The accounts system you already run
Xero, Sage, QuickBooks and the rest on the integrations list, read only, plus the mailbox the reminders go from. Up to three systems in a First Agent.
Finance · AGT-09 Invoice Chaser
Invoice chasing automation that stops the moment a customer pays.
Credit control in a small business is a spreadsheet, a Friday afternoon and a person who would rather be doing anything else. Reminders go out late or not at all, the tone drifts from friendly to sharp depending on the week, and the one email nobody wants to send, the reminder to a customer who paid yesterday, goes out anyway.
Invoice Chaser works the aged debtor list on the ladder of reminders you set, in your voice, and holds anything contentious for a person. It never invents a balance and it never chases a paid or disputed account.
01 / The workflow
Read the ledger, drop the paid, draft the reminders, hold the disputes.
The ladder is yours: which day the first nudge goes, when the second follows, when a person picks up the phone. The agent keeps to it exactly, every week, and records what it did.
01
Read the aged debtor list
Straight from the accounts system, read only, on the schedule you set. Xero, Sage, QuickBooks and the others on the integrations list. Nothing is typed in twice.
02
Drop what has changed
Anything paid since the last run, anything with a credit note, anything marked in dispute, anything on a payment plan. These come off before a single word is drafted, because a reminder to someone who has paid is the mistake that costs you the customer.
03
Draft the reminders on your ladder
A gentle note at seven days, a clearer one at fourteen, a statement and a call request at thirty. Each in your house voice, each quoting the invoice number, the amount and the due date from the ledger, never from memory.
04
Hold the ones that need a person
A customer who has replied. A balance that does not match the invoice. An account over the limit you set. A first-time reminder to a customer you flagged as important. Held, by name, with the reason written down.
05
A person approves and sends
One queue, one look, one click per reminder, or all of them at once for the routine ones. Whether the agent may send the first rung on its own authority is your decision, made in writing in the audit, not a default.
06
Record and report
Hardy logs every reminder, who approved it and when, and what the customer said back. Debtor days are measured from the ledger, before and after, so the number you are paying for is the number you see.
02 / The boundaries
What it cannot do
Four things Invoice Chaser will never do on its own authority.
- It does not chase a paid, disputed or credited account. The ledger is read before every run and those accounts are dropped first. If the ledger cannot be read, nothing is sent.
- It does not escalate the tone by itself. Every rung of the ladder is written by you and sent in order. It cannot skip a rung, shorten a gap or add a threat.
- It does not negotiate. A customer who replies asking for time, a plan or a discount is handed to a person with the thread attached. The agent never agrees or refuses anything.
- It does not touch the money. It reads balances. It never allocates a payment, raises a credit or writes anything to the accounts system.
Anything outside those rules waits for a named person.
03 / A test run, labelled as one
Test scenario, not a customer result
One Monday run against a test ledger we built for the purpose.
We do not yet have a permissioned customer case to publish for this agent, so here is the next most honest thing: a test we ran ourselves against a ledger we assembled, with the inputs stated. When a client agrees to be named, their measured debtor days will replace this.
The test ledger, Monday 07:00
Inputs: 63 open invoices, 41 past due, three-rung ladder at 7, 14 and 30 days
- 07:00:00 Butler Read 63 open invoices, 41 past due across 29 accounts Accounts system, read only. Nothing sent.
- 07:00:12 Butler Dropped 9: 6 paid since Friday, 2 in dispute, 1 on a payment plan Each drop recorded with its reason against the invoice number.
- 07:00:40 Butler Drafted 32 reminders: 18 first rung, 10 second, 4 third Invoice number, amount and due date quoted from the ledger. Third rung includes a statement.
- 07:00:41 Hardy Held 5 for a person 3 customers had replied since the last run, 1 balance did not match, 1 account is on the important list.
- 08:20:15 A person Approved 27 reminders, amended 2, sent; took the 5 held Named in the ledger. Eleven minutes at the queue. The 2 amendments kept beside the originals.
A test ledger we assembled from anonymised invoice patterns, run on 5 September 2026. It shows the format and the division of labour. It is not a measurement of any customer's debtor days, and the counts are not a forecast of yours.
Measured on, when it is live for you: debtor days from the ledger, reminders sent on the day the ladder says, and reminders sent to a paid account, which should be zero and is checked. The audit sets the baseline before anything is built.
04 / Fit
A ladder, a voice and an important list
The days and the wording for each rung, a few past reminders that sound like you, and the accounts a person always handles. All three are written down in the audit, so the agent starts from your rules and not ours.
When we would advise against it
Under about twenty overdue invoices a month, the queue costs more attention than the chasing saved. A ledger that is not kept up to date is worse than no agent, because the drop step depends on it. We will tell you either in the audit.
The audit first, then a fixed price
A £1,500 two-week audit, credited in full against the build. Invoice Chaser is normally a First Agent at a fixed £6,500, live in three to four weeks, then from £450 a month to run and watch it, plus £40 to £200 a month paid directly to the providers. Not VAT registered, so no VAT is added. The full price list.
05 / Next step
Tell us how many invoices are overdue right now.
Roughly how many, which accounts system, and who chases them today. That is enough for a first conversation, and we will tell you whether Invoice Chaser is the right first agent or whether another one is.