Categories / Invoicing/
Agency: automatic reminders, 20-day late fee and pause-work rule fix late payers
Automatic reminders, a 20-day late fee and a pause-work rule stop two-year payers — Barton Interactive fixed late clients with FreshBooks + Stripe.
- Task
- stop chasing late clients (one took 2 years to pay)
- Result
- 4 hours/month saved on invoicing; reliable recurring hosting revenue auto-charged monthly
- Tools
- FreshBooks recurring invoices
- automated payment reminder emails
- automated late fee
- time tracking
- Stripe
- Setup
- bill actual tracked time semi-monthly with progress invoices → recurring auto-charge for hosting → automated reminder emails at set intervals → automatic late fee after 20 days → policy: pause work if unpaid at 20 days
Step-by-step setup guide
Honest note: there is no generative AI here. This is rules-based billing policy automation (reminders, late fees), not generative AI — and that's the point.
Prerequisites
- A FreshBooks account.
- Your rate card and expense categories.
- Time: 1–2 hours to set templates.
Step-by-step setup
Step 1. FreshBooks → recurring invoice templates for retainers.
Step 2. Turn on automatic payment reminder emails (e.g. 3 days before due, on due date, 7 days late).
Step 3. Set an automatic late fee (e.g. after 20 days) — check your local rules.
Step 4. Write a client-facing policy: work pauses if unpaid past X days; put it in contracts.
Step 5. Connect Stripe for card/ACH so paying is one click.
What success looks like
Late payers get nudged without you typing; chronic offenders hit a fee and a pause; cash arrives closer to terms.
Sources
Results as reported by the source; not independently verified. Community-sourced from public sites and attributed to the source platform. Original author? Ask us to correct or remove it. Read the disclaimer.