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The Invoice-Chasing Ladder: +1 / +7 / +14 Day Reminders That Get Paid
Published 7 November 2026 · Reviewed November 2026 · By the Ingenious AI team
The short answer
DueLadder chases late invoices on a three-rung ladder: a friendly reminder drafted at +1 day overdue, a firm follow-up at +7 days, and a final notice at +14 days. The engine creates drafts only — nothing sends without a human approving that exact message — and the ladder stops the moment an invoice is paid. Rungs and rules as shipped in DueLadder's ladder engine, November 2026.
What are the rungs of the invoice-chasing ladder?
Three rungs by default. Each rung is a step in your ladder configuration with a day threshold, a label, a subject and a body; the subjects below are the ladder's own, with the invoice's details filled in where the braces sit.
| Rung | Days overdue | Label | Subject line | Its job |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | +1 | Friendly reminder | A friendly reminder: invoice {invoice_number} for {amount} is due | Assume the best: the invoice was missed, not refused. If payment is already on its way, the note tells the customer to ignore it. |
| 2 | +7 | Firm follow-up | Invoice {invoice_number} ({amount}) is now {days_overdue} days overdue | Ask for a date: confirm when payment will be made, or name the problem with the invoice so it can be fixed. |
| 3 | +14 | Final notice | Final notice: invoice {invoice_number} ({amount}), {days_overdue} days overdue | State the consequence plainly: pay now, or agree a plan today — otherwise work may pause and the balance may pass to a collections process. |
The full wording of each rung is published in the template bank. The days and the wording are yours to change: the engine reads the steps you save and uses these defaults only when no configuration exists.
When does each rung fire?
One step per invoice per ladder run, in ladder order. Each run, the engine looks at every chaseable invoice — its state is current or in the ladder, and its balance is still above zero — and drafts the next step whose day threshold the invoice has reached. An invoice carries a count of steps already drafted, so a rung never drafts twice: if a draft for that step already exists as pending, approved or sent, the engine moves the count on instead of duplicating it. Run the ladder daily and each invoice climbs one rung at a time, exactly on its thresholds. The free guest ladder shows this arithmetic on your own receivables: every rung, its date, and the draft for the rung each invoice sits on today.
Why does a human approve every rung?
Because a reminder is a relationship, not a cron job. The engine only ever creates drafts, each with the status pending; it never sends and never approves. In the approval queue a person reads the exact message — this customer, this amount, this wording — and approves or rejects it. Approval works only from pending (anything else is refused with an HTTP 409), the decision is recorded with who made it and when, and the send path itself refuses any draft without that recorded approval: an unapproved send returns 409 and changes nothing. Even an approved message can wait honestly: if email is not configured, the draft is held as awaiting mail configuration, never marked sent. Every draft, approval, rejection and send is written to the audit log.
What stops the ladder?
Payment, first of all. The moment a sync or a manual payment record shows an invoice paid, its pending drafts are cancelled and the ladder never drafts for it again. Paused and disputed invoices are never touched by the engine at all — a disputed invoice gets a conversation, not a louder reminder. And an invoice whose balance reaches zero has nothing to chase: the engine only drafts for balances above zero. What the ladder costs you while you wait is its own question — the free late-payment cost calculator prices the delay from your own numbers.
Frequently asked questions
What is an invoice reminder sequence?
A planned series of payment reminders sent at set intervals after an invoice's due date. DueLadder's default sequence — the ladder — drafts a friendly reminder at +1 day overdue, a firm follow-up at +7 days and a final notice at +14 days, and holds every draft for human approval before it can send.
Does DueLadder send payment reminders automatically?
No. The ladder engine creates drafts only, each with the status pending. A person must approve the exact message in the approval queue before the send path will act, and the send path refuses an unapproved draft with an HTTP 409 error. There is no auto-send mode.
What happens when an invoice is paid mid-ladder?
The chase stops. When a sync or a manual payment record shows an invoice paid, its pending drafts are cancelled and the ladder never drafts for that invoice again. Paused and disputed invoices are never touched by the engine at all.
Can I change the +1 / +7 / +14 days or the wording?
Yes. The rungs are your ladder configuration: the engine reads the steps you save — each with its day threshold, label, subject and body — and falls back to the +1 / +7 / +14 defaults only when no configuration exists.
How can I try the ladder without an account?
Run the free guest ladder: enter up to five receivables and the real engine builds the escalation plan — every rung, its date, and the draft for the rung each invoice sits on today. Nothing is sent from a guest run.
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