They make your follow-up happen every time, which manual chasing often doesn't, and that consistency is their main value. The bigger measurable difference comes from how payment is set up: in Adfin's data, 98.0% of invoices set to collect automatically were paid, against 90.8% of invoices customers had to be asked to pay. There's little reliable evidence for a best channel or send time, so a reminder that adapts to each customer's own history makes more sense than chasing the perfect hour.
In this article
The short version
- Automated reminders make your follow-up happen every time.
- The bigger measurable difference comes from invoices set to collect automatically.
- There's no reliable evidence for a best channel or send time.
- Sort the arrangement first, then automate reminders for everything else.
- An agent can adapt timing and channel to each customer within your rules.
What automated reminders do well
When credit control slips, it's more often because chasing depends on someone remembering during a busy week than because the wording was wrong. Automated reminders fix that part.
- Your chasing happens at all: a system doesn't have busy weeks, holidays or a month-end crunch.
- Customers get a predictable pattern: reminders that arrive on a regular schedule read as routine, and they're easier on a relationship than sporadic chasing that feels like a complaint.
- It doesn't need more people: government research found businesses affected by late payment spend an average of 86 hours a year chasing, and a schedule takes the routine part of that off your list.
- Your judgement goes where it's needed: a reminder on day eight needs no thought. Deciding what to do about the customer who's ignored three of them needs quite a lot.
Where the bigger difference comes from
Adfin can compare invoices set to collect automatically, which almost always have a direct debit mandate behind them, with invoices collected on demand, where the customer has to act.
| Set to collect automatically | Collected on demand | |
|---|---|---|
| Paid | 98.0% | 90.8% |
| Went overdue | 0.9% | 5.3% |
It's tempting to credit the reminders with that gap, but it mostly reflects the arrangement. When a customer has agreed in advance how payment happens, there's no decision left for them to put off. It isn't a controlled comparison either, since customers who agree to a mandate may have been reliable payers anyway.
So your question has two halves. Collecting automatically, where a customer will agree to it, has the stronger case, and automated reminders then cover everything you can't collect that way.
Is there a best time or channel?
You'll find confident claims about the best day, the best hour and the best channel for a payment reminder. Treat them with caution unless you can see the data behind them.
There are two different questions here. Whether one channel or hour works best for every business and every customer has no reliable general answer. Whether your particular client responds better to one channel is something you can answer from their own record: what they've replied to before, and how quickly they paid afterwards.
What Adfin's data does show is that many customers pay within a couple of days once a request is in front of them. That argues for getting your request to the right person early, in a form they can pay straight away, more than for fine-tuning the send time.
How to get the most from automation
- Sort the arrangement first. Put recurring work on direct debit where the customer agrees, so your reminders only handle what genuinely needs asking for.
- Set the schedule when the invoice goes out, not once it's late, and start with a friendly note before the due date.
- Put a payment link in every reminder, so the customer can pay from the message itself.
- Keep the judgement calls with you: disputes, hardship, and the customers who've ignored several reminders.
A fixed schedule sends the same sequence to everyone on days you picked in advance. An agent works differently: it chooses the next step customer by customer, within rules you set, based on how that customer has paid before. Adfin's collection agents work this way, chasing over email, SMS or WhatsApp from your own email domain, and you decide which channels they use, how persistent they are and what needs your approval first.
Common questions
Do automated payment reminders actually work? They make your follow-up consistent, which manual chasing often isn't. The biggest measurable difference, though, comes from invoices being set to collect automatically.
Is automated chasing better than a person chasing? For the routine part, yes, because it happens reliably. For a customer who's ignored several reminders or raised a query, a person usually does better.
What's the best time to send a payment reminder? There's no reliable general answer. Your customer's own history of replies and payments tells you more than any universal rule.
Will automated reminders annoy my clients? Regular, predictable reminders tend to annoy people less than irregular chasing, because they read as process. Your tone and how often you send matter more than whether a person pressed send.
Should I automate reminders or set up direct debit? Direct debit first, where your client will agree to it, because it removes the payment decision. Automate reminders for everything else.
How many automated reminders should I send? There's no proven number. A note before the due date, two or three reminders after it, then a change of channel or a phone call is a sensible pattern.
Sources
- Department for Business and Trade - Late payments research: impact on the UK economy (accurate as of October 2026) https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/late-payments-research-impact-on-the-uk-economy
- Bacs - The little Bacs guide to Direct Debit (accurate as of October 2026) https://www.bacs.co.uk/media/ezwlg0dn/little_bacs_guide_to_direct_debit-v2.pdf
- Adfin - Credit control (accurate as of October 2026) https://www.adfin.com/credit-control
