Chasing by email that gets paid

Email is where most chasing now happens, and where most of it fails. A debtor’s accounts payable team receives dozens of supplier emails a day. The ones that get acted on are specific, easy to answer and hard to put off. The ones that get ignored say “please could you advise when payment will be made” and attach a statement.

For a credit controller collecting on a funded ledger, the stakes are higher than usual. An invoice that slips past the funding cut-off stops being funded, and the client’s availability drops. Getting the email right is part of protecting the facility.

Before you write

Check three things first:

1. Who actually pays? Send to the person who processes payments, and copy the person who approved the purchase if you know them. An email to a general inbox can sit for a week.
2. What is really overdue? List the invoices by number, date and amount. Check for part-payments, unallocated cash and credit notes so you don’t chase something already settled.
3. Is anything disputed? If an invoice is under query, deal with the dispute separately. Chasing a disputed invoice for payment irritates the debtor and gets nowhere.

What a good chasing email contains

• A subject line that does the work. “Overdue: invoices 4417 and 4431, £6,240, due 30 September” tells the reader what it is before they open it. “Account query” doesn’t.
• The invoices, in a short list. Number, date, amount, due date. Nobody should need to open an attachment to find out what you’re asking about.
• One clear request. Ask for payment by a specific date, or for a date when payment will be made. Not both, and not “any update”.
• An easy way to answer. Give the bank details on the invoice, a direct phone number, and a name. People reply to a person, not to “Accounts”.
• A short close. Thank them, and stop. The longer the email, the less of it gets read.

A simple sequence

Chasing works best as a sequence, so each email builds on the last and the debtor can see where it is going. A typical pattern:

1. Before the due date. A brief reminder that the invoices fall due, with copies attached. This catches missing invoices and wrong addresses early, which is when they are cheapest to fix.
2. Just after the due date. A polite note that payment hasn’t arrived, the list of invoices, and a request for a payment date.
3. About a week later. A firmer email, referring to the earlier one, asking for payment by a specific date. Follow it with a phone call the same day.
4. When a promise is made. Confirm it in writing straight away: amount, invoices, date. A promise confirmed in writing is much easier to hold someone to.
5. When a promise is broken. Say so plainly, ask for payment within a short period, and explain the next step, which is escalation within your process.

The exact days depend on the debtor’s terms and your client’s facility. What matters is that each step happens on time, every time, so debtors learn that this supplier follows up.

Tone

Firm and polite always beats either one alone. Avoid sarcasm, capital letters and long paragraphs about how long you’ve been waiting. Don’t threaten anything you’re not authorised to do. On a funded ledger, legal action and stopping supply are decisions for the client and the financier, not a line in an email.

Write as if the email might be read by someone senior at the debtor, or forwarded to a dispute file. It sometimes is.

Email and phone together

An email is a record; a call is a conversation. The two work best together. Send the email, then call to make sure it arrived and to get the date. After the call, confirm what was agreed by email. This combination is far harder to ignore than either on its own.

Common mistakes

• Chasing the statement, not the invoices. “Please see attached statement” asks the debtor to work out what you want. Name the invoices.
• Copying in everyone. An email to six people is an email nobody owns. Write to the person who can pay, and copy one other at most.
• Changing bank details by email. On a funded ledger, payment instructions should never change in a chasing email. If a debtor is told to pay somewhere new, that is a matter for the financier, and an email asking for it is a known route for fraud.
• Letting a reply go unanswered. If a debtor replies with a question, answer it the same day. A slow answer becomes the debtor’s reason to wait.

Keeping the record

Every email you send and every reply you receive is part of the account history. File it against the debtor, note any promise and its date, and set yourself a follow-up for the day after the promised date. When a debtor later claims it never received an invoice, or that nobody chased, the record is your answer.

Good chasing is not about clever wording. It is about being specific, consistent and easy to pay.