Payment reminders and emails that send themselves

The emails nobody wants to write

Every business has its own: the reminder for an invoice 30 days overdue, the confirmation that a service has been renewed, the notice that a contract ends next month, the weekly summary for a manager. They are always the same, only names and amounts change. Still, someone writes them by hand, and puts them off on busy days.

So reminders go out late, or not at all, and the money arrives whenever the customer happens to remember.

How I automate them

The starting point is the data you already have: invoices with due dates, payments, contracts. On top of that I write the rules, for example "invoice 7 days overdue and unpaid: first reminder". Each email has its own template with your wording, and the software fills in the customer's details.

In the CRM I use for my own business, customers get a confirmation email when a service is renewed, and payments are matched from the bank statement: if the reference mentions the invoice and the amount matches, the invoice is marked paid by itself. That way a reminder never goes to someone who has already paid.

The same rules work inside the company too: a note to the warehouse when a product is running low, or an email to me when an overnight job gets stuck.

How the work goes

1. You send me the emails you write today and tell me where the data comes from.
2. We write the rules together, with the exceptions: the customer who always pays at the end of the month, the one you never chase.
3. For a while the emails come to you as drafts before they go to customers.
4. Once the wording and the rules are right, they send themselves.

When you don't need it

If you send five reminders a year, write them by hand. If your invoicing software already has automatic reminders, use those. Custom automation pays off when the rules are yours, or when the data sits in several programs that don't talk to each other today.

Frequently asked questions

Could an automatic reminder reach someone who has already paid?

That's the first risk to rule out. A reminder only goes out if the payment isn't recorded, so payments should update themselves: in my own CRM they are read from the bank statement.

Do the emails come from my address?

Yes, from your domain, with your signature. The mail setup is configured so that automatic emails don't end up in spam.

Can I check emails before they go out?

Yes. For sensitive messages, like a second reminder, the software can prepare a draft and wait for a person to approve it.

Does it work without business software?

If the data is in a spreadsheet, or in software that exports a file, we start from there. If the software has an API, it's even simpler.

Read more

• The service: Integrations and automation
• Work of this kind: CRM gokalex
• More pages like this: Connections, automation and AI