Unpaid invoice follow-up: five email templates that get you paid

Most unpaid invoices are not refusals. They are invoices sitting in a queue behind somebody else’s, and the thing that moves them up the queue is a short message arriving on a predictable schedule. The five emails below cover the day before the due date, the day after, one week, three weeks, and the final notice before the matter leaves your hands. Each one changes tone by exactly one step, which is what keeps the last one credible.

business.gov.au’s page on what to do when you haven’t been paid sets out the same shape at a higher level: review the terms of your contract, send a reminder, send a letter of demand, get help with dispute resolution, use a debt collection agency, take legal action. The templates here are the reminder stage, written out.

General information, not tax advice. The ATO is the authority - see ato.gov.au or ask a registered tax or BAS agent.

Why the sequence beats the wording

Three things do the work, and none of them is phrasing.

Timing. A reminder that arrives the day after the due date reads as a system. One that arrives five weeks later reads as a business that does not track its money, which tells the customer their invoice can wait again. Send on the same schedule for every customer.

A single ask. Each email asks for one thing: payment, or a date. “Let me know if there is a problem” is not an ask. “Can you confirm the date it will be paid?” is, and a person who commits to a date usually pays on it.

The right recipient. The person who hired you is often not the person who pays. By email three the accounts inbox belongs on the thread, with the invoice attached again rather than referenced.

Attach the invoice every time. Never make somebody search their own inbox in order to pay you.

Before the due date, and the day after

The first email is not a chase. It is a courtesy that costs nothing and removes the most common excuse, which is that the invoice was never seen. Dates in square brackets are placeholders from the running example; replace them with your own.

Subject: Invoice INV-0142 due tomorrow

Hi Sarah,

Quick note that invoice INV-0142 for $2,860 is due tomorrow, [14 October].
I've attached it again for convenience.

Payment details are on the invoice. If anything needs changing before it
goes through, let me know today and I'll turn it around.

Thanks,
Tom

The second goes out the day after the due date, before the amount has had time to become normal. Still friendly, but the date has moved from future to past and the email says so.

Subject: Invoice INV-0142 now due

Hi Sarah,

Invoice INV-0142 for $2,860 was due yesterday, [14 October], and I don't
have a record of payment yet. Attached again.

If it's already been processed, ignore this and my apologies. If not,
could you let me know what date it's scheduled for?

Thanks,
Tom

One week, and three weeks

At one week the invoice is properly late and the email gets shorter, not longer. Short reads as serious. The ask is a date, and the sentence about a problem invites the real reason out into the open where it can be dealt with.

Subject: Invoice INV-0142 - 7 days overdue

Hi Sarah,

Invoice INV-0142 for $2,860 is now 7 days overdue. Attached.

Can you confirm the payment date, or let me know if there's a problem
with the invoice I can fix?

I'd rather sort it out now than chase it.

Thanks,
Tom

At three weeks the tone becomes firm and the consequences appear. This is also the point where a late fee agreed in your terms is applied, if you have one, and where it becomes obvious why the fee had to be in the terms the customer accepted rather than invented here. That mechanism is covered in can you charge late fees on invoices in Australia.

Subject: Invoice INV-0142 - 21 days overdue

Hi Sarah,

Invoice INV-0142 for $2,860 is 21 days overdue. Attached again, with the
agreed payment terms.

I need either payment or a firm payment date by [Friday 6 November]. If
I don't hear back, the account moves to a formal demand and further work
is on hold until it's settled.

Please call me on 0400 000 000 if there's something I should know.

Thanks,
Tom

The final notice

The last email states a deadline, states what happens after it, and stops. No new argument, no apology for sending it, no fourth restatement of the work. Copy the accounts inbox and the person who hired you on the same message.

Subject: Final notice - invoice INV-0142

Hi Sarah,

Invoice INV-0142 for $2,860, issued [30 September], remains unpaid
35 days after its due date. The invoice and terms are attached.

If payment or an agreed payment plan is not in place by 5pm on
[Friday 20 November], the account will be referred for recovery without
further notice from me.

I'd much prefer to resolve it directly.

Tom

Only send this one if you will act on it. A final notice that is followed by a sixth reminder trains the customer to ignore all of them.

When email stops working, pick up the phone

Two unanswered emails means email is not the channel. Call, keep it under a minute, and write down what was said.

“Hi Sarah, it’s Tom. I’m calling about invoice INV-0142, the $2,860 from the 30th of September. It’s three weeks past due now. Is there a problem with it, or can we lock in a date?” Then stop talking. The silence does the work, and whatever comes back, close on a date: “So the 12th. I’ll email to confirm that.” Send that email straight away, because a confirmed date in writing is the thing you can act on later.

Escalating: demand letters, debt collection, small claims

After the final notice, business.gov.au’s guidance runs through a letter of demand, dispute resolution, a debt collection agency and then legal action. Its debt collection services page describes the options, including debt purchasing, where the debt is sold for a percentage of its value and you are not entitled to the money recovered. For legal action, business.gov.au’s what to do when you haven’t been paid page says that depending on the amount of money involved you can either get legal advice or lodge a claim with a small claims tribunal.

Two cautions. There are legal and consumer-law obligations on how a debt can be pursued, so the ACCC material linked from those pages is worth reading before anyone contacts your customer on your behalf. And the arithmetic matters: on smaller invoices, recovery costs can approach the amount owed, which is an argument for deposits and shorter terms rather than better letters. The prevention side is in how to get invoices paid on time.

How Apsis helps

Apsis shows paid and owed at a glance: the invoice list flags overdue invoices, filters by status including part-paid, and searches by number, title or client, so the accounts to chase at any point are a filter rather than a spreadsheet you rebuild each month. Every invoice keeps its sequential number and its issue date, which is what the emails above quote back. Invoices are on the free plan, which covers 5 clients and 20 invoices a month, and the follow-up emails are yours to send; automatic invoice reminders are on the paid plan.