Short answer
Accounts receivable collection software organises the follow-up of unpaid invoices: who owes what, which reminder is due, and what was already said. DIGITAL EUR plans to draft reminders from bank-verified invoice status, so customers who have paid are not chased, and to send nothing until a person approves each message. It is not available yet.
What does accounts receivable collection software do?
At its simplest, it replaces a spreadsheet column called "chased?" with a process. A good tool does five jobs:
- Knows the real balance. It works from what has actually been received, not from what someone remembered to tick.
- Decides what is due next. Based on the due date and earlier contacts, it proposes the next step for each overdue invoice.
- Prepares the message. It fills in the invoice number, open amount, payment reference and bank details correctly.
- Keeps a record. Every reminder, reply, promise to pay and dispute is kept with the invoice.
- Shows the picture. An ageing view tells you where the money is stuck.
Most products on the market add a sixth job: sending automatically on a schedule. That is where DIGITAL EUR deliberately differs. We plan invoice follow-up automation for the preparation work only. The decision to contact a customer, and the act of sending, stay with a person.
Why? Because an automated reminder sent to a customer who paid last Tuesday, or who has disputed the invoice, damages a relationship that took years to build. The cost of one approval click is small compared with that risk.
Who is it for?
The planned product is collections management software for small and medium-sized businesses that invoice in euro and are paid mostly by bank transfer:
- small companies and freelancers who chase payments themselves, between other work;
- agencies, studios and consultancies, where retainers, milestones and partial payments make "what is still open?" a real question;
- bookkeepers and accounting firms that prepare reminders for several clients and need each client to approve what goes out;
- businesses with customers across several euro countries, who need reminders in the customer's language.
It is not for debt collection agencies, consumer debt collection, call-centre operations or anyone who wants reminders sent without review. It does not take payments, does not give legal advice and does not start court proceedings.
What exists today, and what is planned?
Collections is a planned capability. Nothing on this page can be used to send a reminder today. The table shows what the plan depends on and what you can already test.
| Part | Status | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Invoice status from approved bank matches | Available in the demo | Open, partially or fully allocated, in the Reconciliation Lab |
| Append-only audit log of decisions | Available in the demo | Matching decisions only, kept in the browser session |
| Due dates and ageing buckets | Planned | Needed before any reminder can be proposed |
| Reminder drafts from templates | Planned | Filled from records, editable, discardable |
| Approval per message, then sending | Planned | Email through a sandbox on staging first; no auto-send |
| AI suggestions for wording | Planned, optional | Proposes text only; see the limits below |
| Dispute flag that pauses follow-up | Planned | Reason recorded with the invoice |
| Automatic sending on a schedule | Not planned | A person approves every message |
Why should payments be matched before anyone is chased?
The most common collections mistake is not rudeness. It is chasing a customer who has already paid. It happens because the bank statement and the invoice list live in different places, and the reminder tool only sees the invoice list.
DIGITAL EUR inverts the order. Reminders will be drafted only from status produced by approved reconciliation. If a customer paid €1,500 of a €3,000 invoice, the draft will state €1,500 outstanding and mention the payment received. If an incoming credit for the customer is still unexplained, the draft will be held for review, because the missing money may already be in your account. The method behind this is described on the reconciliation and invoice tracking pages.
What do EU late-payment rules say?
Before you write a firm reminder, know what the law already gives you. In the EU, payments between businesses, and from public authorities to businesses, are governed by the Late Payment Directive 2011/7/EU, as transposed into each country's national law. The Directive does not apply to consumers. The points below are drawn from the Directive text and the European Commission's FAQ. They are a summary, not legal advice; national rules can be stricter, and your contract matters.
| Topic | What the Directive provides | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Interest without a reminder | In business-to-business transactions the creditor is entitled to late-payment interest without needing to send a reminder, if it has fulfilled its obligations and was not paid on time, unless the debtor is not responsible for the delay | Article 3(1) |
| When interest starts | From the day after the payment date or period in the contract; if none was fixed, 30 calendar days after the debtor receives the invoice (with fallbacks where the receipt date is uncertain) | Article 3(3) |
| Contractual payment terms | Should not exceed 60 calendar days, unless expressly agreed otherwise and not grossly unfair to the creditor | Article 3(5) |
| Acceptance or verification | Where a procedure is provided for, it should not normally exceed 30 calendar days from receipt of the goods or services | Article 3(4) |
| Statutory interest rate | The reference rate plus at least eight percentage points | Article 2(6) |
| Reference rate (euro area) | The ECB's main refinancing operations rate; the rate in force on 1 January applies to the first half-year and the rate in force on 1 July to the second | Articles 2(7) and 3(2) |
| Recovery costs | A fixed sum of at least €40, payable without a reminder, plus reasonable compensation for recovery costs above that sum | Article 6 |
| Per invoice | The Commission's FAQ states that the €40 applies separately to each unpaid invoice | Commission FAQ |
| Instalments | Interest and compensation are calculated only on the overdue amounts | Article 5 |
| Unfair terms | A term excluding late-payment interest is grossly unfair; a term excluding the €40 compensation is presumed grossly unfair | Article 7 |
| Public authorities | Must pay within 30 days, or 60 days in very exceptional circumstances | Commission summary |
The Commission's FAQ also says something often missed: the creditor is entitled to claim interest and compensation, but is not obliged to. Many businesses choose not to charge them to a good customer who is a few days late. Knowing the entitlement still helps you write a calm, factual final notice.
Is the law changing? In September 2023 the Commission proposed replacing the Directive with a regulation, COM(2023) 533. The European Parliament adopted its first-reading position in April 2024. As of 5 November 2026, the Parliament's Legislative Observatory lists the file as awaiting the Council's first-reading position. Until a new act is adopted and applies, the Directive as transposed nationally remains the framework. We will update this page if that changes.
Worked example: what does a 45-day delay add up to?
This illustration shows how the Directive's minimum works. It is not a calculation of what you may claim in any specific country.
- Invoice: €2,400, business-to-business, payment term 30 days, due 1 October 2026.
- Payment received: 15 November 2026, so interest runs for 45 days, from 2 October to 15 November.
- Reference rate for the second half of 2026: the ECB main refinancing rate in force on 1 July 2026, which was 2.40% (the rate effective from 17 June 2026).
- Directive minimum statutory rate: 2.40% + 8 points = 10.40% a year.
| Item | Calculation | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Interest at the minimum rate | €2,400 × 10.40% × 45 / 365 | €30.77 |
| Fixed compensation for recovery costs | Minimum fixed sum per invoice | €40.00 |
| Total at the Directive minimum | €70.77 |
Three caveats. National law may set a higher margin than eight points, and some countries use a national base rate rather than quoting the ECB rate directly. Day-count conventions (365 or 360 days) and rounding differ. And the ECB raised its main refinancing rate to 2.65% from 16 September 2026; if that is still the rate on 1 January 2027, the Directive minimum for the first half of 2027 would be 10.65%. Check the transposing law where your contract is governed before you put any figure in a reminder.
A customer debt follow-up workflow, stage by stage
There is no legal requirement in the Directive to send reminders at fixed intervals. The schedule below is common practice and a reasonable default for B2B invoices; adjust it to your payment terms and relationships. Each stage has a different tone and a different person who should approve it.
| Stage | Typical timing | Tone | What the message contains | Who approves |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0. Courtesy note | 3–5 days before due | Helpful | Invoice number, amount, due date, reference, bank details | Anyone authorised |
| 1. First reminder | 3–7 days after due | Friendly, assumes oversight | Same details, "if you have already paid, thank you" | Anyone authorised |
| 2. Second reminder | 14–21 days after due | Clear and direct | Outstanding balance, request for a payment date, contact name | Account owner |
| 3. Final notice | 30–45 days after due | Formal, factual | Deadline, statement of entitlement to interest and compensation if you intend to claim, next step | Owner or manager |
| 4. Escalation | After the final deadline | No message from the tool | Decide: payment plan, external collection or legal advice | Management |
Before every stage the workflow checks three things: has a new payment been matched, is the invoice flagged as disputed, and is there an unexplained credit from this customer? If any answer is yes, the draft waits.
For many invoices to the same customer, one combined message with a statement of open items reads better than five separate reminders.
Payment reminder templates you can adapt
These are our own short templates, written for B2B customers in plain English. A payment reminder email generator will fill the bracketed fields from your records; you should still read every message before it goes out. Do not threaten steps you do not intend to take.
Stage 1: friendly reminder
Subject: Invoice [number] — payment reminder
Hello [name],
Our records show invoice [number] for €[outstanding] was due on [due date] and is still open. If it has already been paid, thank you, and please ignore this message.
If not, you can pay by bank transfer to [IBAN], quoting [reference] so that we can match it quickly. The invoice is attached again for convenience.
Kind regards, [sender]
Stage 2: second reminder after a partial payment
Subject: Invoice [number] — €[outstanding] still open
Hello [name],
Thank you for your payment of €[received] on [date]. After this payment, €[outstanding] remains open on invoice [number], which was due on [due date].
Could you let us know when we can expect the balance? If there is a problem with the invoice, please tell us and we will look at it straight away.
Kind regards, [sender]
Stage 3: final notice
Subject: Final notice — invoice [number], €[outstanding]
Hello [name],
Despite our reminders of [date 1] and [date 2], invoice [number] for €[outstanding] remains unpaid. Please arrange payment by [deadline], quoting [reference].
Under the late-payment rules that apply to business transactions, we are entitled to statutory interest and a fixed compensation for recovery costs. We would prefer not to claim them and to settle this directly. If you are unable to pay in full, please contact [name, phone] before [deadline] to agree a schedule.
Kind regards, [sender]
Only include the sentence about interest and compensation if it is accurate for your contract and jurisdiction, and if you are prepared to claim them.
Tone, language and channel
Tone is a tool, not a mood. Early messages should assume an oversight, because most late payments are exactly that: an invoice stuck in approval, a changed contact, a missing purchase order number. Later messages should be shorter, not angrier. A firm reminder states facts, a date and a consequence; it does not accuse.
Multilingual invoice reminders help, especially across the euro area. A customer's accounts payable team acts faster on a message in its own language, with the reference in a form its bank accepts. In the planned product, each customer can have a preferred language and each template a reviewed version per language. Machine-translated drafts, if offered, will be marked as such and must be checked by someone who reads the language before approval.
Email is the planned channel. A phone call often does more at stage 2 or 3 than another email; the record should still show that it happened and what was agreed.
Where does AI fit into payment reminders?
AI payment reminders are widely marketed. Our plan is narrower, and the limits are part of the product:
- AI may propose wording. For example, a softer phrasing for a long-standing customer or a clearer explanation of a partial payment.
- AI does not decide. It does not choose who is contacted, when, at which stage, or for how much.
- AI does not create numbers. Amounts, invoice numbers, dates, references and bank details come from your records and approved matches, never from generated text.
- AI does not send. Every message, with or without AI help, needs an explicit approval by an authorised person.
- AI is optional. Templates work without it.
- No personal or bank data goes to an AI provider without a documented agreement with that provider and the consent required for it. Where AI is used, drafts will be prepared from redacted placeholders wherever possible.
We will also assess any AI function against the EU's rules on artificial intelligence before it is enabled, and describe the result on the security page.
What happens when a customer disputes an invoice?
Invoice dispute management is the part of collections that automated sequences handle worst. When a customer says the work was incomplete or the price was wrong, a reminder schedule that keeps running turns a commercial disagreement into an irritation.
The planned workflow:
- Mark the invoice as disputed, with a reason and the date the customer raised it.
- Pause all drafts for that invoice. Other invoices for the same customer continue unless you pause them too.
- Assign the dispute to whoever can resolve it, such as sales, delivery or the account owner.
- Record the outcome: confirmed, credit note to be issued, partial acceptance, or withdrawn.
- Resume follow-up only for the amount that is still undisputed.
Whether a dispute affects your entitlement to interest depends on the facts and on national law. The Directive itself conditions interest on the creditor having fulfilled its obligations. That is one more reason to have a human in the loop.
What goes into the collections audit trail?
A collections review audit trail lets you answer, months later, "what exactly did we send, and who agreed?". The planned record for every message:
| Field | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Invoice and status snapshot used for the draft | Proves the amount was correct at the time |
| Template and language version | Shows which wording was approved |
| Edits made before approval | Shows what a person changed |
| Approver, time and recipient | Accountability |
| Delivery result | Sent, bounced or failed |
| Pauses, disputes and promises to pay | Context for the next step |
The matching decisions the drafts rely on are already written to an append-only log in the demo, where entries are never edited or removed.
What should an invoice aging dashboard show first?
Overdue invoice tracking software is useful only if it tells you what to do today. The planned invoice aging dashboard will group outstanding amounts by days overdue and, within each group, put first:
- invoices whose next stage is due and whose status is confirmed by matching;
- invoices with an unexplained credit from the same customer, which may already be paid;
- disputed invoices waiting for a decision;
- customers with several overdue invoices, where one combined message is better.
Our invoice tracking page shows an illustrative ageing table. The buckets matter less than the order of work inside them.
Agencies, consultants and bookkeepers
An accounts receivable workflow for agencies has particular patterns: retainers invoiced monthly, deposits before work starts, milestones accepted late by the client, and one client contact who changes often. Overdue payments for consultants follow similar lines, with the added awkwardness that the person you chase is often the person you work with every day.
Three practices help:
- Separate the relationship from the reminder. Let a finance address send stage 1 and 2 reminders, so the project lead is not the one asking for money.
- Chase acceptance, not just payment. If the contract says payment follows sign-off, a reminder about payment before sign-off is misdirected.
- Use statements for retainers. A monthly statement of open items is clearer than a chain of individual reminders.
For bookkeepers working across several clients, the Agency plan on the pricing page lists an approval workflow, so each client can approve the messages sent in its name.
How does this compare with the alternatives?
The comparison uses our own criteria and describes typical approaches, not named products. It makes no claims about any vendor's prices.
| Criterion | Manual email from a spreadsheet | Reminders built into invoicing or accounting software | Dedicated AR automation platforms | DIGITAL EUR (planned) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Balance used in the message | Whatever the sheet says | The tool's own status | Synced from accounting | Approved bank matches |
| Sending | Manual | Often automatic on a schedule | Usually automatic sequences | Approval per message, never automatic |
| Partial payments reflected | If someone updates the sheet | Usually | Usually | Yes, from allocations |
| Dispute pause | Memory | Varies | Usually | Planned |
| Explanation of status | None | Varies | Varies | Score and reasons for every match |
| AI | None | Varies | Often | Optional, wording only |
| Fit | Very few invoices | Simple cases | Larger finance teams | Small teams paid by bank transfer |
If your invoicing tool already sends reminders and its paid status is reliable, you may not need another tool. DIGITAL EUR is meant for the case where the status itself is the weak point.
Privacy and security
Reminders contain personal data: names, email addresses, amounts owed. In the hosted product they will be stored per organisation, with access limited to authorised users and recorded in a log. Email delivery will first run through a sandbox on staging, so that no real customer receives a test. We do not claim certifications we do not hold. The current position is on the security page and in the privacy notice.
Pricing and availability
Nothing can be bought yet and no account can be opened. The pricing page shows illustrative pre-launch test prices of €19, €49 and €129 per month (Solo, Growth and Agency), excluding VAT. Solo lists manual reminders, Growth lists reminder drafts with approval, and Agency lists an approval workflow. These are test values, not an offer, and there is no checkout.
Honest limitations
- Collections is planned; no reminder can be drafted or sent today.
- The demo has no due dates, so it cannot calculate days overdue yet.
- We will not offer automatic sending. If you want fully unattended reminders, this is the wrong tool.
- We do not calculate or claim late-payment interest for you, and nothing here is legal advice. The author is not a lawyer.
- We do not provide debt collection, legal escalation or consumer collections.
- Reminder quality depends on matching quality; unexplained credits must be resolved first.
Frequently asked questions
Will reminders be sent automatically?
No. A person must approve every message. The software prepares drafts and keeps the record; it never sends on a schedule by itself.
Do I need to send a reminder before charging late-payment interest in the EU?
For business-to-business transactions, the Directive says interest and the €40 fixed compensation are due without a reminder, subject to its conditions and the national law that transposes it. Whether you claim them is your choice. Check national rules or take advice for your situation.
Is the €40 charged per invoice or per customer?
The European Commission's FAQ on the Directive says the fixed sum applies to each unpaid invoice, even when several invoices concern the same debtor.
Do these rules apply to consumers?
No. The Late Payment Directive covers transactions between businesses and between businesses and public authorities. Consumer debts are governed by other rules, and DIGITAL EUR is not designed for consumer collections.
Can AI write my reminders?
Optionally, AI may suggest wording. It will not decide whom to contact or what amount to state, and it will not send anything. No personal or bank data will be sent to an AI provider without a documented agreement and the required consent.
What if the customer says they have already paid?
Look for an unexplained credit from that customer in the Reconciliation Lab or your bank statement. If you find it, approve the match and the reminder disappears. If not, ask for the payment date, amount and the reference used.
Can I use DIGITAL EUR for collections today?
Not for sending reminders. You can use the demo to see how invoice status is derived from bank matches, which is the foundation the collections workflow will build on.
Sources
- Directive 2011/7/EU on combating late payment in commercial transactions, EUR-Lex — text read via the legislation.gov.uk copy of the Directive (accessed 5 November 2026)
- European Commission, Late Payment Directive 2011/7/EU — FAQs (PDF) (accessed 5 November 2026)
- European Commission, Late payment (accessed 5 November 2026)
- European Parliament Legislative Observatory, 2023/0323(COD) Commercial transactions: combating late payment (accessed 5 November 2026)
- European Central Bank, Key ECB interest rates (accessed 5 November 2026)