User guide

How to use Customer Payment Reminders, screen by screen.

The daily rhythm

Once it is switched on, you do not have to do anything. The scheduled action runs each day, works out who is due what, sends it, and records it.

What you actually do is look at Customers to Chase now and then, and deal with the handful that need a human.

Customers to Chase

Invoicing → Customers → Payment Reminders → Customers to Chase.

Every customer currently at a reminder level, with:

Filters: Mine (customers you are responsible for), Not Paused (the default), Paused or Excluded, and Never Chased — that last one is the useful one, because it finds accounts that have quietly never been asked.

The list has a Send a Reminder Now button per row.

Sending by hand

Two routes.

One customer: open them, Payment Reminders tab, Send a Reminder Now.

Several: tick them in any customer list and choose Actions → Send Payment Reminder.

The wizard shows a table before anything goes out:

That fourth column is the point of the wizard. "Nothing happened" is the most annoying thing software can say, so the module always tells you why a customer is being skipped.

Force a Level overrides the escalation — use it to send the final notice to somebody who has just become a problem, without walking them through the polite stages first. It still refuses if they have nothing overdue.

Manual sends are marked By Hand in the history, so you can tell later what was automatic and what somebody decided.

Pausing a customer

A customer disputes an invoice, or has promised payment on the 14th. Chasing them meanwhile makes you look like you are not listening.

Customer → Payment Reminders tab → Hold Off → Pause Until, and a reason, which is required. The pause expires by itself and the customer rejoins the escalation where they left off.

For an account that should never be chased from here — a subsidiary, a customer handled by an agency, a legal matter — a Credit Manager can tick Never Chase.

Reading the history

Payment Reminders → Reminders Sent.

Every reminder, with the customer, level, date, how it was sent, which invoices were chased, the amount at the time, and who sent it. Group by customer to see one account's whole story, or by level to see how far down the escalation your customers typically get.

The amount is recorded as it was when the reminder was sent, not as it is now. That is what makes it evidence: it answers "what did we tell them they owed, and when".

History older than three years is pruned automatically.

On an invoice

An overdue invoice shows how many days past due it is and how many reminders have gone out for the account, with a button to send one.

Bear in mind the module chases customers, not invoices: sending from an invoice sends the customer's due level and lists all their overdue invoices. One email about six invoices is a reminder; six emails is harassment.

Who can do what

See SECURITY.md.

Things worth knowing

• A customer is chased once, not once per invoice. Levels are keyed on the commercial partner, so an invoice addressed to a contact counts against the company that contact belongs to.
• The level comes from the oldest overdue invoice. A customer with one invoice 90 days late and one 2 days late is at the 90-day level.
• Each level fires once. If you want to chase again at the same level, force it in the wizard.
• Clearing the debt resets the escalation. A customer who pays up and later falls behind on a new invoice starts at the polite letter again.
• Draft invoices are never chased, and neither are paid ones.