Debt recovery guide · First steps
How long should you wait before chasing an unpaid invoice?
The honest answer: don't wait at all. The day after the due date, a polite chaser is not rude — it's bookkeeping, and prompt-chasing businesses are quietly sorted into the 'pay on time' pile. What needs a timeline isn't the first chase but the escalation behind it, because an invoice's recovery odds fall every week it ages.
A timeline that actually gets used
Day 1 overdue: a friendly payment reminder with the invoice attached. Day 7–14: a firmer chaser plus a statement of account, asking for a payment date, not just payment. Day 30: a formal letter before action adding statutory interest and compensation. Day 45–60: hand it to professional recovery — an agency on a fixed fee, commission or hybrid, agreed up front.
The exact days matter less than the pattern: each step should land on schedule, without you having to get angry. Debtors triage their creditors — the systematic ones get paid first.
Why waiting feels safe and isn't
Creditors delay chasing to protect the relationship, but a customer who pays only when pressed has already changed the relationship — you just haven't invoiced them for it. Meanwhile ageing works against you: contacts move on, disputes get invented from memory, insolvencies happen. A debt chased at 60 days is routine; at a year it's a project with a higher fee.
If several invoices to the same customer are drifting, treat them as one ledger and escalate together — statutory compensation of £40–£100 applies per invoice, which adds up fast.
Where this fits in the bigger picture
This is one step of a well-trodden path — demands, statutory add-ons, professional recovery, court, enforcement. The complete debt recovery guide walks the whole process, and the late payment calculator works out what you can add to a commercial debt today.
Related situations
General information, not legal advice.