Nobody enjoys the chase, so it happens late.
The money is owed, the relationship is fine, and the reminder still does not go out until somebody has a bad week about it.
The problem, as it actually is
Two separate jobs are hiding in here. Inbound: supplier invoices arrive as attachments in six formats, get matched to orders by eye, and get coded by someone who knows the chart of accounts and is not always available. Outbound: your own invoices go out, and then nothing happens to them until a month-end panic.
Chasing is uncomfortable, so it slips, and the slippage is expensive in a way that never appears on a report. Thirty days becomes fifty-five. Your cash position becomes something you feel rather than know.
What I build
- Inbound invoices read
- Whatever their format, matched to the purchase order or job, and coded against your own chart of accounts. Anything that does not match cleanly is flagged, not guessed.
- Approval where it belongs
- Nothing is posted or paid without the person who should see it seeing it.
- Outbound follow-up on a schedule you set
- In your wording, escalating in tone the way you would, and stopping the moment payment lands.
- Exceptions surfaced
- A duplicate, a price that does not match the order, an unusual amount from a familiar supplier. These are the ones that cost real money.
- A short daily position
- What came in, what went out, what is overdue and by how long.
What it connects to
Your accounting system. Your email, for both the invoices arriving and the chasing going out. Your order or job system, so matching has something to match against.
What it will not do
Pay anything on its own. Post to your ledger without approval. Write off, discount or vary a debt. Threaten anybody.
What it takes
Accounting access, a few months of real invoices to learn the shapes of, your coding rules, and your chasing schedule and wording.
What people ask before they buy
- “I am not letting software touch my accounts.”
- Nor would I. It prepares and proposes; a person approves. Anything that moves money has a human gate by default, and that is a design rule, not a setting I hope you notice.
- “Our suppliers all send different formats.”
- That is the normal case and it is the part automation is good at. The ones it cannot read confidently come to a person.
- “Chasing is relationship-sensitive.”
- Which is why the wording is yours, the schedule is yours, and any account you mark sensitive is left to you entirely.