Using AI to chase overdue invoices: what to automate, and what a person still sends

Yes, AI can help chase overdue invoices, with a person approving anything beyond routine reminders. As at November 2026, Xero sends invoice reminders before and after the due date at times you choose, and MYOB's Smart Invoice Reminders, still marked beta, schedules reminders and uses AI to suggest actions. A general AI assistant can draft a reminder from your overdue list. A person should still answer replies, agree payment plans, approve any mention of legal action and confirm bank details by phone.

CreditorWatch says 48% of invoices were paid by their due date in September 2026, down from 58% a year earlier. The share more than 60 days overdue doubled to 10.1%, the highest since April 2018.

How late are Australian customers paying?

Later than at any time since 2018, on CreditorWatch's figures. Its report on September 2026, published on 22 October, found 48.0% of invoices paid by the due date and 10.1% more than 60 days overdue, against 58.0% and 5.0% a year earlier. Trade payment defaults, where one business registers a default against another for an unpaid invoice, were up 26.1% on a year earlier.

Some industries are further behind. In construction, 13% of invoices were more than 60 days late, up from 6%. In food and beverage services it was 19%, up from 10%.

If a slow payer is a large business, look up its record. Under the Payment Times Reporting Scheme, large businesses and some government enterprises report twice a year on how fast they pay small business suppliers. The Payment Times Reports Register can be searched by name or ABN. It shows the share of each company's payments made within 30 days, in 31 to 60 days and after 60 days.

What can AI do in an overdue invoice routine?

AI tools draft, match, sort and flag. People send, approve and pay. In an overdue invoice routine, the jobs fall like this:

1. Match payments first. Bank reconciliation in your accounting software, with a person checking it, stops a reminder going to a customer who has already paid. What AI can do with Xero and MYOB right now covers auto-reconcile.
2. Sort the overdue list. AI can rank unpaid invoices by amount and days overdue, and group them by customer, so whoever does the chasing starts with the largest and oldest amounts.
3. Draft the reminder. A first reminder can be short and friendly. A later one names the amount, the original due date and the next step. AI can write each stage in your business's voice from wording you have approved.
4. Read the replies. AI can flag replies that say the invoice is wrong, has already been paid, or can't be paid yet. A person answers each of those.
5. Report each week. AI can write a one-page summary for the owner of what was sent, what was paid and who needs a phone call.

Before anything is sent, someone checks that the invoice number, amount and due date in each draft match the ledger. MYOB's own AI page says: "However, AI can still get things wrong."

What do Xero and MYOB do for reminders?

Both send reminders on a schedule. MYOB's version uses AI.

Xero's invoicing page says "Reminders are sent for you before and after the due date", and that you pick the timing. The page doesn't describe these reminders as AI. In a 16 September 2026 post, Xero said it "will support" Claude for Small Business workflows that include "overdue invoice chasing". It gave no date.

MYOB's pricing page lists Smart Invoice Reminders on MYOB Business Lite and Pro and on AccountRight Plus, but not on Solo. The same page labels it "Currently in beta" and says it has "scheduling, intelligent insights and suggested actions". iStart reported in March 2026 that it analyses "late payer behaviour to recommend actions and tone". MYOB's AI accounting page says you "stay in control".

Can you use ChatGPT or Claude to write payment reminders?

Yes, for the wording. An assistant can draft a reminder sequence, rewrite a stiff email in a friendlier tone, or suggest a reply to a customer who has asked for more time. Check every figure it puts in a draft against your books.

Be careful what you paste in. An aged receivables report holds names, email addresses and amounts owed, and the names and contact details of people are personal information. The OAIC recommends, as a matter of best practice, that organisations do not enter personal information "into publicly available generative AI tools". Use a business account with training switched off, and draft from a template with the names left out. Is it safe to put business data into ChatGPT? covers which plans train on your chats.

What rules apply to payment reminders?

The ACCC and ASIC's Debt collection guideline, last updated in April 2021, is the main reference. It covers businesses that collect their own debts as well as collection agencies. It was written mainly for debts owed by individuals, but it says many of its principles "will also be relevant to the collection of corporate, business, and in particular, small business debts". The guideline says it "does not have legal force". It sets out how the regulators read the consumer protection laws they enforce.

Three parts of it bear on an automated routine:

• It recommends contacting a debtor no more than three times a week, or 10 times a month, counting contact actually made. An email, a text message and a voicemail are three contacts, so a sequence that emails and texts on the same day uses two.
• You must not threaten legal action that isn't possible, intended or under consideration. Read any AI-drafted final notice and make sure it says only what you will actually do.
• A letter must not look like a court document, or appear to come from a solicitor when it doesn't.

Keep sales lines out of reminders. The ACMA warns that spam rule "Breaches can occur even if a message is mostly 'factual'", and gives the example of a bill, invoice or account message that also carries promotional or sales content. If a drafted reminder includes an offer, delete it.

This is general information. Ask your lawyer how the guideline and the spam rules apply to your customers.

How do scammers use invoice reminders?

They copy them. Scamwatch's business email compromise page says scammers pose as a business you have dealt with and send an invoice with new payee details. They can copy logos and ABNs, and may reply in the same email thread as real messages. Reported losses to payment redirection scams were A$166.8 million in 2025, up from A$152.6 million in 2024, according to the National Anti-Scam Centre's Targeting scams report. CommBank warned on 19 October 2026 that "scammers are using AI tools and deepfake audio, photos and video to make their contact look more legitimate."

Your reminders can make that copying harder:

• Show the same bank details on every invoice and every reminder.
• Say on your invoices that you will never change your bank details by email, and that customers should phone you on a number they already have if a message says otherwise. Scamwatch gives payers the same advice.
• If a customer says they paid but the money hasn't arrived, phone them. They may have paid a scammer's account.
• Never let an AI tool or automation edit the bank details in an invoice template. A person makes that change, and a second person checks it.

Where must a person approve?

Start with a person pressing send on every reminder for the first month. Once the wording and timing have held up against real replies, let the before-due and first overdue reminders go on schedule. Keep these with a person:

• Every reply from a customer, whether it disputes the invoice, says it's paid or asks for more time.
• A payment plan. A person agrees the amounts and dates, and records them.
• Stopping supply, putting an account on hold or adding late fees. Your contract decides what is allowed.
• A letter of demand, or any mention of legal action, a debt collector or a credit default.
• Any change to your bank details.

If software helps decide which individual customers are put on hold or sent to a collector, read about the Privacy Act's new rule on automated decisions, which starts on 10 December 2026.

What if reminders don't work?

Move to the next step, with a person in charge of it. The business.gov.au guide What to do when you haven't been paid sets out the order: check your contract terms, send a reminder, send a letter of demand, then get help with dispute resolution, use a debt collection agency or take legal action. It also says "A missed payment could just be an oversight", a good tone for a first reminder.

The Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman (ASBFEO) has a dispute support tool that points you to a low-cost resolution service. Its Information Line is 1300 650 460.

Where should you start?

Take one week's overdue list and run it by hand, with AI drafting and a person sending:

1. Reconcile the bank account, so the list holds only invoices that are still unpaid.
2. Check that your payment terms and bank details are right on every invoice.
3. Turn on your accounting software's reminders with plain wording, and set the first one a few days before the due date.
4. Ask an AI assistant to sort the list and draft each reminder from your approved wording, then add the customer names yourself.
5. Have a person read and send each one, and note every reply that needs an answer.

After a month, look at which reminders were paid and which drew complaints, and decide which steps can run on schedule.

If you're weighing who should set this up, AI consultant, in-house hire or ongoing support compares the options.