The asking
How to follow up on a late invoice.
Follow-up · five steps · you send it
A due date is a fact. “Just circling back” is not a plan. The invoice went out. The date on it has passed. The client has not paid and has not said why.
Most people then write a soft email that hides the amount, or they wait three weeks and arrive already angry. You need a sequence with days on it — and a stop.
Afterdue’s Get Paid Pack is that sequence: five emails, WhatsApp / iMessage cuts of each, plus the deposit and late-fee pieces so you are not inventing the sentence at 11pm. This page is the method. The pack is the copy-paste library.
Send the invoice so a follow-up is possible
Follow-up only works if the original invoice had a number, a total, a due date, and payment instructions. If you buried the amount in a paragraph and never named a day, start by sending a clean PDF. Use the free USD invoice if you need one. Then start the clock from that due date, not from the day you got annoyed.
Do not send a chase the morning after you invoiced unless the terms were due on receipt and that was already agreed.
The five-message shape
This is the shape on Afterdue — the timing and the job of each note, not the full file.
- Friendly — due date, or the next morning. Subject names the invoice number. You check that it reached them. You repeat the amount, the due date, and how to pay. You offer a same-day correction if the invoice is wrong. You do not apologize for billing.
- Still open — four calendar days later. Same facts. Two useful replies: payment is in motion (send the date), or something is wrong (say what). Otherwise pay this week. No essay.
- Firm — five days after that. The invoice is past due. Name a new date. Mention a late fee only if it is already in the agreement or on the original invoice notes. Offer a two-date plan if cash flow is the issue. You cannot work with silence.
- Late fee — after the date you named. If a fee was agreed, add it on a revised invoice (1042-A, or a new line). State original, fee, new total. New work pauses until it clears — if that pause is something you actually intend to keep.
- Last notice — six days after the late-fee invoice. Last note before you treat it as a collections matter. A final date. Then you stop reminding. Either they pay, you pause, or you use a collections process you have already decided to use.
Skip a step if they reply. If they propose a plan, write the plan in one email: amounts, dates, what happens if a date is missed. Do not keep “just checking in.”
Do not send all five in one week. That reads as panic, not process.
Email and text
The pack includes a WhatsApp / iMessage cut of each step. Same facts, shorter, no subject line, one bubble. Do not add emojis to look casual. Do not voice-note a late fee.
Send from the thread you already have with them. Afterdue will not email your client. There is no account and no sending from our servers. You copy, you send, you stay in the relationship.
Tone
Friendly is easy on day one. Firm is hard on day fourteen. The point of a written sequence is that you do not have to become a different person in the draft window. The facts stay: number, amount, date, method, what happens next.
Do not threaten criminal action. Do not pretend you have filed a credit report if you have not. Do not invent a late fee that was never in the terms — that is a separate problem.
What the $19 pack actually is
You can run this calendar with your own sentences. Most people do, once, and then reuse a vague paragraph. The pack is the emails, the text versions, deposit invoice wording (50% to start — before the next job, not after), the late-fee worksheet, and Net-15 / late-fee / pause clauses.
Nineteen dollars, one time. Polar handles checkout and tax. Templates, not legal advice. No guarantee a given client pays.