The hardest part of chasing an invoice is not the confrontation. It is writing the fifth email about the same £4,000 when you have already written four.
Templates fix that. Not because scripts are magic, but because they remove the decision of what tone to use today — and that decision is what makes people wait another week.
Below are five emails, in order, with the subject lines that survive an inbox.
Day 3 — the check-in, not the chase
Sent while the invoice is still fresh. The goal is not payment. The goal is confirmation that the invoice reached the right person.
Subject: Invoice 2026-114 — is this with the right team?
Hi Anna,
Invoice 2026-114 for £4,000 was issued on 12 October, due 11 November. Attaching it here so it does not get lost in the thread.
Could you confirm it is with your finance team and quote our reference if they need it? Happy to reissue with a PO number if that helps.
Thanks, Marc
Why it works: it asks an easy question. People answer easy questions.
Day 14 — the reminder with the date
Subject: Invoice 2026-114 due 11 November
Hi Anna,
Quick reminder that invoice 2026-114 (£4,000) is due on 11 November — one week from today.
If payment is already scheduled, no action needed. If something is missing on your side, tell me what and I will fix it today.
Thanks, Marc
Note what is absent: no apology for bothering, no "just", no "sorry to chase".
Day 30 — five days overdue, with the consequence
Subject: Invoice 2026-114 — now 5 days overdue
Hi Anna,
Invoice 2026-114 (£4,000) was due on 11 November and is now five days overdue.
Could you confirm a payment date today? Our terms include interest on late payment, but I would rather resolve this without applying it.
Marc
The interest line is not a threat if it is true. It is only a threat when it is not in your terms — which is why the terms need to exist before the invoice.
Day 45 — final notice, factual and short
Subject: Final notice — invoice 2026-114
Hi Anna,
This is a final notice for invoice 2026-114, £4,000, due 11 November and now 34 days overdue.
If payment is not received by 20 December, the account goes to collections and work on the current project is paused until the balance is cleared. I would prefer not to do either.
If there is a genuine problem — a dispute, a missing document, a cash issue — tell me today and I will work with it.
Marc
Always leave the door marked "tell me the real reason". Most late payments are not malice, they are an unanswered question inside the client's finance system.
The escalation email — to the person above
If the contact has stopped answering, stop writing to them. One email to their manager works better than five more to them.
Subject: Overdue invoice 2026-114 — escalation
Hello,
I am following up on invoice 2026-114 (£4,000), issued 12 October and due 11 November. It is now 34 days overdue and I have not been able to get a payment date from Anna.
Could you confirm whether this is scheduled, or whether something on our side is blocking approval? I have attached the invoice and the delivery confirmation.
Marc
Copy the original contact. Not to embarrass them — to keep them in the loop, which is the polite version of the same message.
The four rules behind all five emails
- One invoice per email. Two invoices in one message means one gets paid and one gets forgotten
- The number, the date and the amount in the first two lines. Finance teams triage by reference
- Never apologise for reminding. "Sorry to chase" tells the reader the reminder is optional
- Always offer an exit. "If payment is scheduled, no action needed" converts a confrontation into a checkbox
How to stop writing these by hand
The sequence above is fixed: day 3, 14, 30, 45. It does not need a human decision each time — it needs to be sent, from your own address, in the same thread as the invoice.
That is what we automate in DueBuddy: the invoice is parsed into data, the schedule is set once, and the emails go out on their own, with your wording. See how reminders work.