Why chasing feels awful
Because by the time you do it, you are already annoyed, and the client can hear it. Six weeks of silence turn a clerical matter into a confrontation. The client has usually not refused to pay — the invoice is sitting in an inbox that is not the one that pays, or in an approval queue nobody told you about.
An invoice chased on day three is admin. The same invoice chased on day forty is a relationship problem. Same money, different conversation.
The three-stage sequence
| When | Tone | What it says |
|---|---|---|
| 3 days before due | Neutral, helpful | A heads-up that it falls due on Friday, with the amount and the reference. Not a chase — a courtesy that gets it into the approval queue in time. |
| Day 1–3 overdue | Factual | It was due on the 15th and is not showing as paid. Attach nothing new; repeat the reference and the bank details. Assume it was missed, because it usually was. |
| Day 14–21 overdue | Firm, still civil | Name the consequence you are actually willing to apply — work paused, late interest applied, or the account passed on — and a date. |
The first message is the one most people skip, and it is the one that works. It is the only one sent while nothing is wrong, so it costs nothing socially and it lands before the payment run.
Wording that gets paid
Three rules, and they all point the same way — make it easy to act:
- Put the number and the amount in the subject line. INV-2026-0031 — €1,450 — due 15 October. Finance departments search by number, not by your name.
- Repeat the bank details in the body. Do not make anyone open an attachment to pay you.
- Ask one question with a short answer. “Can you confirm it is in the run for this week?” is answerable in four words. “Please advise on the status” is answerable never.
What Flowzivo does with it
Every unpaid invoice carries its own age, and the reminder wording escalates with it: the text you get on day two is not the text you get on day twenty. The dashboard lists what is overdue in order of how long it has been overdue, so the oldest one is the first thing you see rather than the one you happen to remember.
On the €9 plan the message opens in your own email client, already written, with the number, the amount and the due date in it: it leaves from your address, lands in your sent folder, and your deliverability stays yours.
On the €19 add-on Flowzivo sends them for you, under your name and with your address as the reply-to. The courtesy note before the due date goes on its own; the two that chase a late invoice wait on your dashboard until you have read them and clicked. You can rewrite any of the three, once, and every future email uses your wording.
Send the invoice instead of reading about it
The demo is the real product with example data in it. No account, nothing to install, and anything you add you can keep when you sign up.
No account to look around. Example data, and anything you add is yours to keep.
Questions
Should I charge late payment interest?
You are usually entitled to. Whether to apply it is a commercial decision — the threat works more often than the charge does. If you name it in a reminder, be willing to actually add it to the next invoice, because a threat you never apply teaches the client that your deadlines are decorative.
How long before I stop working?
Say it in the contract, not in the third reminder. A retainer or service agreement that says work pauses at 30 days overdue makes the pause a term both sides agreed to, rather than a punishment you improvised.
Does Flowzivo send the reminders automatically?
Only the courtesy note before the due date, and only if you leave it switched on. The two that chase a late invoice are written for you and wait in the app until you have read them and clicked. That is deliberate: fully automatic chasing goes out on the day the client called to explain the delay, and you find out from the reply. Writing the awkward email is the part worth automating; deciding to send it is not.
What if the client says they never received the invoice?
Resend the same invoice number rather than issuing a new one, and put the original issue date in the message. Issuing a fresh number for the same work makes the series look padded and gives the client a reason to restart their payment clock.