Invoice Reminders & Overdue Invoices

Chasing money is the least billable hour in photography. Spatiko does the routine part for you: every sent invoice carries a due date, unpaid invoices get automatic reminder emails after that date passes, and everything overdue is summed and surfaced where you’ll see it — no spreadsheet of “who did I nudge last week.”

Due dates and net terms

An invoice’s due date comes from your net terms — the number of days a payer has, set in Settings → Payments and applied when the invoice is issued. You can also pick a different due date on the invoice itself. Either way, a due date means the end of that calendar day in your business’s timezone — a client paying at 9 PM on the due date is on time.

The reminder schedule

Once an invoice has been sent, automatic reminders email the payer on a schedule of days after the due date. Out of the box that’s:

• Day 0 — on the due date
• Day 7 — one week overdue
• Day 14 — two weeks overdue

You can set your own offsets under Payment reminders (days after due) in Settings → Payments — comma-separated day numbers, where 0 means the due date itself. Leave it empty to keep the default. Reminders stop the moment the invoice is paid.

Each reminder carries the invoice details and the payment link, so the payer can settle straight from the email. And every reminder is logged on the invoice’s Activity timeline — when someone claims they were never chased, the record says otherwise.

Three behaviors keep reminders civilized:

• Unsent invoices are never reminded. If you issued without sending, Spatiko won’t email a payer about a document they’ve never seen.
• One email per payer per order. Several due invoices for the same payer on the same order fold into a single email listing them all, with the total due across them.
• Per-invoice opt-out. The Auto reminders switch in the invoice’s details sidebar pauses follow-up for that invoice alone — for the client you’re calling personally, or the brokerage on agreed-but-slow terms.

How overdue works

Overdue isn’t a status anyone sets — it’s derived. An open invoice is overdue once it’s past its own due date. Order balances that no invoice covers go overdue by the order’s payment terms instead. The two are counted together without double counting, so the overdue figure you see is real money past its actual terms.

Overdue shows up in three places:

• The invoice list — an Overdue badge on the row, an Overdue total at the top, and an Overdue status filter to see only what needs chasing. Details in how invoices work.
• The dashboard — the attention card splits overdue money into overdue invoices and overdue order balances, and the pulse strip shows the combined figure.
• The order — an overdue invoice’s row on the Billing card shows how many days it’s run over.

Amounts you’ve written off drop out of the overdue and outstanding totals — bad debt you’ve already accepted stops nagging you. Undoing a write-off puts the balance back and resumes reminders.

When the reminder isn’t enough

If day 14 passes and the money still isn’t moving, escalate deliberately:

• Resend with a personal message — the send dialog on the invoice takes a custom note.
• Call, then record — if they pay by check or transfer, record the payment and reminders stop on their own.
• Accept reality — an invoice that’s never getting paid is a write-off, not a permanent fixture of your overdue list.

Go deeper

• Creating and sending an invoice — reminders only start once the invoice has actually been sent.
• Credit notes and write-offs — retire the balances that will never be paid.
• When clients pay — payment timing — invoice terms and where net terms fit at booking.
• Recording cash, check and other manual payments — reminders stop themselves when you log the payment.
• Client records — a client’s whole payment history, before you extend terms again.