BadCop › Templates › Firm invoice reminder email (7 days overdue)

Firm reminder: the email to send when an invoice is a week overdue

When to send it

Seven days after the due date, whether or not the friendly reminder got a reply.

The email

Subject: Overdue: invoice {invoice_id} ({days_overdue} days past due)Hi {client_name}, Invoice {invoice_id} for {currency} {amount} is now {days_overdue} days past its due date of {due_date}. Pay online: {pay_link} Please arrange payment within the next 5 business days, or reply with a date we can expect it. Per our agreed terms, late fees apply to overdue balances, and we would rather not have to add them. Regards, {sender_name}

Placeholders in braces are filled in per invoice. Replace them by hand, or run badcop preview INV-1 --step firm to render this template for a real invoice.

Why it works

Now you ask for a date and you mention the late-fee terms without applying them. This is the email conflict-avoidant people never send, and it is the one that gets most invoices paid.

Tips

'Regards' instead of 'Kind regards'. Small tone shifts are noticed.
Give a concrete window (5 business days). Open-ended requests get open-ended responses.
Only mention late fees if they are actually in your contract or invoice terms.

Automate it

This is the firm step in BadCop's default ladder, sent at T+7 days from the due date. Put your invoices in a CSV, run one command a day, and every open invoice gets the right email at the right time, once.

pip install badcop
badcop init && badcop run --dry-run