Overdue reminders

Overview

When an invoice is past due, it is a good idea to send an email reminder to the counterpart and suggest alternative payment options. With Monite API, entities can customize the contents of overdue reminders and the grace period after which these reminders are sent. Reminders can be configured on a per-invoice basis, as well as shared between multiple invoices.

How overdue reminders work

An overdue reminder is sent if the following conditions are met:

• the counterpart has not paid the invoice in full before the due date,
• the invoice has overdue_reminder_id specified (see below),
• the specified number of days passes after the invoice due date,
• counterpart setting reminders_enabled is true.

Overdue reminders are sent to the email address of the counterpart's default contact, which gets saved in the counterpart_contact.email field of the invoice. The "From" address in reminders is "Monite" <[email protected]>; this address is currently not customizable.

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Note

Only one overdue reminder is sent per an invoice. However, multiple (up to three) payment reminders can be sent before the invoice due date.

Configure overdue reminders

To use overdue reminders, you need to create a reminder configuration and include it when creating an invoice.

1. Create an overdue reminder configuration

Call POST /overdue_reminders and specify the email subject, body, the number of days after the invoice due date to send the reminder, and a name for this configuration. The email subject and body can include variables such as {invoice_number} which will be substituted with the corresponding values. The email body can be a multi-line text string, with lines separated by \n.

curl -X POST 'https://api.sandbox.monite.com/v1/overdue_reminders' \
     -H 'X-Monite-Version: 2023-03-14' \
     -H 'X-Monite-Entity-Id: ENTITY_ID' \
     -H 'Authorization: Bearer ACCESS_TOKEN' \
     -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
     -d '{
       "name": "Overdue reminder after 5 days",
       "term": {
         "days_after": 5,
         "subject": "Invoice {invoice_number} from {entity_name} is past due",
         "body": "Dear {contact name}\n\n,Thank you for doing business with us!\nOur records indicate that we have not received the full payment for invoice {invoice_number} which was due on {due_date}. The amount due is {amount_due}.\nIf you have already paid this invoice, please ignore this notice. Otherwise, please send the payment as soon as possible.\nIf you have any questions or want to arrange an alternative payment method, please do not hesitate to contact us at {entity_email}.\nBest regards,{entity_name}"
       }
     }'

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Note

To use the /overdue_reminders* endpoints with an entity user token, this entity user must have a role that includes the overdue_reminder permission.

The response contains the ID assigned to this configuration. You will need to specify this ID later when creating invoices.

{
  "id": "0cdb03db-b71c-4bac-96f5-360a2913953e",
  "name": "Overdue reminder after 5 days",
  ...
}

2. Specify the overdue reminder configuration for an invoice

When creating a new invoice or updating an existing draft invoice, you can use the overdue_reminder_id field to specify the desired overdue reminder configuration for this invoice:

curl -X POST 'https://api.sandbox.monite.com/v1/receivables' \
     -H 'X-Monite-Version: 2023-03-14' \
     -H 'X-Monite-Entity-Id: ENTITY_ID' \
     -H 'Authorization: Bearer ACCESS_TOKEN' \
     -H 'Content-Type: application/json'
     -d '{
        "type": "invoice",
        "overdue_reminder_id": "0cdb03db-b71c-4bac-96f5-360a2913953e",
        ...
     }'

Disable overdue reminders

There are several ways to prevent overdue reminders from being sent:

• On the invoice level: Do not specify overdue_reminder_id for an invoice, or explicitly set this field to null.
• On the counterpart level: Set the counterpart's reminders_enabled field to false. Note: this disables not only overdue reminders, but also payment reminders for this counterpart.