Unpaid invoices in a trade business: the first 30 days, step by step

1. Day 0: before it can be late
2. What your software already does
3. The ladder: due date to day 30
4. Keep a collections note on every invoice
5. After 30 days: the options
6. The legal guardrails, briefly

Everything here happens before the customer has a balance. One owner on the Jobber community board described what skipping it looks like:

“I recently had a job where the customer tried to pay in various formats and payment was never able to go through. I ended up leaving and hoping they would pay at a later date.” Jobber Community thread

Put the payment terms on the estimate

When payment is due, how they can pay, and what happens if they don’t: that belongs in writing before work starts, not on the invoice after it’s done. One trade-press example, from a 2008 ACHR News piece on HVAC contractors: ask at scheduling how the customer will pay, tell them payment is due at completion, and train techs to collect before they leave. As one contractor in it put it, “We have to be paid at the end of the job” (ACHR News). If you plan to charge a late fee, it goes on the estimate too; the late-fees guide covers that.

Take a deposit on bigger jobs

• Jobber puts deposits on the quote. The client pays in Client Hub, and the deposit stays linked to the job and applies to the invoice. Jobber notes that “Clients cannot make partial payments on quote deposits.” (Jobber: deposits on quotes).
• Housecall Pro puts deposits on the estimate, as a flat amount or a percentage up to 100%, and the customer has to pay it before approving. The switch is under Settings → Estimates → Configuration → “Require deposit payments.” Housecall Pro also offers to “only require a credit card on file” instead (Housecall Pro: deposits on estimates).

Get a card on file

• Jobber: the client saves a card in Client Hub, staff add one by hand, or a payment-method field on your request forms collects it (credit cards only, not ACH). A saved card can pay invoices or run automatic payments (Jobber: saved payment methods).
• Housecall Pro: request the card by email or text (texting needs a registered Custom SMS number), or take it over the phone, then charge it from Job Details or the mobile app. Housecall Pro charges a card-not-present fee on those payments; check its current rate in the card-on-file article before you build it into your pricing.

Invoice the same day, and make sure it actually went out

An invoice that sits in draft doesn’t start any clock, and in some programs the automatic reminders won’t fire for it at all. QuickBooks Online sends reminders “only for invoices you’ve already emailed”; Housecall Pro’s reminders need the job finished, a due date on the invoice, a balance above $0, and the invoice already sent. Send it before the truck leaves, to an address the customer reads, with a way to pay attached.

All three of the common programs can send overdue reminders on their own. They differ in when they can start, how many they send, and whether they can text.

Sources: Jobber: automations, Housecall Pro: invoice reminders, QuickBooks: invoice reminders.

On Jobber’s before-the-due-date gap: asked whether a reminder could go out before an invoice is due, a Jobber product team member answered, “At this time, no. You can only send an invoice follow-up once the invoice is due” (Jobber Community). That reply is over a year old, so check whether it still holds for your account.

For the exact settings screens and wording you can paste in, see the invoice reminder guide. One thing worth checking in your own setup, which we haven’t confirmed in vendor documentation:

• Double reminders. If Jobber or Housecall Pro feeds QuickBooks and both ends have reminders switched on, the same customer may hear about the same invoice from two systems. On Jobber’s new QuickBooks integration the sync runs one way, so a payment recorded only in QuickBooks doesn’t come back to Jobber (Jobber guide); Housecall Pro’s sync is one-way too (Housecall Pro guide). Picking one system to run reminders from, and recording payments there, is the safer default.

Automation covers the reminder. It doesn’t cover the conversation, and that’s where the ladder below starts.

The timing below is our suggested schedule, not a proven one and not the law. Each step is a little firmer than the last. Change the days to suit your terms; what matters is that the dates are your written policy and someone owns each step.

Due date: let the software send the first reminder

Set your program’s first follow-up for shortly after the due date. Jobber and Housecall Pro only send after it; QuickBooks Online can also send before it. The tone is a nudge: invoice number, amount, the pay link. It’s the cheapest step on the ladder, because the software does it.

Around day 7: a phone call

A person calls. The goal is finding out which kind of late this is. Did they get the invoice? Is the email going to an old address? Is something about the work in dispute? A complaint about the work is far easier to settle on day 7 than once it has hardened into a reason not to pay. If they’re ready, take the payment on the call or text the pay link while you’re talking.

Around day 14: a written statement

Send a statement in writing: the invoice, the date of the work, what’s been paid, what’s still owed, and how to pay. This is also the step that creates a paper trail if it ever goes further. Keep it factual and short.

Around day 21: a second call, and a decision about new work

Call again, and this time ask for a date: when will it be paid? If they can’t pay in full, this is the time to offer a payment plan rather than wait for a month to pass. It’s also when to decide whether you’ll book new work for this customer while the balance is open. In the 2008 ACHR piece, one commercial contractor refused further service until a customer paid in full. Decide it on purpose, and tell the office.

Around day 30: a written final notice

The last step in the first month is a written final notice, sometimes called a demand letter. It should say:

• the invoice number, the date and address of the work, and the amount owed;
• the attempts you’ve already made to collect;
• a specific deadline to pay, and how to pay;
• what you will do next if it isn’t paid.

Name only a step you will actually take; a letter that threatens court and then goes quiet teaches the customer your letters mean nothing. Send it in your own business’s name, keep a copy, and read the guardrails first.

A note on texting reminders

Texts carry the most rules. Keep it simple: get the customer’s OK to text them, keep the texts about the invoice, and honor STOP. The FCC’s rule at 47 CFR 64.1200 says a person can revoke consent “by any reasonable method to clearly express a desire not to receive further calls,” and that applies to calls and text messages (47 CFR 64.1200). Whether giving you a phone number at booking is enough consent is a question for a lawyer, not for this guide.

Each step only works if the next person knows what the last one said. A Jobber user put the gap this way:

“We have found a major piece missing from Jobber is a section for Collections. How do you handle collections? We have multiple jobs for one client and when calling on overdue invoices there isn’t a section where the notes can be kept that relates to just collections” Jobber Community thread

Wherever you keep it (a field on the invoice, a shared sheet, a pinned note on the client), log each contact the same way:

• Date and channel: call, text, email, letter.
• Who you spoke to, or that you left a voicemail.
• What they said, in a sentence, including any complaint about the work.
• What they promised, and the date they promised it by.
• The next step on your ladder, and who owns it.

This note is the difference between “I think we called them” and a record you can hand to an agency, a magistrate or your accountant.

To see the whole list at once, Jobber has an Aged Receivables report under Insights → Reports, which groups invoices by how late they are and can show the client’s email and phone as columns (Jobber: invoice and payment reports). Work it once a week.

One thing that quietly ruins that list: invoices you never meant to collect. An HVAC owner described one to the QuickBooks community, a service-call invoice waived if the customer buys a new unit: “we know we won’t be taking a payment for that particular invoice” (QuickBooks Community). Close those out on purpose, so the aging report shows only money you’re really owed.

This is not legal advice; rules vary by state, talk to an attorney before legal steps. Collection, small-claims and lien rules are state-specific. What follows is a map of the options, not instructions for any of them.

A payment plan

If the customer wants to pay but can’t pay all at once, offer a written plan, with amounts and dates, before anything below. It keeps the customer.

A collections agency

An agency takes the work off your desk, for a fee. Because an agency collects for someone else, it generally falls inside the federal law’s definition of a debt collector, described in the guardrails. Before you sign with one, ask how they contact people, because their conduct reflects on your name.

Small claims court

In Georgia, small money claims go to magistrate court. Cobb County’s magistrate court says its civil division handles “money claims under $15,000.00,” that “Any person may file a claim in Magistrate Court without an attorney,” and that “Either a person or a business may be sued.” It also asks the question you should ask yourself first: “Do you have proof of the debt such as a receipt, note, bill of sale, warranty or a witness?” Its clerks “cannot advise you on who to sue or if you have a good claim” (Cobb County Magistrate Court, Civil Division).

That limit is scheduled to change. The Georgia code section that sets it, O.C.G.A. 15-10-2, as published on Justia, covers claims where the amount “does not exceed $15,000.00” in the version headed “Effective until January 1, 2027,” and “does not exceed $25,000.00” in the version headed “Effective January 1, 2027” (Justia: 15-10-2, current version; version effective January 1, 2027). So as of October 2026 the limit is $15,000, scheduled to rise to $25,000 on January 1, 2027 under the current code text. Justia is a mirror, not the official code, so check the court’s current page before you file. The Georgia Magistrates Council has a directory to find your court and a free forms generator (Georgia Magistrates Council). Outside Georgia, check your state’s small-claims limit.

Winning isn’t the same as getting paid. Cobb’s page says a judgment “may not be redeemed with the Clerk of Court for money nor is it a Court order to pay that money by a date certain.” Collecting on it takes further steps, such as a FiFa (a lien on the debtor’s property), garnishment, or post-judgment interrogatories. That’s why the residential contractor in the ACHR piece stayed out of small claims: “a judgment doesn’t guarantee collection.”

A lien, for work that qualifies

Contractors can have lien rights, but the deadlines are short and strict, and a lien that misses a requirement can be void. Georgia’s statute, O.C.G.A. 44-14-361.1, sets a window to file the claim of lien “within 90 days after the completion of the work,” and says that if any requirement is missed, “the lien shall not be effective or enforceable” (Justia: O.C.G.A. 44-14-361.1). Whether a lien is available for a given job is a question for a Georgia attorney, and an early one, because the clock starts at completion.

Writing it off

Sometimes the right call is to stop. A QuickBooks Team reply describes one way to record it: a “Bad debts” expense account, a matching non-inventory item, and a credit memo applied through Receive payment, adding “we recommend reaching out to your account[ant] to confirm” (QuickBooks Community). Do confirm it with your accountant, including how it’s treated for tax.

This is not legal advice; rules vary by state, talk to an attorney before legal steps. Three points, each tied to its source.

• Collecting your own invoices. The federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act defines a “debt collector” as someone who regularly collects debts “owed or due or asserted to be owed or due another.” That generally covers third parties collecting for others, not a business collecting its own invoices. The same section also defines “debt” as an obligation from a transaction “primarily for personal, family, or household purposes,” so a business customer’s unpaid invoice isn’t a “debt” under the Act at all (15 U.S.C. 1692a).
• The false-name exception. The definition “includes any creditor who, in the process of collecting his own debts, uses any name other than his own which would indicate that a third person is collecting or attempting to collect such debts.” So no made-up agency name on your own letters.
• Unfair and deceptive practices still apply. The FTC warns creditors who read that definition and “stop reading” that it’s a “Big mistake,” and says their “collection activities are still covered by Section 5 of the FTC Act’s general prohibition” on unfair and deceptive practices (FTC business blog).

Everything above works without us: the reminders are already in your software, and the rest is a note, a calendar and a phone. If you’d rather hand it off, the Revenue Recovery Sprint starts with a baseline of what you’re actually owed, fixes the invoice data that breaks follow-up, switches on the reminders your software already includes, and then builds the escalation those tools can’t do. The intake is the way in.

Related reading:

• Overdue invoice reminders for service businesses: settings for Jobber, Housecall Pro and QuickBooks, plus templates
• Late fees on service invoices: what to put in writing, how to set them up, and what Jobber can’t do
• Jobber + QuickBooks Online: how the sync actually works, and the errors that break it
• Housecall Pro + QuickBooks Online: how the sync actually works, and the alerts that break it

Last checked against the linked help centers, statutes and court pages: 2026-10-08. Vendor screens, court limits and laws change; if something here no longer matches what you see, the linked source wins.
This is not legal advice. KeyStrawAI is not affiliated with Jobber, Housecall Pro or Intuit.