Which overdue QuickBooks invoices to chase first
A client has forty overdue invoices and you have an afternoon. A simple way to sort the A/R Aging Summary so the first reminders go to the invoices most likely to turn into cash.
Open a client's A/R Aging Summary in QuickBooks Online and the list can look like a wall. Forty overdue invoices, six customers you have never heard of, and one balance that has been there since spring. Chasing all of it at once is how the wrong person gets the wrong email.
A better first step is to decide the order. This is the sorting method we would use by hand, and it needs nothing but the report.
Start with the customer, not the invoice
Group the overdue invoices by customer. A customer with three small overdue invoices is one conversation, not three. If you send three separate reminders, the customer sees a stream of noise and tends to answer none of them.
Write down for each customer the total overdue, the oldest invoice and the number of invoices. That is the whole table you need.
Sort into four piles
1. **Recently overdue, large.** Late by a few days to a few weeks, and big enough to matter to your client's cash. These go first, and the first message should come from a person, in plain words. Most of these are simply forgotten. 2. **Recently overdue, small.** Fine to send a short, polite reminder on a schedule. Not worth a phone call. 3. **Old, any size.** Anything that has been overdue for months needs a different question: is it disputed, is the customer still trading, is it worth the effort? Ask your client before you send anything. Our post on when to stop chasing covers what comes after that answer. 4. **Not really overdue.** Part-paid invoices, unapplied payments and credit memos make an invoice look worse than it is. Check these before any reminder goes out, because a reminder for money already paid costs your client goodwill. See unapplied payments and credit memos.
Set a floor
Decide a balance below which you do not chase by email at all. Below that line, the time spent costs more than the invoice is worth, and the right move is a quick word from the owner or a decision to write it off. Put the number in the engagement letter so the client agrees to it in advance.
Check what is already in flight
Before you send, look at whether the customer has replied, promised a date or raised a dispute. A reminder that lands after someone has said "I will pay on Friday" reads as nagging. Keep a note against the customer, even if it is just a line in a spreadsheet.
Send in order, and keep it short
Send the first pile first, then wait a few days before the second. Each message should name the invoice numbers, the amounts, the due dates and one clear way to pay. Our reminder email examples show the tone.
Where Mugavi fits
Mugavi can do the sorting step for you in a narrow way. You set a minimum balance below which an invoice is not chased. It sends one reminder per customer, with the other overdue invoices listed in a short table, then waits a gap you choose before the next. A filter shows customers who owe you but cannot be reminded, for example because there is no email address. Nothing reaches a customer until you approve it. The QuickBooks connection is in beta, so check the numbers against your own report before you rely on them.
If you do this for several clients, see the pilot plan for running reminders across many QuickBooks client books.
Related reading: reminding for the balance on part-paid QuickBooks invoices, tracking a customer's promise to pay.