Chasing an unpaid invoice: the phone script
Chasing a late payment means asking money from someone you want to keep as a client. The two aims do not conflict, provided you follow a sequence.
The chasing call is the one nobody wants to make. You put it off, you send an email instead, then a second one, and three months later you are sitting on an old debt and a relationship damaged by the silence rather than by the request.
Asking for your money without damaging the relationship
One false idea dominates: that asking to be paid harms the commercial relationship. The opposite is true. What harms it is the unspoken build-up, followed by a tone that jumps three months in.
A supplier who chases on time, calmly, is a serious supplier. A supplier who never chases is a supplier whose invoices go to the bottom of the pile, which is entirely rational from the client's point of view.
In short
Most of the time a late payment is not a refusal to pay: it is an oversight, an invoice stuck in an approval chain, or a missing piece of paperwork. The call is there first of all to find out which of the three it is.
The sequence of reminders
| Timing | Action | Register |
|---|---|---|
| 5 days before due date | Courtesy message ahead of the due date | Informative |
| 3 to 7 days after | Call, first contact | Neutral, assume an oversight |
| 15 days after | Call, reminder of the commitment given | Firm, quote the date promised |
| 30 days after | Call announcing the letter before action | Formal, set out what happens next |
| 40 days after | Letter before action sent | Legal |
The message before the due date is the most profitable item on that list and the most neglected. It removes half of the inattention delays, and it is not a chase at all, since nothing is owed yet.
What you need in front of you
- The invoice number, its amount, the date it was issued and the date it fell due.
- The date it was sent and how it was sent.
- The name of the person who ordered, and the name of the team that pays.
- The payment history: a good payer who has slipped deserves a different tone from a habitual late payer.
- The commitments given on previous calls, with their dates.
That last point decides how firm the second call can be. "You told me the 12th" does not carry the same weight as "you told me it would be dealt with".
The chasing call, word for word
Good morning David, it's Mark Davies from Skipcall. I'm calling about invoice 2026-118, for £2,400, which fell due on 31 August. I wanted to check it had reached you.
The reason for the call is stated in one sentence, with the references. No apology, no reproach.
Ah, I wouldn't know, accounts handle all that.
Of course. Two things then: who should I resend it to so I know it's in the system, and how long does it usually take once it's there?
You do not argue with being passed on to someone else, you use it to get a name and a timescale.
Send it to accounts@, they normally pay within a fortnight.
Perfect. I'll resend it to accounts@ this morning and copy you in. On that basis, does payment around the 20th sound realistic to you?
You turn a vague timescale into a date. That date is what makes the second call possible without raising your voice.
Yes, that should be fine.
Good. I'll put that in writing straight after this call. If anything gets stuck at their end, tell me and we'll sort something out. Have a good day.
The four standard replies
| What he says | What you ask for |
|---|---|
| "I never received the invoice" | The exact address, then resend it during the call |
| "Accounts deal with that" | The name of the contact and how long the process usually takes |
| "We have a cash flow problem" | A written payment plan, with a dated first instalment |
| "There's a dispute over the work" | The precise point in dispute, and payment of the part that is not |
The third reply deserves to be taken seriously rather than fought. A client in difficulty who tells you so is giving you information other suppliers will not have. A payment plan that is agreed and kept to beats a contested recovery.
The fourth needs isolating straight away. A dispute over one line does not justify holding the whole invoice: get the disputed item written down, and ask for the undisputed balance to be paid on its normal terms while the rest is sorted out.
The moment the tone changes
It changes on the second call, and only if a dated commitment has not been kept. The change has to be noticeable without being aggressive: you quote the date promised, you state the position, you say what comes next.
Tone getting away from you
"I've been chasing you for two months now, it's frankly unbelievable."
Factual firmness
"On the 12th you told me payment would go out around the 20th. It's the 28th and the invoice is still open. What got in the way?"
The closing question matters. It leaves a way out, and it tells you whether the problem is administrative or financial, which call for two very different next steps.
What the law provides
Between businesses, the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 gives you a right to statutory interest on a commercial debt from the day after the agreed payment date, without any reminder being needed. Where no payment date was agreed, the debt is late 30 days after the customer receives the invoice or the goods or services are delivered, whichever is later.
On top of the interest, the same Act entitles you to a fixed sum towards your recovery costs, and that sum rises with the size of the debt: £40 for a debt below £1,000, £70 for a debt of £1,000 or more but below £10,000, and £100 for a debt of £10,000 or more. If your reasonable recovery costs come to more than the fixed sum, you can claim the difference on top.
Statutory interest runs at 8% above the Bank of England base rate. A contract can put its own late payment terms in place instead, but a term that cuts across the statutory right only stands if what it offers in exchange is a substantial remedy. Where it is not, the statutory position applies whatever the contract says.
Mention all of this calmly, as a fact, not as a threat. "I'd rather we settled this before interest starts running" reminds the client that late payment has a cost without turning the exchange into a fight. In practice plenty of suppliers waive the interest once they are paid, and say so, which costs nothing and leaves the relationship intact.
Before formal recovery
The letter before action is the hinge point before any court claim. In England and Wales the courts expect one, and the Pre-Action Protocol for Debt Claims sets out what it has to contain and how long the debtor has to reply; that protocol covers debts owed by individuals, sole traders included, while a claim against a company falls under the general pre-action conduct rules, which expect much the same thing in substance. Scotland has its own procedure. No rule requires a particular postal service: send it in a way that lets you prove what went out and when. Announce it on the last call. A client who finds it on the doormat with no warning treats the relationship as over, whereas a client who has been told often pays before it is sent.
Cutting late payments off upstream
- Check the billing route when you sign, not at the first due date. Name, address, purchase order reference if there is one.
- Send a message five days before the due date. The most effective measure on the list, and the cheapest.
- Keep a record of the commitments given on the phone. A date promised and then produced three weeks later changes the balance of the conversation completely.
On that last point, what holds for selling holds for collecting: call recording and transcription let you quote an exact date rather than an approximate memory, provided the people on the call have been told beforehand.
For the written trail that follows each of these calls, the templates in the follow-up email after a call adapt directly: the same demand for brevity, the same function as evidence.
Frequently asked questions
When should you chase an unpaid invoice by phone?
Between three and seven days after the due date. Any earlier and you look fussy; leave it more than a fortnight and your invoice has slipped behind the suppliers who called before you did.
Should you chase by email or by phone?
By phone, with written confirmation straight afterwards. An email on its own gets dealt with when the client has a spare moment; a call gets you a dated commitment, and the written note pins it down.
What tone should you take when chasing a late payment?
Neutral and factual, never accusing on the first call. Most of the time you are looking at an oversight or an internal approval chain, not a decision to withhold payment.
What if the client still has not paid after two reminders?
Move to a formal letter before action. That is a change of register, and it should be announced on the last call rather than discovered by the client in the post.
Can you charge interest on a late payment?
Between businesses, the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 gives you a right to statutory interest from the day after the payment date, plus a fixed sum towards recovery costs that varies with the size of the debt. Mentioning it calmly reminds the client that late payment has a cost.