Payment reminders

A reminder is a short email, and sometimes a text, that nudges a customer about an open invoice. Reminders follow a cadence you can set for each business: steps before, on and after the due date. You can pause one invoice or send a reminder by hand. The screen is called Dunning in the sidebar, under Billing.

How the cadence works

Each step is a number of days relative to the due date: "3 days before", "On the due date" or "7 days after". The cadence can also have a stop day, after which nothing more is sent. A new business starts with its business type's cadence, or a default one.

Once a day, BillingMart checks every open invoice that has a due date. The day is judged in your workspace's calendar.

• An invoice gets at most one automatic reminder per day, and each step goes only once per invoice.
• If a day is missed, the latest step that has come due is sent once. The earlier steps it skipped stay skipped.

Invoices that are sent, viewed, overdue or partly paid are in the cadence. Drafts, paid, void and written-off invoices are not.

What the customer gets

The standard reminder is an email in the invoice's language. It names the invoice, the amount due and the due date, and says to reply to reach you. It does not include a payment link. If your workspace has text messages on, a short text goes too, to a phone number your customer has confirmed and agreed to texts on.

A reminder you write yourself, or draft with AI, gets the invoice's payment link added. The email goes to an address the customer has not confirmed yet, as invoices do. A payment link in it shows only that one invoice. The wording of reminder emails is in English for every language today.

Send one by hand

From Invoices:

1. Open the actions menu on the invoice and select Send reminder. A window opens.
2. Leave Subject and Body empty to send the standard reminder, or write your own in plain text. To have AI write it, choose a Tone and select Draft with AI, then edit the result. Drafting is on the plans that include assistive copy.
3. Select Send reminder.

From Dunning, select Send now on a row to send the standard reminder at once. Or select Details on the row and use the Send a reminder now form: select Send reminder now, or tick Write my own message, write a subject and message in plain text and select Send my reminder.

A manual reminder works even when the invoice is paused. If today is one of the cadence steps, it counts as that step.

Pause one invoice

Select Pause on its row, or Pause reminders in its Details. Select Resume, or Resume reminders in Details, to turn them back on. When you resume, a step that came due while it was paused is sent once at the next daily run.

What stops the reminders

• Paid in full, void or written off. The invoice leaves the open list, and no more reminders go.
• Partly paid. Reminders continue for the amount still due.
• A payment that is returned later, which opens the invoice again, puts it back in the cadence. Steps already sent are not sent again.

Change the cadence

Only an owner or admin can change it, and you are asked to confirm it is you.

1. Open Dunning and select Edit cadence.
2. For each reminder choose Before the due date, On the due date or After the due date, and the number of days. Use Add a reminder for more, up to 12.
3. Optionally set Stop reminders after (days past due). It cannot be earlier than the last reminder.
4. Select Save. It applies to every open invoice of that business from the next daily run.

Steps can go from 90 days before to 365 days after the due date. Use the default cadence resets them.

Changing the cadence and sending by hand are part of the reminders feature. On a plan that does not include it, the screen says so.

If the email cannot be delivered

If the email is blocked, for example because the customer has no email address, it is logged, but the step is still marked as sent and is not tried again. Fix the address, then send one by hand.