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Reminding Customers to Pay

Cash. It’s the most precious commodity for most businesses. We are always looking for ways to get it. They way we most want to get it is from the normal operation of business. Whether we sell goods or provide services, that means sales.

Not only sales, but getting paid for those sales.

In that endeavor, any tool we have to help get our customers to pay faster should be utilized.

Normally, we want to invoice as soon as possible once goods are delivered or services completed. If we have not received payments on the invoice by month-end, it’s good to remind our customers. Businesses use statements to keep customers apprised of the amounts they owe. We can create those in QuickBooks Online (QBO).

To create customer reminder statements, use the Quick Add menu, the ‘plus’ sign in the top center of your screen. Select Statement from the choices.

Once making this selection, the following screen opens:

Statement creation is pretty straightforward. There are only a few options.

Statement type is set to Open item which is a very common format, especially used business to business. This type of statement will list all open transactions for this customer. Unpaid invoices, unapplied credits, etc. All will show and total so the customer knows exactly what they owe.

Another statement type is balance forward. This is the style most credit card companies use. There is a balance forward which will be the customer’s balance as of the beginning statement date. Then, all the activity for the current statement period is shown, again resulting in a total of what the customer owes.

Last is the Transaction statement which lists all the transactions for the period.

Set the statement date. It’s a good practice to use approximately the same date each month. So you might run statements for all your customers at the 25th of each month, or the last day of each month, etc.

You can select the Customer Balance Status and create statements for all customers with an open balance, only those with an overdue balance, or all customers.

Then print or send your statements. The process should prompt some of your customers into sending you their payment.