Payment reminders are emails about invoices that have been sent and aren't paid yet. System → Finance settings → Payments → Who sends payment reminders? decides who sends them. Choose one: two systems reminding the same client would be too many.
- AspirePro — emails a reminder on the days you choose, through the invoice mailbox, with the Pay now button when the invoice takes online payment.
- QuickBooks — QuickBooks sends its own reminders, set up in QuickBooks. AspirePro gives every invoice it puts in QuickBooks the email address it was sent to, so they arrive.
- Xero — Xero sends its own reminders, set up in Xero. The card shows whether Xero's reminders are switched on.
- Stripe — Stripe reminds for invoices sent through Stripe, set up in the Stripe dashboard.
- Nobody — no reminders. This is where every organization starts.
Only systems that are connected can be chosen. If the system you chose stops being connected, what happens depends on how:
- Its login expires (AspirePro can't reach it until someone reconnects it) — your choice is kept. That system goes on sending its own reminders about the invoices it has, so AspirePro leaves those to it and reminds about the rest, on the days set below — no client unreminded, none reminded twice. The card says so, and the people who can change Finance settings are told once. Once it's reconnected, it carries on by itself.
- You disconnect it — AspirePro sends the reminders instead, for every open invoice, including ones that are still in that system: AspirePro can no longer see what it has. If you keep using that system, switch its own reminders off there. The card says why and when. Reconnecting doesn't switch it back by itself: choose it again when you want it.
What the chosen system doesn't have#
QuickBooks, Xero and Stripe can only remind about the invoices they have. An open invoice that was never put there — sent from AspirePro's own email, say — would otherwise get no reminders at all, so AspirePro reminds about every open invoice that isn't in the chosen system, on its own schedule (the days under AspirePro's reminders), and leaves the ones that are there alone. The card says how many open invoices that is right now. An invoice sent through Stripe is always left to Stripe, whoever is chosen: Stripe has no setting AspirePro can read for whether its reminders are on, so it counts as covered.
AspirePro's reminders#
- Send a reminder — up to eight days, each before, on or after the due date. The starting set is 3 days before, on the due date, and 7 and 14 days after.
- Sent at — the hour they go out, in your organization's time zone.
- Subject and Message — your own words.
{name}is the client,{invoice}the invoice number,{amount}what's still owed and{due}the due date. Leave them empty to use the wording shown.
Each reminder goes to whoever the invoice was emailed to. An invoice that was never emailed from AspirePro (and has no billing email in QuickBooks) gets none.
What keeps reminders from annoying a client who paid#
- Each reminder is sent once, however often AspirePro checks.
- The invoice is checked again just before the email goes — if it was paid a minute ago, nothing is sent.
- An invoice that's also in QuickBooks or Xero waits while that system hasn't been heard from in the last hour, in case the payment is already there — for up to three days, after which it's reminded about as usual. Once that system is disconnected nothing more can come from it, so there's no wait.
- A reminder more than three days late is never sent, so switching reminders on sends only the ones due in the last three days; when several are due at once, only the latest goes.
- A reminder is never for a date before the invoice went out — an invoice due on receipt isn't followed by a "due today" reminder the same day.
- One that couldn't be sent (the invoice mailbox signed out, say) is tried again at the next run, while it's still current. One the mailbox took but never confirmed (it didn't answer in time) is not — it may have gone, so it's recorded as skipped with that note, and the next step goes as usual.
- Invoices sent through Stripe are left to Stripe.
Clients who don't want reminders#
On a client's Finance tab, under Integrations, switch Payment reminders off. They get none until it's switched back on.
What was sent#
An invoice's page lists the reminders it got — when, which one, and to whom — or why one wasn't sent.