Thinking · money
How to stop chasing invoices — for a Brisbane trade business
The unpaid-invoice problem isn't a debt-collection problem. It's a systems problem — and here's the one that works.
Every trade owner I meet on the Brisbane northside has the same Sunday-night ritual. Open Xero. Scroll the aged-receivables report. Count how much is over 30 days. Sigh. Close the laptop. Do nothing about it because it's Sunday night.
The problem isn't laziness. The problem is that chasing invoices — done properly — takes a specific kind of energy that a tired business owner doesn't have on a Sunday night. It needs to be warm-but-firm. It needs to reference the exact job. It needs to include the invoice again in case they lost it. And it needs to be sent Tuesday morning, not late Sunday, because Tuesday morning is when people actually pay.
Here's the system I've watched work for actual Brisbane trades. Not from a book. From what my clients do.
01The three-touch chase
Every invoice gets three chases, on a fixed schedule, and never more than three. If the third one doesn't land the money, you escalate — you don't send a fourth.
- Chase 1 — Day +3 after due date. Friendly. 'Hi Sam, just checking this one landed OK? Attached again in case it got lost. Any questions, give me a bell.'
- Chase 2 — Day +10. Warmer-firm. Mention the job in one sentence so they remember what you did. 'Hi Sam, chasing up the invoice for the switchboard job on Tuesday. Attached — is Friday OK?'
- Chase 3 — Day +21. Direct. 'Hi Sam, this one's now three weeks overdue. If there's an issue with the job I want to know today. If not, could you pay by Friday please.'
Every message is short. Every message is polite. Every message has the invoice attached again — never assume they can find your original email.
02When to send them
Tuesday morning is best. Not Monday (Monday is other-people's-inbox-Monday and yours goes to the bottom). Not Friday (they'll deal with it 'next week'). Not weekends.
Between 8:30 and 10:00 AM. That's when your customer is at their desk, coffee in hand, choosing which small things to knock over before the day gets away from them. Being the small thing at the top of that stack is the whole game.
03What most tradies get wrong
- They mix the chase into a longer email about the next job. Don't. One email, one topic, easy to action.
- They apologise for chasing. 'Sorry to bother you…' — you're not bothering them, you did the work. Don't apologise for asking to be paid.
- They wait until the money hurts. Send Chase 1 three days after due date, not three weeks. It's a much easier conversation when it's small.
- They send from a personal email. It goes to spam or gets lost in the customer's mess. Send from your business email, always.
04The bit you can automate today
Xero has automatic invoice reminders built in — free, on every plan. Under Business → Invoice reminders. Turn them on. Set them at +3, +10, +21. Turn OFF the reminder that fires before the due date (annoys customers, kills goodwill).
This gets you 60% of the way there. The other 40% is that Xero's default reminder text is corporate mush — 'Please note that Invoice #INV-0134 is now overdue.' Edit it. In your voice, first-person, one sentence.
For example, here's what I use for one Brendale sparky I know: Hi {firstname}, quick one — the switchboard job invoice is now {days} days over. Attached again in case it got lost. Any issues I want to know today.
That template performs measurably better than the corporate default. Not because it's clever — because it sounds like a human wrote it.
05When to bring in something custom
If you're over $30k in aged receivables at any given time, Xero's built-in reminders stop being enough. That's when a custom invoice-chase workflow starts paying for itself — one that reads Xero, drafts the chase in your voice (learned from your own past emails), sorts by dollar impact, and lets you approve the batch in five minutes instead of writing each one.
That's what the Kindra Books app does — but honestly, you don't need it on day one. Turn on Xero's built-in reminders first. See where the leaks still are after three months. Then decide.
06The bit that isn't software
The one thing no automation replaces: call the customer once. Not text, not email — call. After Chase 2 but before Chase 3, if you're worried about the money, pick up the phone. Sixty seconds. Just 'checking you got the invoice OK, mate, anything I need to know?'
It works because 90% of overdue invoices aren't disputes. They're forgotten. A friendly phone call from the person who did the work gets them paid faster than any automated system ever will. Save the automation for the ones you can't be bothered to call.
07What to measure
One number: days sales outstanding (DSO). Take your total unpaid invoices, divide by average daily revenue. That's how many days on average customers take to pay you. Anything over 45 days is a leak. Anything under 30 is well-run.
You'll find the DSO trending down about six weeks after you turn on the three-touch chase. That's the moment you know it's working.
If your books are leaking money you didn't build the business to lose, that's usually where the honest conversation starts. Get a Leak Check and I'll show you exactly where — free, twenty minutes, a straight read either way.
If this is the leak you recognised, twenty minutes with us finds out what it actually costs.
Before you ask.
How overdue is too overdue before I escalate to a debt collector?
Over 60 days with no reply to three chases and one phone call. Below that, you're better off with your own follow-up than a collector's cut of what they recover.
Do late-payment fees actually work?
In my experience — no, they irritate more than they collect. What works is fast, warm follow-up. If you must charge them, put it in the quote, not the invoice.
What if a customer disputes the invoice?
Different problem. Stop chasing, pick up the phone, get the dispute in writing (email is fine) within 48 hours. Fix or hold your ground. Either way, disputed invoices don't belong in the chase queue — they belong in a separate list you review weekly.
