8 Most Effective Payment Reminder Emails, To Get Invoices Paid In Challenging Times

Some companies prefer to get an upfront deposit for their work. Deposits will often discourage less professional companies from your services in the first place, preventing frustrating invoicing issues down the line. In the worst case that you have a client who struggles to pay an invoice, you have some of the money already to use until you can secure that payment.

If you’re on first name terms with your recipient, a “Dear, ” also works. On the other hand, “To Whom It May Concern” makes you sound like Henry VIII, don’t use it.

Early payment discounts are nice if you can afford them, but late fees help you recover some of the cost of the extra time you spend chasing unpaid invoices. Make sure to do a little research on the law in your area as there are often legal restrictions on what late penalties you can impose. You will encourage positive customer paying habits by sending invoice reminders on the same day and at the same time each week. This is a third late payment reminder to inform you that payment for invoice #1, totalling $1,000, is now one month overdue. And when it comes to payment reminders, phone calls just take too much time.

Please remember that the balance on your account ($132.16) remains unpaid. If, by chance, you have already sent your payment, please disregard this letter and accept our gratitude. Late payment text messages are also less time-intensive on the part of the sender. And payment follow-up reminders that contain payment details and a link to a payment portal make it easy for your customer to pay right away. Remember, in the payment reminder sequence example above, for days 1 and 5, there’s a text and an email that gets sent with a link to the invoice.

What If There Are No Results? Should You Hire A Collection Agency?

Similarly, some users tend to start a whole new email account simply because they can’t remember the password of the old one. Therefore, there is hardly any reason for the customer to hold on to the old email address. Note that late payment terms should be established at the start of your working relationship–ideally in an online contract. You can modify an invoice email you have already received from a client to ask when payment is due. It will be in your best interest to notify the client about the payment a week before the due date.

Whether you want to charge late payment fees is entirely up to you. Late payment fees are supposed to encourage clients to pay on time. Sending a gentle reminder email to your client for payment a few days before the invoice is due will help remind those clients who just got busy and forgot. For clients who prefer snail mail, this can also double as a template for a friendly payment reminder letter. If you offer an early payment discount, consider including an additional reminder about when their early payment discount expires. Once an invoice reaches 30+ days overdue, we recommend sending this email reminder and suggesting alternative payment options.

By setting the right tone of the greeting, you position yourself as a professional and detail-oriented company that cares about its customers. This makes customers trust you more, and, as a result, they will want to solve their payment problems faster. If our current record of your delinquency https://xero-accounting.net/ is incorrect, please contact us immediately. I’ve tried reaching out to you multiple times over the past month regarding your balance of from invoice #. This is where automation, messaging tools, and a payment reminder strategy can help you save time and get paid faster.

How To Boost Customer Loyalty Using Seamless Communication

However, that does not mean that your payment reminders can have an accusatory tone. Once you have reached the final stage of sending payment reminders, you are no longer obliged to maintain a soft tone. Furthermore, you should also consider the fact that the overdue payment is for a whole month. Using a well-drafted payment reminder email/letter template can help you push customers to pay their due on time. You can even appeal to your customers on the red-alert status and get them to make their overdue payments. We can help you navigate that tightrope, whether your client is late for a week or a whole month.

• If your audience is mainly composed of younger people, you shouldn’t hesitate to address them more casually, as using highly formal language might alienate them.
• You can make payment to the bank account specified on the invoice.
• Understand that a customer might be facing some minor cash-flow issues or have a totally valid reason for being late.
• I would be really grateful if you could let me know when we can expect to receive payment.
• All account managers need to know how to write an email to customers for payment without coming across as rude.
• You may also mention that the collection charges will have to be borne by the client.

This is the first communication in which you actually appeal to the customer to make their payment. Again, ensure that the CTA catches the customer’s attention and knows the due date is already up. When preparing the initial reminder letter for payment collection for your business, there are a few things that you should keep in mind. Some basic guidelines you can follow to create a well-drafted polite payment reminder email payment due template for your business are given below. I am sending this email/letter to remind you that the payment for May 2021 (invoice #007) will be due next week. Most businesses have already mastered the art of creating invoices and sending them to their customers with zero delays. However, you are always going to find customers who are unable to pay their invoices on time.

Talk About Repercussions Of Late Payment

The tone you take with your client can dramatically affect how successful you are in resolving unpaid invoices. Tailor your email to communication styles that you have found successful in the past with the client. While being gentle is essential, you don’t want to sound like you’re letting the late payment slide either.

The first impression is important, and you have to appear friendly and engaging. In this way, you’re leveraging the relationship you’ve established with your customer, before telling them the bad news. Now that you convinced your customers to open your email, you have to set the right tone with your greeting. The company implements all the principles we’ve touched upon here, so if you want to get your customers to open your email, follow Netlify’s example.

Your Guide To Issuing Credit Notes

Do not penalize or add a late payment penalty in those cases to ensure that both parties don’t have to lose their sanity unnecessarily. You can also send your clients a friendly reminder via text message, phone call, or email to pay their outstanding invoice a couple of days before the payment deadline. You’ve completed the work for a customer, sent off the invoice and are now simply awaiting payment.

It is crucial to remember that getting paid for your work/product goes hand in hand with customer satisfaction. Therefore, you need to strike the right balance between being polite and assertive. The simplest solution is to find an overdue payment reminder letter template that works for your business.

• It’s essential to include updated information about their order, account balance, and if applicable, their payment history.
• Your messages within those 90 days should be direct and varied in channel.
• It also means receiving timely compensation for your hard work.
• If you offer an early payment discount, consider including an additional reminder about when their early payment discount expires.

That way, you’ll give them the firm but kind reminder that they need to pay up, and hear their side of the story firsthand. I wrote to you several times to remind you of the pending amount of $5,400 for invoice #10237. Is a necessary step to get your invoices paid and one which you’d rather avoid until it is absolutely necessary.

These reasons could include a temporary shortage of funds, slow in-house processing, technical issues, family or health emergencies, and so on. Neither the business nor its customer likes to have overdue payments. The customers who either forgot or were lazy to make the payment are likely to do it once they receive the second payment reminder. So, unless the payment is delayed deliberately, this reminder should suffice for the customers to make the payment. You should also make it a point to provide all the necessary information in the payment reminder mail. Keep the reminder informative so that the customer knows for which month the payment is due. Furthermore, it would be best to include additional details like the invoice number in your reminder.

When Should You Send A Payment Reminder

This will also give your customer the impression that you are organized, disciplined and are closely monitoring your receivables. 2 out of every 3 small businesses in United States struggle because of customers that can’t or don’t want to pay. Jeel Patel is the Founder of InvoiceOwl and is the main curator & writer of the content found on this site. With ideals of quality, commitment, and perseverance, he believes in creating lasting business relationships with the clients. If you have already sent a payment, please disregard this email notice. And if you have lost the invoice, please let me know, we will arrange a new copy for you. If you have already paid this invoice, please ignore this reminder.

This article will discuss how to ask a client for payment and write a professional email to that effect. But, before that, it’s essential to understand why it is important to ask clients for payment. Also, to make payments easier, your payment reminder should outline which forms of payment you accept. Hopefully, you offer an online payment solution to make it faster to settle the invoice. So to prevent yourself from becoming a doormat, you have to step up your game. One way to do so is to implement payment reminders into your business strategy. Later reminders should build-up more formal and serious tone.

Payment Reminder Templates To Ask For Overdue Payments Professionally

Texting is one of the best ways to send friendly payment reminders. I run a small online store as a side hustle and it really bugs me when people don’t pay on time. If you’re encountering cash flow issues because of late payments, consider invoice financing to get through the funding gap. This is your final notice for invoice [#12345] totaling [$1,500]. As stated in the signed contract, a late fee of [1.5%] will be added to your total if payment is not received by close of business, . If you don’t receive a response or payment after the payment request email to the client, reach out again a day before payment is due. In this article, you’ll learn how to deal with an overdue payment, as well as how to craft a compelling payment reminder email to your client.

Payment Reminder Emails

This is another reminder that I have yet to receive the $5,400 owed on invoice #10237. Please be aware that, as per my terms, I may charge you additional interest on payment received more than 30 days past its due date. In this email, you should clearly ask for payment, and ask the client to confirm whether they have received the message. If you’ve chased a customer repeatedly for an overdue unpaid invoice without any luck, it’s time to change your accounts receivable tactics. Here at Chaser, we’ve seen that approximately 80% of unpaid invoices can be successfully collected through email chasing alone. As powerful as that is, a shocking number of finance teams don’t keep their email sword sharpened and are likely to see drastically subpar success with their credit control.