Invoice deliverability fix for wholesale

> Cost: Paid. Paidnice Pro from $99/month (needed for your own email domain). SMS per text.

Honest note: rules automation, not AI. This is a Paidnice-published story. The cause, invoices from a shared sending domain getting filtered, is common and well understood, which is why this one copies so reliably. The owner had the same problem with a different accounting tool before. "5 hours a month" is his figure; "15–20 hours at scale" is a forecast, not a result.

Prerequisites

• A Xero organisation with your customer invoices in it (Paidnice also works with QuickBooks Online).
• Admin access to Xero so you can approve the connection.
• Your payment terms, and any late-fee wording, already in your invoices or contracts. Late fees need a legal basis, so check with your accountant.
• Customers' email addresses (and mobile numbers if you want SMS) in Xero.
• Access to your domain's DNS settings.

Step-by-step setup

Step 1. Connect Xero. Sign up at paidnice.com, click Xero and approve.

Step 2. Authenticate your domain (Pro). Go to Organization Settings → Email Preferences → Custom Domain, enter your domain and add the 3–4 CNAME records Paidnice shows at your DNS host (your web or email provider). Back in Paidnice, click Verify Domain, then set the From Name (your business) and From Address (for example accounts@yourbusiness.co.uk).

Step 3. Send invoices the same day. Add an email policy that sends a new invoice on its issue date, so customers get it from your domain, not Xero's.

Step 4. Due and overdue reminders, weekdays only. Add New Automation Policy → Email for 3 days before due, on the due date and 7 days overdue. In the schedule dropdown choose Weekdays, and under More Options & Filters set a different Action Time for each (for example 9:00, 10:30, 14:00) to stagger them.

Step 5. Monthly branded statements. Add a Statement policy (outstanding items, monthly) that sends from your domain with a pay link.

Step 6. Separate rules by customer type. Make groups such as "Hospitality" and "Public sector" (which often has fixed payment runs). Use Move Contacts to Group on the Contacts tab, and give public-sector customers gentler timing.

Step 7. Test, then activate. Send to yourself and a colleague on a different email provider. Turn off Xero's own reminders, then set policies to Active.

Easier: let your AI do it

On the Pro plan (from $99/month) Paidnice has an official MCP server. That's a secure plug that lets an AI chat such as Claude or ChatGPT read your Paidnice data.

1. In Paidnice, go to Settings → Advanced → API & MCP → Connect an agent (MCP) and copy the address https://api.paidnice.com/mcp.
2. In Claude, open Customize → Connectors, click +, then Add custom connector. Name it Paidnice, paste the address and click Add (Claude's free plan allows one custom connector). ChatGPT needs a paid plan with developer mode turned on.
3. Sign in to Paidnice when asked, pick your organisation, and choose Read (safest) or Read and Write.

Today it can read customer replies, contacts and invoices, and update contact people. Sending reminders and building policies by chat are still in beta. Try: "Which customers replied to reminders this week, and what did they say?" You can revoke access any time under API & MCP.

What success looks like

Customers stop saying "we never received it". Payments come back to your normal terms and you spend minutes a week on collections instead of hours.

Common issues & fixes

• Domain won't verify: DNS can take a few hours. Re-check each CNAME exactly.
• Customers get two invoice emails: stop Xero emailing invoices automatically, or don't send the Paidnice issue-date email.
• Public sector still pays late: their payment run is fixed. Ask for the run dates and time reminders around them.

Optional: Maintenance

• Quarterly: check groups and average days to pay.

Copy-paste prompt

I'm a wholesaler supplying [CUSTOMER TYPES] on 30-day terms. Write: (1) a short invoice email from our accounts team, (2) a pre-due reminder, (3) a 7-days-overdue reminder, and (4) a gentler version of (3) for public-sector customers who pay on fixed payment runs. British English, friendly and plain, under 80 words each, using {{name}}, {{amount}}, {{due_date}} and {{link}}.

Sources

• Case: Paidnice success story (UK water-softening salt wholesaler). Credit: the company's founder (vendor-published).
• Paidnice Help: Custom domain for reminders and statements
• Paidnice blog: Skip Xero reminders at the weekend
• Paidnice Help: Sending email reminders (advanced)
• Paidnice Help: Using tags and groups
• Paidnice: AI agents (MCP)
• Paidnice pricing