Dunning and reminders

Dunning = structured, escalating reminders to customers on overdue invoices. Consistent dunning improves DSO by 10–30%.

Dunning schedule

A schedule is a sequence of steps:

Step	Trigger	Channel	Tone
1	3 days before due	Email	Courteous reminder
2	Due date	Email	Friendly nudge
3	7 days overdue	Email	Firmer, attach statement
4	14 days overdue	Email + SMS	Warning
5	30 days overdue	Email + phone call task	Escalation
6	45 days overdue	Credit hold + legal notice	Final

Configurable per tenant and per customer segment. Different schedules for key accounts vs SMB is typical.

Templates

Each step has an email template with merge variables: customer name, invoice number(s), due date, amount, currency, statement link. Editable in /app/admin/email-templates under the "Dunning — Step N" type.

Tone matters — aggressive first-step dunning damages relationships. Start soft, escalate over time.

Per-customer overrides

• Snooze — pause dunning for N days (customer committed to pay on a date).
• Opt out — remove customer from automated dunning entirely; handle manually.
• Promise-to-pay — record a commitment; dunning pauses until the promise date, resumes if missed.

Escalation

Step 5 typically creates a task for the collector. Step 6 triggers a credit hold automatically. See credit control.

Metrics

• Response rate — % of customers paying within N days of step.
• Effective DSO — weighted average days to payment post-dunning.
• Escalation rate — % of invoices reaching step 5+ (signal for commercial-team intervention).

Visible on the finance dashboard and /app/finance/dunning-metrics.

Hard vs soft dunning

• Soft — reminders only, no enforcement.
• Hard — reminders + credit hold + booking block.

Hard dunning is enforced through the credit-limit engine; tenants usually turn it on after step 4–5.

Compliance

Dunning emails must follow local regulations (e.g. EU e-commerce directive mentions). Templates ship with required legal text per jurisdiction; review with local counsel.