How to chase an unpaid invoice without losing the customer

There is a particular invoice that never gets chased. The job was grand, the customer was sound, and the money should have landed a fortnight ago. But you know them. They are two doors up from your cousin, or they have you back every year for the same hedge, or you will be standing behind them in the queue in Woodie’s on Saturday. So the “just following up on that invoice there” text sits in your head, unsent, and the debt gets older and quieter by the week.

That is the real reason invoices go unchased. Not laziness, not being all over the place with the paperwork. It is that chasing money off a good customer feels like begging for something that is already yours, and it feels worse when you are going to meet them at mass on Sunday.

Here is the thing worth turning around: chasing early and politely is not the rude move. It is the kind one. Most people who owe you money have simply forgotten. The invoice landed on a busy day, it slid down the pile, and they have not thought about it since. A short, friendly reminder at the right time does them a favour - it clears a small debt before it turns into an awkward one.

Because the longer it sits, the weirder it gets for both of you. At two weeks, a reminder is nothing. At two months, you are both pretending you have forgotten, and the next time you see them there is a fifty-euro shadow over the conversation. The kindest thing you can do for a customer you want to keep is ask early, ask warmly, and never let it reach the stage where either of you dreads bumping into the other in the shop.

The 3-7-14 rhythm

The trick is to have a rhythm you follow every time, so chasing stops being a decision you agonise over and becomes just a thing that happens. Three touches: day 3, day 7, day 14, counting from the day the invoice was due.

Day 3 is the “you just forgot” nudge. This early, you are not really chasing at all, you are reminding. The tone is light because the assumption is innocent: it slipped down the pile. Most invoices that were only ever going to be a bit late get paid right here, and the customer never once feels chased.

Day 7 is the gentle nudge with a way to pay attached. A week on, forgetting is less likely, so this one is a little more direct and it carries the payment link. You are not cross, you are just making it as easy as you can to clear it in the ten seconds they are looking at their phone.

Day 14 is firm, still warm. Two weeks over is where you stop hinting. You say plainly that it is now overdue and you would like it sorted this week - but you leave the door open, because a good customer who has hit a rough patch will tell you if you make it safe to. Firm is not the same as cold.

Three texts you can send today

Short, plain, no legalese. These are written for a text or a WhatsApp, because that is where your customers actually read you. Swap in the name, the job and the amount.

The day 3 friendly:

Hi [name], hope all’s well. Just a quick one - the invoice for [the job] is there whenever you get a chance, no rush at all. Only flagging it in case it slipped down the pile. Thanks a million, [your name].

The day 7 direct, with the payment link:

Hi [name], following up on the invoice for [the job], [amount]. Here’s a link to pay by card if it’s handy: [payment link]. Any bother with it, give me a shout. Cheers, [your name].

The day 14 firm but warm:

Hi [name], the invoice for [the job] is two weeks over now. I’d be grateful if you could get it sorted this week - the link is here: [payment link]. If there’s a problem or you’d rather set a date to pay, just say it and we’ll work something out. Thanks, [your name].

One line on what not to write: never put a threat, a bit of sarcasm, or anything you would not want screenshotted into one of these, and never take it public. A comment in the local Facebook group might feel satisfying for a second, but it costs you the customer, their family, and everyone in the parish who reads it. Keep the whole thing one to one and off the record.

Make it easy to pay on the spot

Half of chasing is really just friction. If the only way for someone to pay you is to ring you during the day, or catch you to hand over cash, or dig out the IBAN and set up a transfer, then every reminder lands on a busy person who means to sort it later, and then the day gets away from them again.

So carry the payment on the chase. A card link they can tap the second they read your message gets paid far faster than “ring me to arrange,” because it lets them clear it there and then, from the sofa, before they have put the phone back down. The easier you make the paying, the less chasing you ever have to do.

When it’s really stuck

Sometimes a reminder is not enough, and it is worth knowing what actually stands behind you. None of this is legal advice, and the official pages are linked below, but the short version matters.

If the customer is another business, you have real rights. For a commercial, business-to-business invoice paid late, you are entitled by law to interest at 10.40% a year (the rate in force from 1 July 2026) plus a fixed compensation fee of EUR 40, EUR 70 or EUR 100 depending on the size of the bill, and it applies automatically, without you even having to send a reminder. That is set out on the government’s late payment interest page.

A private household is different. Those statutory charges are for business-to-business only, so you cannot put 10.40% on a homeowner’s bill. You can charge a household a late fee only if it was fair and agreed up front, on the quote or the booking, and not an arbitrary penalty, or it will not hold up under consumer law (Consumer Rights Act 2022). Citizens Information covers the rules on terms and conditions.

And here is the one that catches people out: the Small Claims procedure does not take unpaid-invoice claims. Debts are specifically excluded, whatever the amount, so this is not the route for a bill. The actual route for an unpaid invoice is an ordinary debt claim, which for a normal trades bill means the District Court (it handles claims up to EUR 15,000). If the money runs to a few grand, a solicitor’s letter before you go near a court is the usual first step, and it very often does the job on its own.

Knowing when to stop

Not every euro is worth the chase. Put a real value on your own time. An hour spent ringing, texting and stewing over a forty-euro invoice, on top of the evenings it quietly lives in your head, can cost you a good deal more than the forty euro ever will. Past the day 14 text and maybe one phone call, decide honestly whether it is worth taking further or worth writing off, and then actually let it go.

Writing one off is not losing. It is choosing your evenings over a small bad debt. What you cannot let it do is poison the round. One customer who leaves you short does not turn the rest of the round into suspects, and it does not earn everyone else a colder invoice or a harder tone. Deal with the one, drop them from the book if you have to, and keep treating the people who do pay like the good customers they are.

This is the part JobDiary was built to take off your hands. Mark the job done and it sends those three texts for you, day 3, day 7 and day 14, in your own name, with the card link already sitting in them, and it stops the moment the money lands. The awkward “just following up” that used to sit unsent on a Sunday night stops being your job. That is the side of it that chases the money for you, so you get to be the one who did a good job, not the one begging to be paid for it.