Late payments used to ruin my month. Not the money part — the emotional part.
The awkward emails. The "just following up" messages you rewrite six times. The mental gymnastics of being polite to someone who owes you £3,000 and is ghosting you.
So I built a system. It is not sexy. It is not AI-powered. It is a set of rules that run whether I feel like chasing or not.
The problem with manual chasing
Most freelancers do this:
- Send invoice
- Wait
- Forget about it
- Panic when rent is due
- Send apologetic email
- Wait more
- Get angry
- Send passive-aggressive email
- Get paid (maybe)
The gap between steps 2 and 5 is where money dies.
What I do instead
Day 0: Invoice goes out. Payment terms are on it. Due date is clear.
Day 1 after due date: Automated reminder. Friendly. "This might have slipped through — invoice #X was due yesterday."
Day 7: Firmer. "I need to flag this. Payment is now a week overdue."
Day 14: Formal. Mentions statutory interest under UK law. (Most people do not know you can charge 8% + base rate on late commercial debts. Now they do.)
Day 21: Final demand. 14-day deadline. States next steps.
Day 35: Letter Before Action.
Day 42: Small claims court.
The bit nobody tells you
I have never reached Day 42.
Most clients pay by Day 7. The ones who do not pay by Day 14 always respond. The formal language — statutory interest, Late Payment of Commercial Debts Act 1998 — works because it signals "this person knows the law and will use it."
You do not need to be aggressive. You need to be consistent and informed.
Tools that help
I built a few free tools that handle the annoying bits:
- Payment Reminder Generator — picks the right tone based on how overdue the invoice is
- Late Payment Interest Calculator — calculates exactly what you are owed under UK law
- Should I Chase This Invoice? — tells you whether it is worth pursuing based on amount, relationship, and time
- Invoice Generator — because half the problem starts with unclear invoices
All free, no signup, work in your browser.
The uncomfortable truth
If you are reading this and you have an unpaid invoice sitting in your inbox right now — you already know what you need to do.
The chase email is not going to write itself. But it also does not need to be hard.
Pick the right template. Send it. Move on. The money is yours. Go get it.
I write about the boring-but-profitable side of freelancing at landolio.com. UK-focused, no fluff.
Top comments (0)