Reminders are the automatic follow-up communications Biller Genie sends to your customers between the time an invoice goes out and the time it's paid. They're the engine that "chases" payments on your behalf — and the reason most Biller Genie merchants get paid significantly faster than they used to. This article explains how reminders work, what each reminder type is for, and how to configure them.
How reminders fit into Biller Genie's messaging model
Biller Genie sends two flavors of customer communication:
- Invoice Messenger — the FIRST touch. Sends the invoice itself (and updates if it changes).
- Reminders (this article) — the FOLLOW-UP cadence. Repeats over time until the invoice is paid.
Together they cover the whole life of an invoice. Invoice Messenger gets it into the customer's hands; Reminders keeps it top of mind.
The six reminder types
Reminders are organized into six message types, each with its own purpose. You can turn each one on or off, and choose whether to deliver by email, paper mail, or both. The exact timing of each type is set globally on the Reminders configuration page.
- Upcoming Payment — a heads-up sent before the invoice is due. Especially useful for businesses that offer payment terms (Net 15, Net 30) and want to encourage customers to pay early, and for customers on autopay who appreciate a heads-up before the charge hits. Don't overdo it — one early-warning touch is usually plenty; more than that starts to feel like nagging.
- Payment Due — sent on the invoice's due date.
- Invoice Updated — sent when an existing invoice is changed (line item edited, amount adjusted, due date moved). Email only.
- Statement — a periodic summary listing all of the customer's open invoices in one document.
- Payment Overdue — sent once the invoice is past due. This is the workhorse of the Reminders system. Most merchants run a recurring Payment Overdue cadence as the core of their collections process. See the escalation-sequence pattern below.
- Upcoming Late Fee — a heads-up before a late fee posts, giving the customer a chance to pay before the fee kicks in.
Email and paper mail
Each reminder type can be delivered by email, paper mail, or both. Email is always available. Paper mail requires the Paper Mail add-on. When both are enabled for the same reminder type, Biller Genie sends both — useful for customers who don't reliably check email.
Installing the Reminders add-on
Reminders is a Biller Genie add-on. On a brand-new account you have to install it once before you can configure the cadence. It takes about ten seconds.
Step 1. Open the Add-ons Marketplace
In Biller Genie, go to Add-ons Marketplace, select the Communication category, and click Reminders.
Step 2. Click Install
Click Install on the Reminders tile.
Reminders now shows up under your Add-ons and is ready to configure. The next section shows where to set the cadence.
Where to find Reminders
Reminders are configured at three levels — the same layered model used everywhere in Biller Genie:
- Global Customer Defaults — the baseline cadence for every customer. Set this once.
- Customer Type Defaults — overrides for QuickBooks customer types (e.g. wholesale gets fewer reminders than retail).
- Per-Customer Overrides — overrides for specific customers (e.g. send a VIP fewer touches; send a chronically late customer more).
The most-specific layer wins. So if global says "Statement: Email On" but a per-customer override turns it off, that customer doesn't get statements.
Configuring reminder timing
The timing of each reminder (how many days before due date Upcoming Payment fires, how soon after due date Payment Overdue fires, etc.) is set globally on the Reminders page in the Control Panel:
- Open Control Panel > Reminders.
- For each reminder type, set the trigger schedule. Some types fire once (e.g. Payment Due, on the due date itself); others fire on a recurring schedule (e.g. Payment Overdue can repeat every N days).
- Click Save. The new cadence applies to every invoice from that point forward.
Timing is global, channels are per-customer
You can't change reminder timing for a specific customer — the cadence is one schedule for the whole account. What you CAN vary per customer is which reminder TYPES are turned on and which delivery channels (Email / Paper Mail) are active for them. See Per-Customer Overrides for the "message a specific customer more or less" pattern.
A practical reminder cadence to start with
A balanced cadence that works for most service and B2B businesses:
- Upcoming Payment — 3 days before due date, email only.
- Payment Due — on the due date, email only.
- Invoice Updated — on every update, email only.
- Statement — first of the month, email only (for B2B accounts only).
- Payment Overdue — see the escalation-sequence pattern below; this is the part you'll spend the most time tuning.
- Upcoming Late Fee — 1 day before the late fee posts, email only.
Adjust from there based on what fits your customers and policy. Most merchants tune the Payment Overdue cadence the most — too aggressive feels pushy; too gentle gets ignored.
Watch for reminders that overlap on the same day
Multiple reminders can fire on the same day if their schedules collide — for example, an Upcoming Late Fee reminder that lands on the same day as a recurring Payment Overdue email. The customer ends up with two emails in one day from you, which usually reads as overzealous collections. When setting up your cadence, walk through a couple of sample invoice timelines (day 0, day 5, day 15, day 30…) and make sure no two reminder types are scheduled to fire on the same day. If overlap is unavoidable, stagger one of them by a day or two.
Building a Payment Overdue escalation sequence
The most effective Payment Overdue cadence isn't a single repeating message — it's a sequence of tiered messages that escalate in tone and channel as the invoice gets older. Each tier is its own block of Payment Overdue reminders configured for a specific age range, with messaging that matches how serious the situation has become.
A common four-tier sequence:
- Tier 1 — 0 to 60 days past due. Friendly nudges, email only. Tone: "Just a friendly reminder, please pay when you get a chance." Fire every 7-14 days.
- Tier 2 — 60 to 120 days past due. Firmer reminders, still email. Tone: "Your account is now significantly past due. Please contact us to resolve this." Add paper mail at the 90-day mark for a tangible escalation. Fire every 7-10 days.
- Tier 3 — 120 to 180 days past due. Final notice. Email + paper mail. Tone: "This is a final notice. If we don't hear from you, this account may be referred to collections." Fire every 7 days.
- Tier 4 — 180+ days past due. Either an "account suspended / sent to collections" notice, or stop sending and route to your collections process. Whichever fits your policy.
Each tier is configured as its own Payment Overdue reminder block with its own send schedule, subject line, and body content. Per-Customer Overrides let you opt specific customers out of later tiers — useful for VIP accounts you'd never want to threaten with collections.
Don't escalate everyone
Tier 3 and 4 messaging assumes the customer is genuinely delinquent and unresponsive. For long-standing customers who've simply had a slow month, the tone of those tiers will damage the relationship. Use Per-Customer Overrides to exempt your A-list customers from the later tiers, or carry on the friendlier Tier 1/2 messaging for them instead.
Merge tags — personalizing each reminder
Reminder templates support merge tags — placeholders like {CustomerFirstName} or {AmountDue} that Biller Genie replaces with real data when the message goes out. They let one template render correctly for every customer and every invoice. Merge tags work the same in email and paper mail.
Customer information tags
-
{CustomerFirstName}— the customer's first name. Renders to "Sir/Ma'am" if the customer has no first name on file (useful for businesses). -
{CustomerBusinessName}— the customer's business name. Renders to "Sir/Ma'am" if blank. -
{CustomerDisplayName}— the customer's preferred display name (combines first name + business name based on what's set). -
{JobName}— the customer's job title (for QuickBooks sub-customer setups). -
{Other}— the value of the customer's Other custom field.
Invoice information tags
-
{InvoiceNumber}— the invoice number. -
{InvoiceDate}— the invoice date (MM/DD/YYYY). -
{DueDate}— the invoice due date (MM/DD/YYYY). -
{AmountDue}— the invoice balance remaining, formatted as currency (for example, $1,234.56). On Statements, this is the total of all open invoices instead of one specific invoice. -
{PONumber}— the PO number on the invoice (empty if none). -
{InvoiceDaysLate}— how many days past due the invoice is. Renders as a plain number (e.g. 42). Negative if the invoice isn't due yet.
Late fee tags (conditional)
These render only when late fees are enabled for the merchant and the invoice qualifies. Otherwise they render as empty strings, so you can safely include them in templates that double as "with late fee" and "without late fee" variants.
-
{LateFee}— the late fee amount that will be applied (currency formatted). -
{LateFeeDate}— the date the next late fee is scheduled to post (MM/DD/YYYY).
Link and merchant tags
-
{CustomerPortalLink}— full URL to the customer's payment portal for the invoice. Drop this in to give the customer a one-click pay-now link. -
{CustomerStatementLink}— direct URL to download/view the customer's statement. -
{DBAName}— your business's DBA (the name your customers know you by).
Merge tag rules
Tags are case-sensitive — {CustomerFirstName} works; {customerfirstname} won't replace and will render literally. Use only curly braces — double braces ({{...}}) and square brackets ([...]) are not supported. Dates are hardcoded to MM/DD/YYYY format and currency uses your locale's symbol and formatting.
A merge-tag example
A simple Payment Overdue template that scales across every customer:
Hi {CustomerFirstName},
This is a friendly reminder that invoice {InvoiceNumber} for {AmountDue} was due on {DueDate} and is now {InvoiceDaysLate} days past due.
A late fee of {LateFee} will post on {LateFeeDate} if the invoice remains unpaid.
You can pay online: {CustomerPortalLink}
Thanks,
{DBAName}
When the email goes out to ABC Plumbing Co., that template renders as a personalized message with their business name, invoice number, exact amount, exact days late, and exact late fee — no manual editing per customer.
Disable reminders on a specific invoice
When you need to stop reminders for just one invoice — not all invoices for that customer, not globally — open the invoice in Biller Genie and use the per-invoice opt-out:
- In the Biller Genie portal, navigate to Invoices and find the invoice. You can also reach it from the customer's record under their Invoices tab.
- Open the invoice.
- Click Modify > Opt out of Reminders. A confirmation banner appears.
Re-enabling reminders for the same invoice uses the same path — Modify shows Opt into Reminders when the invoice is currently opted out.
Per-invoice opt-out is the most-specific layer of reminder control: it overrides the customer's settings and the global cadence for that single invoice only. Use it sparingly — the layered model (Customer Defaults → Customer Type Defaults → Per-Customer Overrides) handles most "stop the noise" scenarios more cleanly.
Statements — the recurring summary of all open invoices
Statements are one of the six reminder types, but they behave a little differently from the others: instead of sending a single invoice, Biller Genie sends a summary of every open invoice the customer has, on a recurring schedule (typically the first of each month).
- Schedule: set the Statement timing in the global Reminders config — usually the first or last day of the month.
- Recipient view: the customer's statement email links to a Statement page where they can view every open invoice in one place, pay any or all of them, and download a PDF copy.
- Partial payments work per invoice within the statement: if you've enabled partial payments, the customer can pay any amount up to each invoice's total directly from the statement view. Payments apply to the specific invoice paid, not pro-rated across all of them.
- Customer-record off-schedule send: from any customer's record with two or more open invoices, click Send Statement to fire a one-off statement immediately. Useful when a customer calls in asking for a complete picture.
Statements vs. individual reminders — pick a strategy
You can have BOTH Statement and per-invoice reminders enabled for the same customer, but that often crosses into "too much email." A common pattern: turn ON Statements monthly and turn OFF Payment Overdue email reminders for B2B accounts that prefer the consolidated view; turn ON Payment Overdue and turn OFF Statements for retail accounts who pay one invoice at a time.
Attach the full invoice PDF to every reminder
By default, reminders link the customer to a payment page where they can view and pay the invoice. If you'd rather attach the full invoice PDF directly to every reminder email — useful for B2B accounts whose AP teams archive PDFs — turn on a single toggle:
- Open Control Panel > Invoice Defaults.
- Toggle Add Invoice as Attachment in Reminder to Yes.
- Click Save Settings.
Every reminder from that point forward includes the invoice PDF as an email attachment in addition to the payment link.
When a customer asks to stop receiving emails
Sometimes a customer will ask you to stop sending them reminders — they pay on their own schedule, they find the emails redundant, or they just want quiet. You don't have to change your global defaults to oblige them. Instead, open the customer's record and use Per-Customer Overrides to turn off the reminder types they don't want. Common patterns:
- Quiet down a friendly customer who pays consistently. Turn off Statement, Upcoming Payment, and Upcoming Late Fee. Keep Payment Due and Payment Overdue on so they're still in the loop if something genuinely lapses.
- Stop everything except the bare minimum. Turn off all reminders except Payment Due. They'll still know when an invoice is due; they just won't get repeated follow-ups.
- Stop email entirely, keep paper mail. If a customer prefers physical mail, turn off Email on every reminder type and turn on Paper Mail (with the Paper Mail add-on).
Keep your global defaults configured for the majority — the customers who benefit from the full cadence. Use per-customer overrides for the exceptions. This is the same pattern you'd use for any per-customer behavior in Biller Genie; see Per-Customer Overrides for the broader playbook.
How reminders interact with payment status
- Once an invoice is paid, all future reminders for that invoice stop automatically.
- Partial payments reduce the outstanding balance but don't stop reminders — the customer keeps getting nudges until the invoice is fully paid.
- Voided or refunded invoices stop generating reminders for the voided/refunded amount.
- Skipped late fees (via the per-customer Waive Next Late Fee flag) don't trigger the Upcoming Late Fee reminder either — there's no fee to remind about.
Frequently asked questions
Will the customer know reminders are automated?
Reminders go out from your Biller Genie sender address (or your custom email domain if you've set one up) and are formatted to look like business correspondence from your company. Most customers won't notice they're automated. If a customer replies to a reminder, the reply goes to your reply-to address — not back to Biller Genie.
Why didn't a customer get a reminder I expected?
Five common causes: (1) the reminder type is turned off in their settings (check the customer record), (2) the invoice was already paid before the reminder was due to fire, (3) the customer's email address bounced or is invalid, (4) the global reminder schedule has that type disabled, (5) the customer's QuickBooks customer type has Customer Type Defaults that override the global setting. Open the customer record to see what's actually configured for them.
Can I send a one-off reminder right now without changing the schedule?
Yes — on the invoice itself, click Send Invoice to fire a manual send. See How to Send an Invoice Manually for the full flow.
How do I preview what a reminder looks like before I send it?
Open the customer's record and use the Preview option on each reminder type. Biller Genie renders a real-data preview of what that customer would receive.