Chasing unpaid invoices is the admin job most freelancers and virtual assistants put off the longest. Usually the problem isn't writing the email. It's that the list of who's late lives in one place and the reminder wording lives somewhere else, so it never feels like a two-minute job.
A tip from another indie maker fixed this for me: put the reminder copy in the same row as the invoice, not on a separate page. When the row already says "INV-1010, Cedar Wellness, 40 days late" and the polite-but-firm email is sitting right next to it, you copy, paste, and send.
How to set it up in any spreadsheet:
- One row per invoice with the client, amount, due date, and paid date.
- A "days overdue" column: today minus the due date, blank once it's paid.
- A status column that buckets it: not due, 1–7 days, 8–14, 15–30, 30+.
- A reminder column that picks the right email for that bucket and fills in the name, invoice number, and amount.
- A view that only shows invoices more than 7 days late, oldest first.
Start friendly, get firmer as the days go up, and always offer a payment plan before a final notice.
If you'd rather not build the formulas yourself, I made a ready-to-use version for Excel and Google Sheets with five reminder stages and a payment-plan option: Overdue Invoice Tracker for VAs. It's not legal or financial advice, and it doesn't send email for you.
Top comments (1)
tr.ee/dev-to