triggers always run under the account of the person who created them, so the emails go from that account. Set it up on an account the business controls, not one person's login. If your accounting package has a reminder feature, switch it on before building anything. We build the rest as process automation and through our Apps Script service.

What about approvals and sign offs?

Same problem, same fix. An approval that lives in email has no status. You cannot see who is holding it, how long it has waited, or whether "looks fine" meant yes.

Move it into a simple workflow with three properties. Each request has one current owner. Each request has a status everyone can see: waiting, approved, rejected. And each request has a clock, so anything waiting longer than you have agreed gets a nudge, then goes to someone else.

That can be a form feeding a shared sheet, a small web app, or the approval feature in software you already pay for. The tool matters less than the rule that nothing gets approved by reply all.

Where do people get this wrong?

The first mistake is invoices that are hard to pay. GOV.UK lists what an invoice must include, starting with a unique identification number and running through a clear description of what you are charging for, the supply date, the invoice date and the total owed. An invoice missing a purchase order number or sent to the wrong contact will sit in someone's queue, and no reminder fixes that.

The second is a sequence that sounds like a robot. Automated does not have to mean cold. Write the messages the way you would speak to a decent customer, and let the timing do the work.

The third is chasing everyone the same way. A long standing customer who is a few days late once does not need the same note as a new account that has ignored three reminders. Build in a way to pause the sequence for a customer, with a reason recorded.

The fourth is forgetting the stop. Reminders that keep going after the invoice is paid do real damage. The sequence must check payment status before every message.

When is this not the answer?

When the customer cannot pay rather than will not. A reminder sequence will not help with a business in trouble, and a conversation might. If a debt is large or disputed, speak to a solicitor or a debt recovery professional about your options.

When you have a handful of invoices a month. A calendar reminder and five minutes on a Friday may be all you need.

When the late payment is your process, not theirs. If invoices go out weeks after the work is done, fix that first. The clock cannot start until the invoice exists.

And when the money side needs regulated help. A reminder workflow chases and records. It does not collect, hold or move anyone's money.

Where do you start?

Pull a list of every unpaid invoice, with its due date and the date of the last chase. Then write the four messages you would want to send, once, properly.

If you want those messages going out on time without anyone remembering, and approvals that show who has them, tell us what's stuck and we'll map the quickest fix. Time to talk yet?