Accounts Receivable
Smart Chasing

Invoice Chasing

20min

Invoice Chasing allows you to automate chasing down payments for your invoices. With Invoice Chasing, you can develop global chasing cadences but also tailor the follow-up schedule for individual invoices. Invoice Chasing can be utilized in tandem with Customer Chasing to send account-level follow-ups and statements in addition to invoice-level distribution and follow-ups.

How It Works

Invoice Chasing works differently than Customer Chasing because chasing stops once an invoice is paid. In comparison, Customer Chasing operates on a loop as customers have new invoices added to their account, invoices age, and pay down their balances. Invoice Chasing is simpler because the schedule does not reset or continue after the invoice is paid in full or closed.

Supported Channels

Invoice Chasing is omni-channel. You can distribute invoices and send reminders through the following communication channels:

  • Sending an email
  • Mailing a physical letter
  • Sending a text message

Schedules and Cadences

Each invoice can have its own unique chasing schedule. A chasing schedule is a sequence of steps that define when and how an invoice will be sent out. The schedule is followed until the invoice is paid or closed. Here are some of the types of scheduling triggers that you can use in a chasing schedule:

  • Send when issued
  • Send X days after issue date
  • Send X days before due date
  • Send X days after due date
  • On a specific date
  • Repeating reminder

In addition, you can create cadences that can contain a sequence of steps that are reused across your invoices. It is not required to setup cadences, but is useful if you find that you chase most or all of your invoices the same way. You can think of cadences as a template to quickly configure chasing for invoices.

Invoice Chasing and Email Triggers

Invoice Chasing is incompatible with the first three email triggers, as these would send duplicate emails. You'll find these in settings > emails > triggers. If you use Invoiced Chasing, you should disable these triggers.

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All other email triggers will continue functioning as usual.

Setup

Scheduling an invoice for chasing

  1. Go to the invoice you want to chase in the Invoiced web app.
  2. Click Enable invoice chasing in the Chasing section.
  3. Enter in the sequence of steps you'd like to happen based on invoice aging or a specific date. Each step you will have to select a time of day and the channels through which the invoice should be delivered.
  4. Click Save to schedule the invoice for chasing.

On the invoice detail screen you can see the calculated chasing schedule in the Chasing section. If you hover over the steps you can see the date and time that the step is scheduled for.

Invoice Cadences

Assigning cadences to individual invoices would be very tedious if you chase many of your invoices the same way. With invoice chasing, you can set it up once and apply the cadence to the invoices you want to chase. You can even make the cadence the default if you want all new invoices you create to be chased the same way.

You can create reusable cadences in Settings Chasing Invoices.

Assign a cadence to your existing invoices by using our spreadsheet importer. You'll find instructions here.

If you modify an existing invoice cadence it will not affect invoices that it was previously applied to. The changes will only apply to future usages of the cadence.

Sending invoices to a different email contact list

It's common to have a need to distribute invoices to an email contact list that is different from the customer's default contact list. For example, you may want to send a copy of the invoice to the department within the customer's organization that purchased your service. When this happens Invoiced makes it easy to assign different email contact list to the invoice.

Here's how you can send an invoice to a different contact list:

  1. Go to the invoice you want to chase in the Invoiced web app.
  2. Click Enable invoice chasing or Edit in the Chasing section.
  3. Click the Use customer email contacts option.
  4. Enter in the email addresses you want to receive follow ups about this invoice.
  5. Click Save.

Contact Roles

Invoiced has a feature known as Contact Roles that allows you to assign a role to customer contacts. The contact roles list is configured by your business and you can name the roles as anything that has a meaning to your business. For example, you might create different roles for Accounts Payable, Executives, Sales Representatives, or Customer Success Managers. A role might be for a contact outside of your organization, or even used by a person within your organization.

Here's how you can use contact roles:

  1. You can create different contact roles in Settings Chasing Contact Roles.
  2. Once you have created contact roles you can then assign them to contacts. By default, contacts are not assigned any role.
  3. You can also have invoice or customer chasing steps apply only to customers with the matching contact role.

Usage

Monitoring chasing

Once an invoice is enabled for chasing you can check in on its progress as well as see exactly when future reminders are scheduled. In order to monitor an invoice's chasing progress you go to the invoice detail screen and look at the Chasing section.

Invoices with payment plans

Invoice Chasing does not treat invoices with payment plans differently. The invoice will be chased based on the invoice age, if you are using age-based steps. The payment plan is not taken into consideration when determining the invoice age. If you want to chase customers based on the age of installments then you must set up customer-level chasing.

FAQs

When do invoices get sent out?

Each chasing step specifies a date (usually relative to the invoice age) and a time of day. The time of day is granular by the hour. The invoice will be sent out on the date and time that is scheduled according to your company's time zone.

What conditions have to be met for an invoice chasing schedule to take effect?

An invoice will be chased once it is issued and has an open balance. Chasing steps do not happen before the invoice date. If an invoice is dated in the future then chasing will not happen any sooner than the invoice date.

When does an invoice stop being chased?

Chasing stops immediately once an invoice is paid in full or closed. You can also disable chasing for the invoice while the invoice is still open by clicking Edit on the Chasing section and then Disable Chasing.

What if a chasing schedule contains backdated steps?

If an invoice chasing schedule has steps in the past then they will be skipped. Only activities scheduled in the future at the time the scheduled is added to the invoice will be sent out, with one exception.

The send invoice when issued step is the one exception to this rule. Even if the invoice date is in the past, adding a send when issued step to an invoice chasing schedule will ensure that the invoice is sent out at least once. If the invoice was already sent or marked as sent before the send when issued step is scheduled, then the step would be skipped.

What happens if a scheduled send fails?

Invoiced will deliver your invoice at the dates and times of day through the channels that you've selected (eg email or letter). In the event that the delivery cannot be completed through any of the channels selected then the step will be marked as failed. For example, if you attempt to send an invoice via email and the customer does not have an email address then you would see a send failure.

When sending fails it will mark the step as failed and will not be re-attempted. You can see the failed steps on the invoice detail screen and if necessary re-attempt sending or schedule another delivery attempt.

How can I see what was sent to the customer?

You can see the communications that were sent to your customer as a result of the chasing schedule by going to the invoice detail screen and clicking on the Conversation tab. This screen includes all communications sent to the customer through any channel regarding that particular invoice, and includes any replies sent by the recipient.

What email templates are used?

The email template that is used to send the invoice depends on the status of the invoice at the time it is sent.

  • New Invoice - If the invoice has never been sent before
  • Invoice Reminder - If the invoice HAS been sent before and is not past due
  • Past Due Invoice - If the invoice has a past due status

What happens if I modify a cadence?

If you modify a cadence then it will only apply to future invoices that the cadence is applied to. Modifying a cadence does not alter the chasing schedule of existing invoices.

Similarly, if you change the default cadence that will only apply to future invoices. Changing the default does not alter the chasing schedule of existing invoices.

Limits

There are some limits to be aware of when setting up Invoice Chasing.

Description

Limit

Maximum steps in a cadence

100

Maximum invoice chasing cadences

100

Times that invoice can be sent through each channel daily

1

Maximum number of repeats for a repeating reminder step

10

Repeating reminder steps per cadence

1