QuickBooks invoice reminders: set them up, and know their limits

QuickBooks Online can email your customers about unpaid invoices on its own. It is free, it is already in your account, and for a lot of small companies it is the right first step. It also stops short of the part of collections that takes the most time: finding out what each late customer is going to do.

This guide walks through setting up QuickBooks invoice reminders, how to word the three reminders it allows, and the gaps you will still need to cover. The steps follow Intuit's help article, Send invoice reminders automatically or manually. QuickBooks moves menus around from time to time, so check that article if a step below does not match your screen.

Turning on automatic reminders

In QuickBooks Online:

1. Open Settings (the gear icon) and choose Account and settings.
2. Open the Sales tab.
3. In the Reminders section, select Edit.
4. Turn on Automatic invoice reminders.
5. Expand Reminder 1 and switch it on. Use the dropdowns to set how many days, and whether that is before or after the due date.
6. Add a second and third reminder the same way if you want them.
7. Save.

According to Intuit, you can have up to three reminders, each scheduled up to 90 days before or after the due date. You can edit each reminder's subject line, greeting and message, and use fields such as the invoice number and your company name. Changes to the rules apply to future reminders.

One detail catches people out: Intuit says automatic reminders go only for invoices you've already emailed from QuickBooks. If you print invoices, upload them to a customer's portal, or email PDFs from your own inbox, those invoices will not get automatic reminders.

Sending one reminder by hand

For a single invoice, Intuit's steps are: go to Sales & Get Paid, then Invoices, find the invoice, choose Send reminder from the Receive payment dropdown, edit the message if you like, and send. This is useful for a customer you want to handle personally, such as a large account or one where you have just had a phone call.

A sensible schedule for business customers

Three reminders fit a natural escalation. A common setup for invoices to other businesses:

Some companies also send a courtesy note a few days before the due date. That uses up one of your three reminders, so decide whether a pre-due nudge or a final notice matters more to you. For most business customers who pay late, the later reminders do more work.

Wording the three reminders

QuickBooks sends the same template for every invoice at a given step, so write each one to make sense for any customer. Keep the invoice number and your company name in the subject line; Intuit itself recommends keeping the word "reminder" there too.

Reminder 1 subject: Reminder: invoice [Invoice No.] from [Company Name] is past due

This is a friendly reminder that the invoice below is past due. If payment is already on its way, thank you, and please ignore this note. If something is wrong with the invoice, or these should go to someone else, please reply and let us know.

Reminder 2 subject: Second notice: invoice [Invoice No.] from [Company Name] is still unpaid

We haven't received payment for the invoice below. Please send payment this week, or reply with the date we can expect it. If it is held up on your side, tell us what you need and we'll sort it out.

Reminder 3 subject: Final notice: invoice [Invoice No.] from [Company Name]

This is our final reminder about the invoice below. Please arrange payment within the next week, or reply so we can sort it out together. After this, we will follow up with you directly.

Use the field names your version of QuickBooks offers in place of the bracketed ones.

What QuickBooks reminders leave to you

The built-in reminders send emails on a timer. Everything that happens after the email is still yours:

• Answers come back as free-text replies. "Paying Friday", "we sent a check on the 3rd", "this was for the wrong site" and "I left the company" all land in your inbox. Someone has to read them, record them, and decide what to do.
• A promise doesn't change the schedule. The reminder rules are account-wide, and Intuit's article describes no way to hold them for one customer. If a customer tells you they will pay on the 20th, check whether the next reminder lands on the 18th.
• The same goes for disputes. A customer who has told you the invoice is wrong should not get a "final notice" a week later, so you need to watch for that by hand.
• Reminders are per invoice. Intuit describes a reminder going out for each unpaid invoice that matches your settings, so a customer with four late invoices can receive several emails.
• The reminders don't tell you who is stuck. You find the customers who have had every reminder and still not paid or answered by reading the A/R Aging report.

None of this makes the built-in reminders a bad choice. If your late invoices are few and your customers mostly just forget, they may be all you need. The gaps start to matter when you have dozens of late invoices and the replies, promises and follow-up calls become a part-time job.

Filling the gaps by hand

If you stay with the built-in reminders, a weekly routine covers most of what they miss:

1. Run the A/R Aging Detail report and sort by days past due.
2. Read the week's replies and note each answer against the customer: promised date, says paid, dispute, wrong contact.
3. Check promised dates that have passed, and call those customers.
4. Call anyone who has had the final reminder and has not answered.
5. Fix bad contact emails in the customer record so the next reminder reaches someone.

When the built-in reminders aren't enough

Past Due Nudge works from the same QuickBooks Online data, through the Open Invoices report you export to Excel or CSV and upload. It sends reminders signed with your company's name that escalate at 7, 21 and 45 days past due, groups each customer's late invoices into one email, and lets customers answer in one click: paying by a date, already paid, disputing, or wrong contact. Each answer pauses that customer's reminders, and your dashboard lists the accounts that need a call.