To automate overdue invoice reminders, switch on the reminders already built into your accounting software. Xero, QuickBooks Online and Sage Accounting all email customers on a schedule you set, before or after the due date, with wording you can edit, and none of them needs an add-on for the basic version. If your problem is that nobody remembers to send the polite nudge, that setting fixes it today and costs nothing extra. Build something on top only when chasing needs judgement as well as emails: deciding who gets a phone call, remembering who promised to pay on Friday, and seeing late customers next to the suppliers you owe.
Does Xero send automatic invoice reminders?
Yes. Xero's invoice reminders email the customer contact on the invoice at points you choose, measured in days before or after the due date. You turn them on from the invoices screen (the button says "Invoice reminders: Off" until you do), tick the box to email customers, and then edit or add the individual reminders. Xero allows up to five reminder stages, and it gives you default wording for each one that you can rewrite.
A few practical details matter more than the setup. Reminders only go to invoices that have been sent, and only to contacts with an email address marked to receive emails, so a customer record with no email (or the wrong one) quietly gets nothing. You can switch reminders off for one customer, which is useful for the account you'd rather phone, or for a single invoice that's in dispute. And because reminders run from the invoice status, an unreconciled bank feed can mean a customer who has paid still gets a "your invoice is overdue" email. Reconciling regularly is part of using reminders, not a separate job.
The limit is that it's one schedule for everybody. Your biggest customer and a one-off cash job get the same five emails at the same intervals. Xero lets you record an expected payment date on an invoice, but the reminder schedule doesn't pause for it, so a customer who rang on Monday to say "it's going on Thursday" can still get a reminder on Tuesday.
Does QuickBooks Online send payment reminders automatically?
Yes, on every QuickBooks Online plan (Simple Start, Essentials, Plus and Advanced, plus Sole Trader). Go to Settings, then Account and settings, then the Sales tab, and edit the Reminders section. Switch on automatic invoice reminders, enable Reminder 1, and pick how many days before or after the due date it goes. You can add a second and third reminder, each up to 90 days either side of the due date, and edit the subject and message, including fields like the invoice number.
Like Xero, it only reminds on unpaid invoices you've already emailed, and the customer needs an email address on the invoice. On QuickBooks Online Advanced you can also build reminders with workflows, which lets you set conditions such as the amount or the customer, rather than one rule for all.
Does Sage Accounting send automatic payment reminders?
Yes. In Sage Accounting it's under Settings, then Automatic payment reminders. You turn the toggle on, set a minimum amount owed before a reminder goes (so a £3 balance doesn't trigger an email), choose how many days before or after the due date to send, and edit the email. Sage sends reminders once a day at 6am UTC, and you can exclude specific customers. Sage's help page says you need a Copilot licence to enable automatic reminders, and Sage says Copilot is included in all Sage Accounting plans, so for current customers that should just mean switching it on.
How do the three compare?
| Xero | QuickBooks Online | Sage Accounting | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where it lives | Invoices screen, "Invoice reminders" button | Settings, Account and settings, Sales, Reminders | Settings, Automatic payment reminders |
| How many reminders | Up to five stages | Up to three | One schedule, days before or after due |
| Before or after due date | Either | Either, up to 90 days | Either |
| Rules by customer or amount | No, one schedule for all | Only with workflows on Advanced | Minimum amount owed only |
| Knows about a promise to pay | No | No | No |
The last two rows are where the case for going further either exists or doesn't.
When are the built-in reminders enough?
For a lot of small firms, they're enough on their own. If you invoice a manageable number of customers, they pay by bank transfer, and the problem is that nobody has time to send "just a reminder that invoice 1043 was due last week", then the built-in reminders do exactly that, every day, without anyone remembering. Switch them on, write the wording in your own voice (a friendly first one, a firmer one at 14 days, a "please call us" at 30), keep your bank feed reconciled so paid customers don't get chased, and keep your money.
A good sign you're in this group: your debtors list is short enough that you already know, without looking, which two or three customers are a problem. The emails cover the people who simply forgot. You handle the two or three yourself.
When is it worth going further?
When chasing has stopped being a reminder problem and become a "who do I ring this morning" problem. The built-in tools are good at sending emails and poor at three other things.
Seeing it all in one place. Late customers are only half of the cash picture. The other half is who you owe and what's going out the door today. A morning message that puts overdue invoices next to the supplier bills due this week and today's deliveries or jobs means one decision instead of three logins. If a customer is 30 days late and you're about to deliver to them again this afternoon, that's worth knowing at 7am, not at 4pm.
Escalating to a person. After the third or fifth email, more emails don't help. What helps is someone picking up the phone. An automation can take every invoice over a set age or amount, sort it by size, and put it on a short call list for whoever does credit control, with the customer's phone number and the last thing they said. The emails still go out; the call list is for the ones they didn't move.
Remembering promises. When a customer says "it's going on Thursday", that promise needs writing down somewhere the chasing process can see it. A simple promise-to-pay note (customer, invoice, date promised, who took the call) means Thursday's morning list can show "promised today" and Friday's can show "promise broken", which is the moment to ring again. None of the three accounting packages pauses or escalates its reminders based on a promise, so this is the piece people usually end up keeping on a sticky note.
Here's what a morning chasing digest might contain:
| Section | What's in it | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Overdue today | Invoices that went overdue since yesterday, with amount and customer | Accounting software |
| Call list | Anything over 30 days or over a set amount, biggest first, with phone number | Accounting software, contact records |
| Promised today | Customers who said they'd pay today, and whether the money has landed | Promise-to-pay notes, bank feed |
| Promises broken | Promised yesterday or earlier, still unpaid | Promise-to-pay notes |
| Going out today | Deliveries or jobs for customers who are overdue | Job list, delivery schedule or booking system |
| You owe | Supplier bills due this week | Accounting software |
One email or Teams message, not a dashboard. If the bigger question is how the whole debtors book is ageing, that's a report rather than a reminder, and I've written about an aged debtors report people actually act on separately.
How does the morning digest get built?
Over the systems you already have. It reads the overdue invoices and bills from Xero, QuickBooks or Sage, reads today's jobs from wherever they live (a booking system, a shared spreadsheet, a job app), reads the promise notes from a simple list in SharePoint or Excel, and sends one message at a set time each morning. On Microsoft 365 that's usually Power Automate, which a lot of firms already have in their licence. Nothing replaces the built-in reminders; they keep sending the polite emails while the digest gives a person the list that needs judgement.
The promise notes are the only new habit. Whoever takes the call adds a line: customer, invoice, date. A form on their phone is enough. Everything else is reading what's already there.
It's not clever. It just means nobody starts the day opening four systems to find out what's happening: one message, the right list, before anyone has logged in to anything. There's more on that shape in the 7am business summary email.
What should you do first?
Switch on the built-in reminders this week if they're not already on. Write three messages in your own words, set them at, say, 3 days before due, 7 days after and 21 days after, and reconcile the bank feed so paid customers drop out. Give it a month.
If at the end of the month the same customers are still late, the emails aren't the problem, and the next step is the call list and the promise notes. If cash timing is the wider worry, a 13-week cash flow forecast is a better place to start than more chasing. And if invoice chasing is one of several admin jobs you're weighing up, where to start automating finance admin puts it in order.
If you'd rather someone else built the digest, that's the kind of thing I do as small business automation. An automation check is £295 and gives you up to three automations worth building with a fixed price each, and one automation like this one is from £950 fixed. But check the switch in your accounting software first. It might be all you need.
Common questions
Can Xero automatically chase unpaid invoices?
Yes. Xero's invoice reminders send emails at up to five points you choose, before or after the due date, to the customer's email contact. They only go on invoices marked as sent, and you can switch them off for a particular customer or invoice. They use one schedule for all customers and don't pause for an expected payment date.
How do I set up payment reminders in QuickBooks Online?
Go to Settings, Account and settings, the Sales tab, and edit Reminders. Switch on automatic invoice reminders, then set up to three reminders, each up to 90 days before or after the due date, and edit the wording. Reminders only go on unpaid invoices you've already emailed to a customer with an email address.
Does Sage Accounting have automatic invoice reminders?
Yes, under Settings, Automatic payment reminders. You set a minimum amount owed, the number of days before or after the due date, and the email wording, and reminders go out daily at 6am UTC. Sage says it needs a Copilot licence, which Sage includes in all Sage Accounting plans.
Are automatic payment reminders rude?
Not if the wording is right. A short, friendly first reminder that includes the invoice number, amount and how to pay reads as helpful, and plenty of customers are glad of it because their own process lost the invoice. Save the firmer tone for later reminders, and switch reminders off for any customer you'd rather speak to directly.
When should a person phone instead of sending another reminder?
Once two or three emails have gone without a reply, or when the amount is big enough to matter to your cash. More emails rarely move an invoice that's already been ignored. A short call list, sorted by amount and age, gets those to the right person each morning.
What is a promise-to-pay note?
It's a record of a customer saying when they'll pay: the customer, the invoice, the promised date and who took the call. Keeping them in one list means the next morning's chasing can show who was due to pay today and who missed their promise. None of the main accounting packages adjusts its reminders around a promise, so it's usually a small list kept alongside.
How much does it cost to automate invoice chasing?
The built-in reminders in Xero, QuickBooks Online and Sage Accounting come with the software. Going further, with a morning digest, call list and promise notes, is a small build over the systems you already use; mine start at £950 fixed for one automation, with optional upkeep at £95 a month.