Running invoice reminders across many QuickBooks client books: a pilot plan
How a bookkeeping practice can roll out reminders across ten client books without sending a wrong email, starting with one book and a clear checklist for when to add the next.
Setting up reminders for one client is easy. Doing it for ten, each with a different owner, different customers and a different idea of what polite means, is where practices get into trouble. The usual failure is not technical. It is sending something to a client's customer that the client would not have sent.
This is a plan for rolling it out slowly enough to catch that. It assumes each client is on QuickBooks Online and you have access to their file as their accountant.
Pick one client for the pilot
Choose a client who:
- complains about late payers and will notice an improvement
- has a manageable number of overdue invoices, say a dozen rather than two hundred
- will answer your messages quickly
- has books you already trust
Avoid your biggest or most nervous client for the pilot. You want a place where a small mistake costs little.
Agree the rules in writing
Before connecting anything, write down for this client:
1. The sender name and who the reminders appear to come from. 2. Whether every message needs their approval at first (it should). 3. Which customers are never to be chased automatically, such as friends, large accounts or anyone in a dispute. 4. What pauses a chase: a reply, a promise of payment, a dispute.
The first week onboarding guide has a fuller version.
Check the numbers before you send
Connect the book, then compare what the tool shows against your own aged receivables report. Totals and customer names should match. If they do not, stop and find out why before you draft a single reminder. Mugavi's QuickBooks connection is in beta and has not yet been run against a real QuickBooks company by us, so this comparison is not optional. Tell us if it is wrong.
Draft first, send nothing
Start in draft-only mode: the tool drafts reminders for what is already overdue and nothing goes out. Read every draft the way the client's customer will. Look for three things: the wrong amount, the wrong name, and a tone that does not sound like the client. Edit or delete.
Send a few, then watch
Approve a small batch. Mugavi holds a sent message for thirty seconds so you can undo it, but closing the page cancels it, so stay on the screen. Then watch what happens over a week: replies, payments, anything odd. A reply pauses that invoice until you have read it.
Decide whether to add the next client
Add the next book when these are true for the pilot:
- [ ] No reminder went out that you or the client regretted
- [ ] The tool's totals matched your report
- [ ] Replies were read and handled within a business day
- [ ] The client is willing to say they noticed money arriving
If one of these is not true, fix it first. Adding books does not fix a process problem. It copies it.
How it looks at ten books
Once you have several books, the client books view in Mugavi shows outstanding and overdue amounts for each, the oldest overdue invoice, and what needs a person, such as a reconnect, replies or reminders waiting. Books that need attention come first. Know its limits: it shows counts, there is no combined inbox or combined approvals, and you open each book to act. A book appears in the list once someone has opened it.
On price, it is $399 a month for ten client books, billed by hand for now while card payments are set up. We are still working out exactly how extra books are charged, so ask before you plan around it.
Keep it a service, not a favour
Whatever you roll out, say what you charge for it. We wrote about pricing invoice follow-up as a service and the reminder emails you might send on a client's behalf. Both fit a pilot like this. The page for practices is Mugavi for bookkeepers.
Related reading: handing over invoice follow-up when a client leaves your practice, an accounts receivable month-end checklist for QuickBooks Online.