As a freelancer or a small business owner, you must keep records of all the invoices you send to your clients. It’s your professional duty to send invoices to keep the cash flow consistent. Especially when you’re a contract-based service provider, you might face situations when some of your clients might miss the due date for payment. In that case, you need to send an overdue payment letter to them as a reminder.

It’s always uncomfortable to chase your clients. At some point, your client might have been in a troublesome period of life. You may not know his part of the story. Therefore, it’s not wise to ambush your client and ask for payment directly. You can’t ask your clients for the due payments, whether over verbal communication or an overdue account letter.

You must show good manners to maintain the customer relationship regarding overdue payment issues. In that particular case, a well-written friendly overdue payment letter can get your job done as fast as possible.

In this article, you will learn a lot about overdue payment letters.

So, let’s demonstrate this further.

Tips for Writing Overdue Payment Letter

Send Reminders on Time

It’s always a great idea to send the invoices promptly. It increases the chance of settling overdue payments. So, you must send the invoice(s) closer to the due date. It reminds your client(s) of scheduled payments. Be consistent and punctual in this regard. You can also communicate with your client via Phone if that’s possible.

Include All Payment Details and Policies

Be more precise and insightful when sending overdue payment letters. Send all the payment details and company policies rather than asking for direct payment. It’s a way of being transparent in the eye of the client. Your client will know the details and take the matter more seriously. Suddenly asking for the payment might hinder the relationship between you and your clients.

Change Your Tone Depending on the Situation

You must be clear, firm, and professional in sending overdue payment letters. Keep your tone calm and polite when sending the invoice before or after the due date. If the due date is past a few weeks, you must keep the style professional and straightforward but modest.

If nothing works, do not push yourself further. Take help from a legal team or a collection agency. They’ll take care of the rest.

Offer an Installment Plan

You can be empathetic and gentle if your client struggles to pay the due. You can offer an installment plan if that’s possible, of course. Your client might find this way more comfortable than paying in full. However, an installment offer is the last resort before you go for any legal action. Do not just make installment offer to all of your clients.

Be Patient and Gentle

Being an entrepreneur was never a piece of cake. As a freelancer or a business owner, you must take challenges and face them wisely. Remember that your customers are the changemakers. So, be polite to your customers.

Have patience when collecting overdue payments. Showing your anger and saying harsh words may not solve your problem; instead, it can worsen it. So, be as gentle as possible whenever contacting your clients.

Keep the Letter Simple and Short

Writing an overdue payment letter is easy. Do not fill the letter with unnecessary sentences. Keep it short and precise. Your customer may feel uncomfortable seeing a letter with hundreds of words.

Now, let’s see how to write tailored overdue payment letters from scratch. It’s not as complicated as you think. After reading the entire article, you will be prepared to write an overdue account letter.

How to Write a Friendly Overdue Payment Letter?

Firstly, you need to know the types of overdue account letters. You must be more precise about the overdue invoice letters based on the ongoing situation. There’re three common types of overdue payment letters, as follows:

• Reminder Letter
• Follow-up or Final notice, and
• Legal action.

Reminder Letter

You can send a reminder of the overdue payment invoices before the due date is nearby. If you’re planning to send the invoice before the due date, make sure it’s a week before, at least. So, how to write an overdue invoice letter profoundly? Let’s find out.

It’s the most straightforward, modest, and friendly approach to writing a short overdue payment letter before the due date.

If your client is a forgetful person, this simple notice will remind them of the due payment, and they will likely pay you as soon as possible.

Follow-Up or Final Notice

You’ve sent the first reminder letter to your client, but there’s no response yet. However, It’s been a few weeks since the due date has passed. Now, what to do? In such circumstances, you must send your client another follow-up letter. So, how to write a perfect follow-up letter? Remember, you still need to be polite while writing a follow-up final notice. Let’s see an example of a follow-up letter.

That’s all it takes to write a follow-up or a final notice letter. Not so complicated at all, right?

A follow-up overdue payment letter helps you get traction from your clients in case they haven’t checked the first letter or have forgotten about that. A solely responsible customer should get back to you soon.

Legally Demand

You’ve done everything but still no response from your clients. A few questions might be circling your head. Should you wait for more? Should you send another overdue payment letter?

The answer is no. Even if you wait or send another letter, the chances of your client replying are less. Sending a legal notice to your client might cut the hassles short.

It’s time to take legal action. It might sound harsh, but there’s no other way. You’ve done everything possible to communicate with your clients, but nothing worked. So, going to and talking to a lawyer or a collection agency will likely solve your problem. Sometimes we have obstacles in life, but we need to handle those wisely. Life is all about moving forward without giving up.

There’s one more piece of advice for you. You can automate your invoicing system. Want to know how? Let’s go!

Propovoice – The Automated Invoicing Solution

Invoice management is a challenging job to maintain. As a business owner or a freelancer, you must keep your eyes on all sorts of documents. Propovoice CRM and the invoicing plugin can make your work easier and more flexible.

Propovoice can send overdue payment invoices automatically according to the scheduled date. It has many pre-built templates that allow you to create any invoice within a few clicks. Propovoice offers numerous features that keep your client management and invoicing workflow on the same track.

Get Propovoice today!

Final Words

Finally, the importance of an overdue payment letter is now clear to you. You can write your due invoice letter without breaking a sweat. This article is solely research-based. Many freelancers and business owners deal with overdue payment problems. This article will help those individuals who don’t know how to cope with the due payment clearance.

Was this article helpful enough? Did you face a due payment issue with any of your clients? You can share your experience and piece of suggestions with us.

That’s a wrap for the day. Cheers.