#How to Chase a Late Invoice Without Sounding Rude (UK Templates)

Chasing money you're owed is the worst job in a trade business, and it usually lands on whoever does the office. It shouldn't be awkward — the work was done, the invoice was sent, the terms were agreed — but it is, and the awkwardness is what makes people leave it another week.

Here's the thing that fixes most of it: stop treating each chase as a decision. When you have to decide, each time, whether it's been long enough and how to word it, you rewrite the same email four times and send it late. When you have a ladder you follow automatically, it goes out on the right day in a tone that was settled months ago, and nobody has to feel anything about it.

This is that ladder, with the words, plus what UK law actually lets you add and when it's time to stop being polite.

A note on what this is: general information, not legal advice. The right course depends on your contract, your customer and the amount. For anything substantial, or if you're being threatened with a counterclaim, take proper advice.

#Before you chase: the invoice does most of the work

Almost every horrible chase traces back to an invoice that left something unsaid. Get these on every invoice and a large share of your late payments stop happening:

• A due date, not just terms. "Payment due by 12 September" is a date. "30 days" is a debate about when the clock started.
• A way to pay that takes ten seconds. A pay-by-card link on the invoice removes the single most common excuse, which is "I'll sort it at the weekend when I'm at the computer". Bank details as well, obviously.
• What happens if it's late. One line: that you charge interest and compensation on overdue accounts. It doesn't have to be aggressive to be effective — most people simply pay on time when there's a stated consequence.
• The invoice number, the job address and what the work was. So it can't be "queried" into a delay.
• Sent the day the job finishes. Every day between completion and invoicing is a day added to the front of however long they'd take anyway.

For bigger jobs, take a deposit and stage the payments. A customer who has paid something is a fundamentally different proposition from one who hasn't.

#The ladder

Days are from the due date, not the invoice date.

#Day 1 overdue — the assumption-of-innocence nudge

Most late payments at this stage are genuinely an oversight. Write it as though it is, because it usually is, and because starting warm leaves you somewhere to go.

Subject: Invoice 1043 — just a nudge

Hi Sarah,

Hope you're getting on well with the new bathroom.

Just a quick one — invoice 1043 for £1,240 was due yesterday and I don't think it's come through yet. It may well have crossed with your payment, in which case ignore me entirely.

If it's easier, you can pay by card here: [link]

Thanks, Claire

Short text version, if you've got a mobile number and it's a domestic customer:

Hi Sarah, hope the bathroom's all good. Invoice 1043 (£1,240) was due yesterday — might have crossed with your payment. Card link if it's easier: [link] Thanks, Claire

#Day 7 — pick up the phone

This is the step people skip, and it's the one that works.

An email is easy to leave in an inbox. A polite phone call is answered, and it does one crucial thing an email can't: it finds out whether there's a problem or just a delay. Those need completely different handling, and you can't tell them apart from silence.

Keep it light and ask an open question:

"Hi Sarah, it's Claire from Bennett Plumbing. Nothing dramatic — just chasing invoice 1043 from last month. Is everything all right with it?"

Then listen. If they're unhappy about something, you've just saved yourself six weeks of silence. If it's cash flow, ask directly what date they can do and whether they'd like to split it. A payment plan you agreed is worth more than a full payment you're waiting for.

Whatever they say, follow it up in writing the same day — one short email confirming what was agreed. That email becomes evidence later if you need it.

#Day 14 — the formal one

The tone changes here. Still civil, no longer chatty.

Subject: Overdue invoice 1043 — £1,240

Hi Sarah,

Invoice 1043 for £1,240 is now 14 days overdue. It was due on 12 September and I haven't received payment or heard back from you since we spoke on the 19th.

Please can you settle this by Friday 3 October. You can pay by card here: [link], or by transfer to the details on the invoice.

If there's a problem with the invoice, tell me what it is and I'll deal with it. If it's a question of timing, let me know a date you can work to and I'll be reasonable about it.

If I don't hear from you by the 3rd I'll add statutory interest and compensation to the account and set out the next steps.

Regards, Claire Bennett Bennett Plumbing Ltd

Three things that make this work: a specific deadline, an explicit invitation to raise a genuine problem, and a stated consequence. No sarcasm, no "as you are no doubt aware", no exclamation marks.

#Day 30 — statutory interest and compensation

Now you use the law, and this is where a lot of people either don't realise what they're owed or get it wrong.

If your customer is another business (a builder, a letting agent, a shop, a landlord acting commercially), the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 gives you a statutory right — one that applies whether or not your contract mentions it — to:

• Interest at 8% above the Bank of England base rate, running from the day after payment was due
• Fixed compensation on top, on a sliding scale by debt size — currently £40 for debts under £1,000, £70 for debts from £1,000 to just under £10,000, and £100 for £10,000 and over
• Reasonable costs of recovering the debt beyond the fixed sum, where you incur them

The Act also puts a ceiling on payment terms: unless expressly agreed and not grossly unfair to the supplier, terms default to 30 days, and B2B terms beyond 60 days are open to challenge.

If your customer is a consumer — a homeowner having their bathroom done — the Act does not apply. This is the single most common mistake in late-payment advice aimed at trades. With a domestic customer, your right to charge interest comes from your own terms and conditions, which is exactly why those terms need to be on the quote the customer accepted, not just on the invoice you sent afterwards.

Check the current base rate and the current compensation bands before you put a figure in writing — the base rate moves, and quoting it wrong undermines an otherwise strong letter.

Subject: Invoice 1043 — now 30 days overdue

Sarah,

Invoice 1043 for £1,240 is now 30 days overdue and remains unpaid despite my emails of 13 and 26 September and our phone call on the 19th.

The balance now outstanding is:

• Invoice 1043: £1,240.00
• Statutory interest to date: £[x]
• Fixed compensation: £70.00
• Total: £[x]

Please pay the full amount by 17 October.

If payment isn't received by that date I'll send a formal letter before action, after which I may begin county court proceedings to recover the debt without further notice. I'd much rather not — tell me what's going on and I'll work with you.

Regards, Claire Bennett

(Drop the interest and compensation lines if this is a domestic customer and your terms don't provide for them.)

#Day 45+ — letter before action

The formal step before court. It has to be clear, and it has to give them a genuine chance to respond.

It should set out: who owes what to whom, what the debt is for, what's already been paid, the total claimed including interest, the documents you're relying on, a deadline for response, and a statement that you'll issue proceedings if they don't.

If the debtor is an individual — a consumer or a sole trader — the Pre-Action Protocol for Debt Claims applies and you must follow it. It requires a prescribed Letter of Claim with specific enclosed forms, and it gives them 30 days to respond. Skip it and a judge can penalise you on costs even if you win. This is worth twenty minutes on the GOV.UK and Ministry of Justice guidance, or a quick call to a solicitor, before you send anything.

#Court

For most trade debts this is Money Claim Online. Claims are generally allocated to the small claims track up to £10,000, where you don't need a solicitor and you can't usually recover legal costs even if you win.

Before you file, be honest about two things. Can they pay? A judgment against someone with no money is a piece of paper. Check whether a company is still trading and whether there are existing judgments. And is the debt clean? Court is for a debt that isn't genuinely disputed. If there's a real argument about the quality of the work, you're in a different conversation and you should take advice.

The fee is a percentage of the claim, recoverable if you win. Many debts get paid the day the claim form lands — which tells you something about why the earlier steps matter.

#When to stop working for someone

Not every debt is worth chasing to court, and not every customer is worth keeping.

Stop and reassess if: they've broken two agreed payment dates, they only respond when you threaten escalation, they raise a complaint for the first time only after you chase, or they want more work done while an invoice is outstanding.

That last one is the clearest signal there is. Never start the next job for someone who hasn't paid for the last one. It feels like it protects the relationship. It doesn't — it just makes the eventual loss bigger.

#Making it happen less

The tactical stuff matters less than the systems.

Send the invoice the day the job is done. More than anything else on this page.

Give them a card link. A tap beats a bank transfer they have to remember to do. Most late domestic payment isn't refusal, it's friction.

Get the extras signed off as they happen. "I never agreed to that" is the most common late-payment excuse, and a signed sign-off with a date ends it before it starts.

Keep the debtor list visible. Not in your head — on a screen, so paid, part-paid and overdue is something you glance at on a Friday rather than something you reconstruct.

Take deposits on anything substantial. A customer with money already committed behaves differently.

Put your terms on the quote, not the invoice. Terms the customer accepted are enforceable. Terms that first appeared after the work was finished are much weaker — and against a domestic customer, those terms are the only route you've got to interest.

TradePlanr invoices come off the finished job, carry a pay-by-card link, and show you paid, part-paid and overdue at a glance — so the Friday debtor check is a screen rather than an archaeology dig. There's more written for the partner who runs the office, and our invoicing tips for UK tradesmen covers getting the invoice right in the first place. Free to start, no card needed.