Credit control across client books: a UK weekly routine

If you do credit control for more than one client, the hard part is not writing a polite reminder. It is keeping each client's rules straight: who gets chased, how firmly, who is on hold, and who promised to pay on Friday. This post sets out a weekly routine you can run in Xero or QuickBooks with the reports they already have and a simple log, plus what UK law adds when a business customer pays late.

This is general information, not legal advice. Check your client's terms of business, and ask an adviser before you rely on any of it.

Before the first week: write each client's rules down

Agree five things with every client before you chase anyone on their behalf, and keep them on one page per client:

• **Who the messages come from.** Your name, the client's name, or a shared accounts address. Customers respond better to a name they already know.
• **The tone.** A design studio's corporate clients, a builder's homeowners and a dental practice's patients need different wording. Get two example messages approved by the client, one gentle and one firm.
• **The reminder ladder.** How many days after the due date each step goes, and what changes at each step.
• **The hold list.** Customers the client never wants chased by you: a friend, a key account, anyone in a dispute.
• **When to stop and hand back.** For example a dispute, a debt over an agreed amount, or anything that needs a solicitor.

Without this page, every borderline case becomes a phone call to the client, and every one of those calls is time you are not billing.

The weekly routine, per client book

Pick the same day each week, and work one client book at a time.

1. **Run the aged debtors report.** In Xero that is the Aged Receivables report, in QuickBooks the accounts receivable ageing report. Sort by the oldest balance and note every customer past due. Start with the oldest and the largest. 2. **Take out the hold list.** Remove anyone on the client's hold list before you do anything else, so nobody is chased by mistake. 3. **Look for payments not yet matched.** Check unreconciled bank lines and unapplied credits before chasing. A customer whose payment is sitting unmatched should get a thank you, not a reminder. 4. **Send a statement where it works better.** A customer with several overdue invoices usually responds better to one statement listing everything than to five separate reminders. 5. **Work the reminder ladder.** Send each customer the step that is due, in the client's approved wording. 6. **Log what went out.** One tab per client: date, customer, invoice, which step, and any reply.

Twenty minutes per client book is realistic once the rules page exists. If one client's list keeps growing, the fix is usually their payment terms, not more reminders.

A reminder ladder that suits most UK clients

Adjust the days to each client's terms, but this shape holds up:

• **A few days before the due date:** a friendly note with the invoice attached and the bank details repeated. It catches invoices that never reached the right person.
• **A week after the due date:** a plain reminder with the invoice number, the amount, the due date and how to pay.
• **Two to three weeks after:** a firmer note asking for a payment date, copied to whoever approves payments if you know who that is.
• **Around 30 days after:** phone. A call that says you want to make sure the invoice reached the right person gets answered more often than a fourth email.
• **After that:** a final written notice, agreed with the client in advance, saying what happens next. Only say what the client will actually do.

Stop the ladder for an invoice the moment the customer replies. A reply is a person: they may say it is paid, disputed, or never arrived. Read it, deal with it, and only then decide whether chasing starts again.

When to phone, and when to hold

Phone when an invoice is large, when two emails have gone unanswered, or when the person who pays is not the person who ordered. Ask who approves payments and when their payment run is. Many larger UK companies pay on a fixed cycle, and an invoice that misses the run waits for the next one.

Hold, and tell the client, when the customer disputes the work, when they are on a payment arrangement your client agreed, or when the client says the relationship matters more than the timing. Holding is a decision, so write down who decided and until when.

Recording promises to pay

A promise to pay is only useful if someone checks it. When a customer gives a date, log it against the invoice with who said it and how. Do not chase before the date. Chase the day after it passes, and refer to the promise: "You mentioned you would pay on Friday. I can't see it yet, could you check for me?" Two broken promises from the same customer is a reason to phone, and to tell the client.

What UK law adds when a business pays late

If your client sells to other businesses, the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 gives them rights even when their terms say nothing about late payment. According to GOV.UK, as we read it on 11 October 2026:

• Statutory interest is 8% plus the Bank of England base rate for business to business transactions.
• A fixed sum for debt recovery costs can be claimed, once per payment: £40 for a debt up to £999.99, £70 for £1,000 to £9,999.99, and £100 for £10,000 or more.
• Statutory interest cannot be claimed if the contract sets a different rate of interest.

Whether to use it is your client's decision, not yours. Plenty of small businesses keep it in their terms and use it rarely, because the mention of interest moves some customers and offends others. The base rate changes, so check it when you work anything out. Our guide to charging late fees on invoices in the US and UK covers the wording, and GOV.UK's pages on charging interest and claiming recovery costs are the source.

What the platforms are adding

Xero has announced its own payment follow up agent, described as coming soon. We will not guess how it works until it ships. QuickBooks now drafts overdue reminders for review in the US, and we could not confirm whether that is available on UK plans. Either way, the decisions above stay with you and your client: whose rules apply, who is on hold, and what happens when someone replies.

Where Mugavi fits

We build Mugavi, so weigh this section accordingly. It reads Xero or QuickBooks and runs reminders across client books, each with its own rules:

• a client books view showing, per book, what is outstanding and overdue, the oldest overdue invoice and what needs you (counts only, and you open each book to act)
• groups of customers with their own schedules
• holds on single customers
• a reply pauses chasing on that invoice until you have read it
• a plain words explanation of why a reminder has not gone out

QuickBooks support is in beta, and Mugavi does not calculate statutory interest. See Mugavi for bookkeepers, or Mugavi for UK agencies if you look after agency clients. You can run everything in this post with a spreadsheet and your own email.