Invoice Reminders
A payment reminder emails your customer about an invoice that is still unpaid. It shows what they still owe and links to the invoice, and the invoice PDF is attached. You can remind one invoice at a time, or up to 10 unpaid invoices in one run.
Quick Start: Send a Reminder
- Open Invoices.
- On the invoice's row, click the bell icon (Send reminder).
- Check the recipients. Add a message if you want one.
- Click Send Reminder.
Which Invoices Can Get a Reminder
Send Reminder appears only on an invoice that is sent and unpaid. A draft, a void invoice and a paid invoice do not offer it.
DrillerDB checks the invoice again when you send. It refuses the reminder, sends nothing, and shows one of these messages:
- "Cannot send a reminder for an invoice that is already paid." The invoice is marked paid.
- "This invoice has no balance due; no reminder sent." Payments already cover the whole total.
Step-by-Step: Remind One Invoice
Step 1: Start the reminder
Use whichever place you are working in:
- Invoices list: the bell icon on the invoice's row
- The invoice's own page: Send Reminder in its actions
- A project's Invoice tab: Send Reminder on that invoice
Step 2: Check the dialog
The Send Reminder dialog names the invoice number and says "The invoice PDF is attached. Separate addresses and numbers with commas."
| Field | What to do |
|---|---|
| Recipients | Filled in with the addresses the invoice went to, or the bill-to contact's email. Add or remove addresses. |
| CC | Optional. Anyone else who should get a copy. |
| Message (optional) | A short note for the customer. |
| Send a text message with the invoice link | Tick it to also text the link. It starts ticked only when your company texts customers by default (Settings > Notifications, Text customers by default) and the customer has a mobile number; otherwise it starts unticked. Mobile phone numbers starts with the bill-to contact's mobile number. |
If an address looks like a mistyped domain (for example gamil.com for gmail.com), a yellow notice under the field says so and offers "Did you mean ...?". Click the suggestion to fix the field, or leave the address as it is: the notice does not block the send.
Step 3: Send
Click Send Reminder. The email goes out at once.
Remind All Unpaid
To work through several unpaid invoices:
- Open Invoices and click Remind all unpaid.
- The dialog shows unpaid invoices in groups of 10, with the recipient, amount due and days outstanding. It covers all your unpaid invoices, not only the ones on the current page or filter. Use Previous invoices and Next invoices to move between groups.
- Invoices outstanding more than 30 days are selected for you. Tick or untick others, up to 10 per run.
- An invoice that cannot be reminded now shows why in Status and cannot be selected:
- "No email addresses found": the invoice has no email address to send to.
- "Reminder attempted in the last 24 hours": each email address gets at most one reminder in 24 hours.
- Click Send reminders.
An address that looks like a mistyped domain shows the same notice on its row. It does not block the batch. Clicking the suggestion opens that invoice's own Send Reminder dialog to correct the address, and Cancel there returns you to the unchanged list.
The dialog then shows how many were sent, skipped and failed, with a result for each invoice. If DrillerDB refuses one because it is paid or owes nothing, that invoice shows as failed with its message, and the others still go out.
Collections: Remind From Receivables
In the Collections queue on Accounting > Receivables, Remind on a customer's row queues a reminder for each of that customer's overdue invoices. A paid invoice, or one with nothing owed, is skipped, and the rest are reminded. See Receivables.
What the Customer Receives
| Part | Content |
|---|---|
| Subject | "Reminder: Invoice #{number} from {your company}" |
| Opening | "awaiting payment" when the invoice is not yet past due; "past due" with the number of days when it is |
| Your message | The message you typed, when you added one |
| Details | Invoice number, issued date, due date and Balance due: the invoice total, tax included, minus the payments recorded |
| Button | View & pay invoice when online payment is turned on, or View invoice online |
| Attachment | The invoice PDF |
Tracking Reminders
Open the invoice. The Email Activity card shows how many times the invoice was sent, and for each recipient when it was sent, opened and clicked. Reminders count as sends.
Best Practices
| Timing | Suggested reminder |
|---|---|
| On the due date | A friendly note that payment is due today |
| 7 to 14 days past due | A short follow-up with the link |
| 30 days past due | A firmer note, and a phone call |
| 60 days or more | Talk to the customer about a payment plan or next steps |
Use Message (optional) for context the email does not carry, such as the job name or who to call with questions.
Troubleshooting
There is no Send Reminder on an invoice. The invoice is a draft, void, or paid.
The reminder was refused. The invoice is marked paid, or payments already cover its total. Check the payments recorded on the invoice.
Remind all unpaid skipped an invoice. The customer has no email address on file, or that address already got a reminder in the last 24 hours.
The customer says the reminder never arrived. Check Email Activity on the invoice and the recipient address, and ask the customer to check their spam folder.