The invoice went out on net 30 and it is now day 38. This is one of your better accounts, they will order again in November, and you still need the money this month.
That is the whole problem with chasing a B2B debt. The customer is also the pipeline. So the chase has to be firm enough to get paid and calm enough that the buyer still sends you the next purchase order. Below is the sequence, the day counts, and how to use ChatGPT to write it without turning a late payment into an argument.
Step 1: reconcile the ledger before you write a word
The fastest way to lose an account is to chase money the customer has already paid. Before anything else, work out the exact balance actually outstanding on that invoice.
Pull four things:
- The invoice itself: number, date, total, terms, and the customer's PO number.
- Every payment received against it, with date and reference.
- Any deposit or progress payment taken before delivery.
- Any credit note raised, and what it was for.
Then check the obvious traps. Deposits taken on order are often posted to the account rather than the invoice. A part payment made by ACH may have landed with the customer's own reference, not yours. A credit note for a shortage may have been agreed by phone and never issued. Remittance advice may be sitting in a shared inbox nobody reads.
You want one number you would defend on a call. Not the invoice total.
Step 2: separate a dispute from a late payer
These are two different problems and they need two different letters.
A late payer agrees they owe the money. Nothing is wrong with the goods, the delivery, or the paperwork. Cash is tight, or the invoice never got approved, or it is stuck behind a missing PO reference. You chase this.
A dispute means the customer believes they owe less than you billed. In distribution, haulage and job shops it is nearly always one of a short list: a shortage on the pallet count, damage in transit, a missing or unsigned POD, an unapproved price increase, a rejected first article, or a quantity billed at the wrong break price.
If it is a dispute, stop chasing and go and settle the facts. Get the POD, the goods-in note, the weighbridge ticket, the inspection report. Decide what credit, if any, is fair, and issue it properly. A claims and credits guide is useful here because it gives your office one consistent rule set rather than an answer that depends on who picked up the phone.
The mistake to avoid is mixing them. If $3,000 of a $17,600 balance is genuinely in dispute, split it. Ask for the $14,600 that nobody disagrees about, and handle the $3,000 as a separate claim with its own decision. Otherwise the customer holds the whole balance while one line item gets investigated.
Step 3: run the three-stage sequence
Three messages, escalating, with the same figure in all three. Each one has a job.
- Friendly reference check, day 3 to day 5 past due. Assume something administrative went wrong, because usually it did. Confirm the invoice was received, confirm their PO number matches yours, ask whether it is in their approval queue, and ask for an expected payment date. No pressure. This message alone clears a surprising share of late invoices because it finds the missing PO reference or the wrong billing email.
- Firm reminder, day 10 to day 14 past due. Now you name the number. Invoice number, PO number, original total, payments received, credits applied, and the exact balance. State the terms that were agreed and the number of days past due. Ask for a payment date in writing, not a promise to look into it. Copy the person who actually approves payment, not just the clerk who processes it.
- Final notice, day 21 to day 30 past due. Short, dated, and specific about what happens next. You are not threatening. You are telling them the decision you will take and when: the account goes on stop, the file goes to your attorney or a collections agency, or the next scheduled delivery does not load. Give a clear date. Then do exactly what you said on that date, because the one thing that destroys a chase sequence is a final notice that turns out to be a bluff.
Keep all three in the same email thread with the same subject line and the invoice number in it. When it goes to a credit controller or a lawyer later, the thread is the evidence.
Step 4: decide the stop point before you need it
Putting an account on stop feels like ending the relationship. Not deciding is worse, because it means you keep shipping to someone who is not paying, and the exposure grows every load.
Write your rule down while you are calm. A workable one for a small supplier: no new orders released once the balance is more than 45 days past due, or once total exposure passes the credit limit you set, whichever comes first. Existing committed orders ship, new ones wait for payment or go on card.
Tell the buyer before the stop, not after. "I have to flag that the account goes on hold on the 14th if the balance is still open" gives them time to push the payment through internally, and it keeps the decision commercial rather than personal.
Feed the open balances into a cash flow forecaster so you can see which weeks actually depend on this one paying. Sometimes the answer is that you can wait two weeks, and knowing that changes the tone of the call.
A worked example (illustration only)
Fictional figures, to show the shape of it.
Northgate Steel Products, a job shop, invoices Westvale Building Supply for a batch of fabricated brackets against PO 88214.
- Invoice 4187, dated 6 August, $52,000, net 30, due 5 September.
- Deposit taken on order: $20,000.
- Part payment received 12 September, reference WVB-4187: $12,000.
- Credit note 219 issued for a 40-piece shortage: $2,400.
- Balance outstanding: $17,600.
That $17,600 is the only number that goes in the emails. Not $52,000, and not the $20,000 the bookkeeper first read off the aged debtor report because the credit note had not been posted yet.
The sequence runs: reference check on 9 September, firm reminder on 17 September naming invoice 4187, PO 88214, the $52,000 original, the $32,000 paid, credit note 219 and the $17,600 due, then a final notice on 30 September stating the account goes on stop on 7 October. Westvale's buyer replies that the shortage credit never reached their accounts team, which is why the whole balance sat. Credit note 219 gets resent, and the payment date lands in writing.
That is the point of reconciling first. The blocker was a $2,400 credit, not $17,600 of unwillingness.
The prompt to paste
Give ChatGPT the ledger facts and let it do the drafting. The overdue invoice chaser skill wraps this up so you do not have to retype the instructions each time, but the plain version works:
I need to chase an overdue invoice from a customer I want to keep. Here are the facts. We are a steel fabrication shop. Customer: Westvale Building Supply, they have been buying from us for four years and order again in November. Invoice 4187, 6 August, $52,000, net 30, due 5 September, their PO 88214. Deposit $20,000 taken on order. Part payment $12,000 received 12 September. Credit note 219 for $2,400 for a 40-piece shortage. Balance due $17,600. No dispute raised, they have just gone quiet after two calls. Write me three emails: a short friendly check for day 5, a firm reminder for day 14 that states the exact balance and how it was calculated, and a final notice for day 28 saying the account goes on stop on 7 October. Do not add interest, late fees or legal threats. Keep it plain and polite. Tell me what I should check before I send each one.
What never goes in the email
- Invented interest or late fees. Only charge what your terms and conditions actually say, and only if the customer accepted those terms. If you are not sure what your terms allow, confirm it with your accountant or attorney before you bill a penny of it.
- Legal threats you have not decided to carry out. "We will take legal action" with no date and no intention behind it teaches the customer to ignore you.
- Anything about their business you cannot evidence. No speculation about their cash position, and nothing you heard from another supplier.
- Sarcasm, or "as per my last email". It costs you nothing to stay flat and factual, and flat and factual is harder to argue with.
- A figure you have not reconciled. One wrong number and the conversation becomes about your bookkeeping instead of their payment.
Check before you send
Read the draft against the ledger, not against your memory.
- Does the balance in the email match the reconciled balance exactly, including credits?
- Are the invoice number, PO number, invoice date and due date all correct?
- Is it going to the person who approves payment as well as the person who processes it?
- Have you removed any interest, fee or legal claim you have not verified?
- If it is the final notice, is the next step something you are genuinely going to do on the date stated?
- Would you be comfortable if the buyer forwarded this to their boss? That is the real test for an account you want to keep.
Close
Chasing well is mostly bookkeeping plus nerve. Get the balance right, split the dispute from the delay, send three messages instead of eleven, and decide your stop point before you are angry. ChatGPT drafts the wording in a couple of minutes. The number, the timing and the decision to act are still yours.