Chase unpaid Podium invoices with escalating text reminders
Every weekday morning, every overdue Podium invoice gets the right nudge by text, and the oldest or largest ones go to a person to call instead.
Podium
Google Sheets
SlackFinanceOperationsNotifications & AlertsData SyncEvery weekday at 9am, chase my unpaid Podium payment invoices, and escalate the ones that are too old or too large to keep texting about.
Start by reading my Google Sheets collections tracker with Get Values, before sending anything at all. The tracker is my record of which invoices have already been chased, how many reminders each one has received, and when the last reminder went out. This read has to happen first on every single run. If you send before you read, the reminder cap silently breaks and customers get spammed.
Then pull my invoices from Podium with List Invoices. Use Get Invoice on any invoice where you need more detail, such as the contact on it, the balance, or the due date. Work out which invoices are still unpaid, and how many days past due each one is.
For each unpaid invoice, decide the follow up from both the age of the invoice and what the tracker says has already been sent. Around 3 days overdue, send a light friendly nudge. Around 14 days overdue, send a firmer reminder that is clear about next steps. Never send more than three reminders in total for the same invoice, counting every previous run, not just this one. Never send the same invoice two reminders in the same run, and leave a sensible gap since the last reminder rather than chasing on consecutive days.
Send each reminder as a text message to the contact on the invoice using Podium Send Message. Write the message yourself and match the tone to how late the invoice is: warm and low pressure at 3 days, direct and specific at 14. Keep them short, reference the invoice amount and the due date, and include the payment link if the invoice has one.
Do not text an invoice that is more than 30 days overdue, or whose balance is above a dollar threshold I set. Make that threshold an easy input to change, and default it to 1000 dollars. Those invoices go to my Slack collections channel with Send a Message instead, so a person picks up the phone rather than sending another text. Include the customer name, the amount outstanding, how many days overdue it is, how many reminders have already gone out, and the contact phone number, so whoever grabs it can call without digging anything up.
Log everything back to the tracker with Append Values. Write one row per reminder sent and one row per escalation, each with the date, the invoice id, the customer, the amount, the days overdue, which action was taken (friendly nudge, firm reminder, or escalated to Slack), the running reminder count for that invoice, and a short note. Also record when an invoice that was chased in an earlier run now comes back as paid, so I can see what the chasing actually recovered.
If there is nothing overdue to chase on a given morning, do nothing quietly. Do not post an empty summary to Slack.
What does this prompt do?
- Checks your Podium payment invoices every weekday morning and works out which ones are still unpaid and how many days late each one is.
- Reads your collections tracker before sending anything, so it knows who has already been chased and never sends the same customer more than three reminders.
- Sends a friendly text around three days late and a firmer one around two weeks late, straight to the contact on the invoice.
- Stops texting anything more than 30 days late or above the amount you set, and posts it to Slack so a person can pick up the phone instead.
- Logs every reminder and every handover back to the tracker, so you can see what was chased and what it brought in.
What do I need to use this?
- A Podium account with payments turned on, and permission to send messages to your contacts
- A Google account with a collections tracker spreadsheet the workflow can read and add rows to
- A Slack workspace and a channel where large or very late invoices should be handed to a person
- The dollar amount above which you would rather call a customer than text them
How can I customize it?
- Change when it runs. Weekday mornings at 9am is the default, but you can run it daily or later in the day.
- Adjust the ladder. The friendly nudge at 3 days, the firmer reminder at 14 days, and the cap of three reminders per invoice are all yours to set.
- Set your own handover rules. Change the 30 day cutoff, the dollar threshold, and which Slack channel the phone call requests land in.
- Rewrite the tone of the texts, from warm and casual to short and formal.
FAQs
Will customers get spammed with reminders?
Why does it text some customers and post others to Slack?
Does this send from my own Podium number?
What if an invoice gets paid between runs?
Do I need an existing tracker spreadsheet set up?
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Stop letting unpaid invoices go quiet.
Put your follow up on a schedule, chase every overdue invoice at the right volume, and get the ones that need a real conversation in front of a person.