Yes. Software can now send each reminder, choose when and how to send it, read the customer's reply and act on it, all within rules you set and from your own email address. It can't decide what to do about a dispute or a client who's struggling, so those come back to you.
In this article
The short version
- Yes: software can send reminders, choose timing and channel, read replies and act on them within your rules.
- A promise to pay pauses chasing, a payment stops it and a dispute goes straight to you.
- Disputes, hardship, broken promises and your largest clients still come back to you.
- Businesses that chase late payments spend an average of 86 hours a year on it, on government research.
- With a few direct debit clients a simple schedule may be enough; with dozens of open invoices the time saved grows.
What AI chasing looks like on one overdue invoice
It's easiest to see what AI chasing does by following one invoice through it. Say you've invoiced a business client £1,800 on 30-day terms. They're a decent payer, but they've been a few days late on your last three invoices, they rarely open reminder emails, and the last time they paid quickly it was after a text.
Here's how it might run once you've handed chasing over:
- Three days before the due date, a short note goes out by email with the invoice number, the amount and a payment link. Because this client has a history of paying late, they get the heads-up; a client who always pays on time might not.
- The due date passes without payment. The next morning a first reminder goes by email, worded in your tone and naming the invoice they'll recognise.
- Two days later there's still no payment and no reply, so the next reminder goes by text, the channel this client has answered before, with the same payment link.
- The client replies: "Sorry, it's in Friday's payment run." The software reads that as a promise to pay and holds the next reminder until after Friday.
- Friday comes and goes. On Monday a polite follow-up goes out, referring back to the promise.
- The money arrives. It's matched to the invoice, your accounting software is updated, and chasing stops.
If the reply at step 4 had been "this invoice is wrong, we never agreed the extra hours", chasing would stop there and the account would land with you. And if you've switched on late fees for business clients, statutory interest and compensation can be added once the invoice is overdue, with the payment link updating as the interest builds.
Nothing in that sequence needed you to open the aged debtors report, remember who prefers a text, or check whether the client had already replied before sending the next one.
What still comes back to you
AI chasing handles the routine. It hands back anything that needs a judgement about a person, and you'll want to decide in advance which those are. Most businesses route these to a human:
- a dispute about the amount, the work or the terms
- a customer who says they're in difficulty or asks for more time
- a promise to pay that's been broken more than once
- your largest clients, where you're managing a relationship as much as a receivable
- any reply the software can't confidently sort
You can also choose to approve certain actions before they happen, such as a late fee or an instalment plan, even when the software could apply them on its own. Many businesses start by reviewing everything for the first few weeks and loosen it as they see what goes out.
AI also only knows what's in your records. If you hear that a client has lost a big contract or changed hands, that's worth a phone call from you, whatever the reminder schedule says.
Whether it's worth handing over
The case for it is about time and consistency. Government research found that businesses which spend staff time chasing late payments put an average of 86 hours a year into it. And manual chasing tends to slip in exactly the weeks you're busiest, which is when first reminders go out late and invoices quietly age.
There's a second reason, which grows with the number of clients you have. You can probably hold every client's habits in your head for a dozen accounts: who answers texts, who needs the office manager copied in, who pays the moment a statement arrives. Across a few hundred accounts that knowledge tends to get lost, and every client ends up on the same schedule.
If you've only got a handful of clients and most pay by direct debit, a simple reminder schedule may be all you need. If you're chasing dozens of invoices a month across different kinds of client, handing over the routine part is likely to free up real time.
Adfin's Customer Agents chase over email, SMS and WhatsApp, with emails sent from your own domain, work out from each customer's history when and how to reach them, and sort basic questions so they don't hold up payment. You decide how much runs without you, from approving every message to approving only late fees and instalment plans, and you can pause any customer when a dispute or a relationship calls for it.
Common questions
Can AI send invoice reminders from my own email address? Yes, if the tool supports it. Adfin's agents can send from your own email domain, so replies come back to you and the customer sees your business name.
What happens when a customer replies to an AI reminder? The software reads the reply and sorts it: a promise to pay pauses chasing, a payment stops it, and a dispute or a request for help is passed to you.
Can AI chase customers by text or WhatsApp? Yes. Tools like Adfin chase over email, SMS and WhatsApp, and can switch channel for a customer who doesn't respond to email.
Will AI chase invoices that have already been paid? It's much less likely if payments are matched to invoices in the same system. Chasing a paid invoice often happens when a payment arrives with the wrong reference and isn't matched.
Can AI add late payment fees to overdue invoices? If you switch it on, statutory late payment interest and compensation can be added to business invoices once they're overdue. You choose the grace period, and you can switch the charge off for any customer.
Is AI chasing worth it for a small business? It depends on volume. With a handful of clients on direct debit there's little to chase, but with dozens of open invoices a month the routine sending is likely to take up real time.
Sources
- Department for Business and Trade - Late payments research: impact on the UK economy (accurate as of October 2026) https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/688a089a6478525675738ff9/late_payments_research_impact_on_uk_economy.pdf
- GOV.UK - Late commercial payments: charging interest and debt recovery (accurate as of October 2026) https://www.gov.uk/late-commercial-payments-interest-debt-recovery
- Adfin - Credit control (accurate as of October 2026) https://www.adfin.com/credit-control
