FreshBooks Invoice Reminders: How to Set Them Up and What They Can't Do

Yes — FreshBooks includes automatic payment reminders on all plans, no third-party integration required. When a reminder fires, FreshBooks emails the client contact on the invoice with the invoice details and a payment link embedded.

In practice, a well-timed reminder resolves a large share of late invoices with zero manual effort. Most late payments are administrative oversights — the invoice was buried, forgotten after a busy week, or waiting for someone in accounts to action. A single automated nudge resolves these cases before they become problems.

The problem is the invoices that remain unpaid after two or three reminders. At that point, FreshBooks's automation has done everything it can do — and the rest requires human judgment, escalation, and a different kind of tool. Understanding where FreshBooks ends is as important as knowing how to set it up.

Here is the exact process to configure payment reminders in FreshBooks as of 2026:

Step 1: Go to Settings

Log in to your FreshBooks account. Click your name or avatar in the top-right corner and select Settings from the dropdown menu.

Step 2: Open Invoice Settings

In the Settings panel, navigate to Invoices in the left sidebar. You will see a section called Payment Reminders.

Step 3: Enable Reminders

Toggle Send Automatic Payment Reminders to on. FreshBooks will display a set of reminder slots — typically five slots that you can configure independently.

Step 4: Configure Timing for Each Reminder

For each slot, select whether the reminder fires before the due date, on the due date, or after the due date, and set the number of days. A typical sequence might be:

Reminder 1:  3 days before due date   (friendly heads-up)
Reminder 2:  1 day after due date     (invoice now overdue)
Reminder 3:  7 days after due date    (follow-up)
Reminder 4:  14 days after due date   (firm reminder)
Reminder 5:  30 days after due date   (escalation notice)

Step 5: Customise the Email Content

Each reminder slot has its own subject line and body template. Click on a reminder to edit it. FreshBooks provides merge fields like {{client_name}}, {{invoice_number}}, and {{amount_due}}. Use these to personalise each email.

Step 6: Save and Verify

Save your settings. Send yourself a test invoice to verify that the reminder sequence looks correct from the recipient's perspective. Check that the payment link works and that the invoice details populate correctly.

Once configured, reminders apply automatically to all new invoices you send. Existing open invoices will also receive reminders based on their due dates — FreshBooks calculates from the due date, not the setup date. Send a test invoice to yourself before going live to verify the sequence looks correct from the recipient's end and that the payment link works.

For broader guidance on automating your invoice follow-up workflow, see how to automate invoice reminders.

FreshBooks reminders solve the "client forgot" problem reliably. They break down once invoices age past 2 weeks without payment and require more nuanced handling.

No per-client reminder customisation

Every client gets the same reminder schedule. In practice, you'd handle a high-value invoice from a new client differently from a small invoice from a trusted 10-year relationship. FreshBooks gives you no way to differentiate. The global settings that protect you against a new risk client are the same ones that might irritate a long-term partner.

No escalation logic — tone doesn't change

A 3-days-before heads-up and a 30-days-overdue final notice require fundamentally different tone. FreshBooks sends both from the same template structure — unless you manually write a harder message into slot 5. There is no system that says "this invoice has had three unanswered reminders, escalate now." The escalation decision always falls back to you.

No visual AR pipeline — a list is not a system

FreshBooks shows invoices in a filtered list. You can view overdue invoices — but you cannot see, at a glance, which invoices are at which stage of your chase process. "Overdue" as a filter mixes a £200 invoice that's 2 days late with a £8,000 invoice that's been ignored for 6 weeks. Managing more than 10 open invoices from that list view is where things start falling through the cracks.

No per-invoice chase log

FreshBooks records that automated reminders fired — but there is no rich chase history per invoice. If you made a phone call, had a conversation about a payment plan, or sent a manual email outside of FreshBooks, that context is invisible. If a client later disputes the timeline of events, your documentation is limited to automated email timestamps.

For a comparison of what structured AR follow-up looks like in practice, see invoice tracking for freelancers.

An automated reminder that fires when an invoice is due is useful. It is not a collection system. Here is what the difference looks like in practice:

1. Instant visibility across all open invoices

You need to see — at a glance — every open invoice, how old it is, and what stage it is at in your chase process. Not a filtered list you have to scroll and mentally reconstruct each time. A Kanban board shows you instantly: three invoices waiting for a first reminder, one at the firm stage, two at final notice. That is the picture that drives action.

2. Tone that escalates automatically

Invoice #0047 has had three unanswered reminders over 21 days. The system should know that — and the next action should reflect it. A friendly reminder at day 22 sends the wrong signal. Good AR follow-up escalates tone based on age and response history, not based on which reminder slot it is in a global sequence.

3. Per-client history, not just per-invoice timestamps

Client A has paid on time for three years and is 5 days late this once. Client B is a 6-month-old relationship, this is their second late invoice, and they have been slow to respond to your last two emails. You handle these completely differently — but FreshBooks's reminder system has no concept of client history. Per-client chase context is what lets you make that judgment call quickly.

4. A daily action queue, not a daily review task

Every morning, you should spend 5 minutes on invoices that need action today — not 25 minutes reviewing everything overdue and deciding what to prioritize. A Today View that surfaces the specific invoices needing action each day turns AR management from a mentally demanding task into a quick daily routine.

For the email templates to use at each stage, see payment reminder email templates.

You do not have to choose between FreshBooks and InvoiceGrid. FreshBooks handles invoicing, expense tracking, and time billing well — that is its core product. InvoiceGrid handles the AR follow-up layer: tracking, chasing, and collecting on those invoices.

The workflow looks like this:

1. Create and send invoice in FreshBooks (as normal)
2. Add invoice to InvoiceGrid Kanban board
3. InvoiceGrid tracks due date, triggers reminders,
   escalates as needed, and logs all chase activity
4. When payment is received, mark paid in both systems

Where FreshBooks sends a reminder email and records that it fired, InvoiceGrid gives you a full chase board — every invoice at its chase stage, every client's payment history, a Today View of what needs action, and an escalation path from friendly reminder to formal demand.

For freelancers and small agencies who already use FreshBooks and do not want to migrate, this layered approach adds the AR management capabilities FreshBooks lacks without disrupting your existing invoicing workflow.

If you are evaluating FreshBooks against other invoicing tools, see best invoice app for freelancers for a broader comparison.

FreshBooks reminders are sufficient if: you invoice fewer than 10–15 clients per month, most clients pay within the first two reminders, and you rarely have invoices aging past 30 days. For many freelancers in that situation, FreshBooks does everything needed.

You have outgrown FreshBooks's AR capabilities when you can't quickly answer these three questions without opening multiple tabs and scanning a list:

• Which client owes me the most right now, and when did I last chase them?
• Which invoices need action today specifically — not just "are overdue"?
• Has Client X been consistently slow, or is this a one-off?

If those questions require you to scroll, filter, and mentally reconstruct the state of your AR every time you check — your system is costing you time and money. Invoices slip. Follow-up gets delayed. Some never get chased past reminder 2. The average invoice is paid 21 days late; a structured chase process typically cuts DSO by 7–14 days — which for a business with £60,000 in annual receivables is meaningful.

See also: how to automate invoice reminders for a full framework that works with or without FreshBooks.