Xero invoice follow-up: what reminders miss
Xero can email reminders automatically, and you should turn that on. But reminders stop at email — and the invoices that email doesn't collect are the ones that hurt. Here's the full follow-up picture for Xero users.
What Xero gives you built in
- Invoice reminders — automatic emails at set intervals after the due date. Turn them on under Business → Invoices → Invoice reminders.
- Statements — a monthly statement run catches customers with several small invoices outstanding.
- Online invoices with a pay link — fewer excuses when paying takes one click.
Do all three. They're free and they collect the easy ones.
Where email stops working
Reminder emails are easy to ignore, easy to miss, and easy to file for later. Once an invoice is a couple of weeks overdue, another automated email mostly signals that nothing happens if they don't pay. The follow-up that changes behaviour at that point is a person-to-person one: a phone call.
A call gets an answer in two minutes — a payment date you can hold them to, a dispute you didn't know about, or "send it again, I never got it". None of those come back from a reminder email.
Adding the phone step
If you make the calls yourself, work from Xero's Awaiting Payment list, oldest first, and log what each customer says. The chasing overdue invoices guide has a sequence and a script.
If you'd rather not spend your mornings on it, this is exactly what Gary does:
- Connect Xero — Gary syncs your invoices and sees what's overdue. Nothing is written back to your ledger.
- Switch on the customers you choose — no call goes out without your approval per customer.
- Gary rings them — a friendly voice agent, business hours only, every call opening with a recording disclosure.
- You get the outcome — transcript, result and any promised payment date, plus follow-ups like resending the invoice by email.
When the customer pays, Xero marks the invoice paid and Gary counts the recovery — you can see days-to-payment and collection rate move on the dashboard.
Keep the relationship
Chasing your own customers is awkward precisely because you'll work for them again. A consistent, polite check-in — same tone every time, never outside business hours, stopping the moment they ask — protects the relationship better than sporadic frustrated emails. That consistency is easier to buy than to maintain by hand.