Politely reminder of overdue invoice

[pur_wpd]

Hi everyone,

I have a client who has overlooked an invoice due to be paid about 5 working days ago. She's a regular client but a bit formal in charactor so any help on how to word my reminder email would be appreciated.

 

[MyAccountantOnline]

Hi everyone,

I have a client who has overlooked an invoice due to be paid about 5 working days ago. She's a regular client but a bit formal in charactor so any help on how to word my reminder email would be appreciated.

Try Google you'll get lots of ideas there.

Have you considered calling her?

 

[maxine]

Dear .....

Invoice No <Inv No> Amount Due: £ .....

I note from my records that the above invoice remains outstanding for payment.

Our payment terms are X from the date of invoice.

Please could you organise for immediate payment to be made or notify of any queries or issues preventing payment.

If you would like to pay online our bank details are xxx Alternatively cheques should be made payable and sent to xxxx.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,

Name
Phone number
email address

 

[GRDCredit]

Have you considered calling her?

This ^^^


(had to write this bit in brackets as apparantly I am too short. Never been told that before!)

 

[pur_wpd]

Have you considered calling her?

Thanks, but email would be best. I personally would prefer it aswell (if it were me). And if I did call I wouldn't know what to say. Which was my prob in the first place.

Maxine:

Yes something like that, but less formal (I saw that on google too )

 

[yourcreditmanager]

Hi

My contribution....

Nothing too heavy but still reasonably formal:


Dear

Further to our recent discussions would you please confirm that settlement of the overdue invoice number... dated... for the sum of ... will be made within the next seven days as we are presently unaware of any reason why payment is being withheld and our settlement terms has now been exceeded.

I look forward to both hearing from you and receiving your remittance forthwith.

Regards

Shake and bake people...

Michael

 

[maxine]

Thanks, but email would be best. I personally would prefer it aswell (if it were me). And if I did call I wouldn't know what to say. Which was my prob in the first place.

Maxine:

Yes something like that, but less formal (I saw that on google too )

That wasn't google .. It was written by my own fair hand!!

 

[MyAccountantOnline]

Thanks, but email would be best. I personally would prefer it aswell (if it were me). And if I did call I wouldn't know what to say. Which was my prob in the first place.

It can be very hard to learn to chase debts but it's something you need to get used to, and how to deal with the 101 excuses you will get for non-payment, because you will come across serial non-payers who will take advantage.

If you buy something in a shop the person on the till asks you to pay - its no different when you are in business, you've done the work and should be paid and if you aren't you simply ask the customer to do so.

 

[helmuc]

exactly my problem as well... :/ have to admit that it is difficult (almost impossible for me) to send strict/official letter to my clients (1 client to be correct).

the first step I did to get over myself - I set up automatic email reminders xero offers to send out in cases like these.

.. my client starts ignoring them as well and I'm not sure that I want to apply additional pressure. if I do - there isn't really an alternative for me what to work on (all eggs are in 1 basket) if we quit our relationships.

anyway - best wishes to all of you who are in similar position :/
H

 

[paulears]

If you know her well, and have a good relationship. Consider a chat style email.

Hi XX,
I'm trying to reconcile accounts for last month and I can't track down the payment for May - you normally pay around the X day of the month, but I can't find this one. Could you check and let me know which day you paid it and I'll get the bank to search at their end. Best wishes etc etc

They'll probably check and discover they made the error and will come back to explaining how sorry they are and they'll get it sorted pronto.

Worked for me last week - they simply forgot to process it.

No need to be formal with a client you are on good terms with. They also don't take it as a chase up because you insinuate that they have paid it but you can't find it.

 

[Alan]

We have an automated credit control in our accountings system, but even when we didn't we pretended it was the computer in the wording (so if they get narked we can blame the system)

We send out messages 2 days prior to due, 3 days after, 7 days , 14 days getting stronger

The 3 day wording is

"Hi [FIRSTNAME],

We don't appear to have received payment for Invoice #[INVNUM]. A payment of [AMOUNTDUE] is now overdue.

I'd appreciate it if you could make payment straight away and let me know when you have done so.

If you have any queries about the invoice then please don't hesitate to get in touch.

Please remember, you can easily pay online with the pay-now button on the invoice.

If you decide to pay by bank transfer, please drop us a note to let us know.

[PERMALINK]


Best regards,

Accounts
ccccc company Ltd

(This email has been created automatically by our system)
"

 

[kevin.doran]

Hi ::their_forenames::

I just wanted to remind you that there's a balance of ::statement_due:: outstanding in relation to the following invoice:

::invoice_html_link::

 

[Gecko001]

I send a copy of the invoice with the word "Reminder" stamped across. If the client has simply forgot to pay all they want is a no-fuss reminder. A statement of the account is another way of reminding the client.

 

[ChrisGoodfellow]

Thanks for the input. As part of our mission to provide advice on threads that are popular on the site, we've published a UK Business Forums guide to chasing overdue invoices.