Automated reminders
CleverOps can chase overdue invoices and follow up on outstanding quotes for you — emailing the customer a branded reminder on a schedule you control, so unpaid invoices and stalled quotes don't quietly slip through the cracks. Reminders reuse the same branded emails and secure links as a manual Email to customer, so to the customer they look exactly like the original document, just with a follow-up note.
This runs as a daily background job. There is nothing to click each morning — once it is switched on for your control room, it keeps itself going.
Reminders always go out by email. If the customer has a contact with text opt-in on (see Notifications & consent), the same message also goes to their phone — WhatsApp first (a Meta-approved template with a button to their account page) with SMS as the fallback — best-effort, gated by that contact's opt-in and the VCR's budget, and never blocking the email. This covers the overdue chase, advance collection notices, and the payment-arrangement confirmation and instalment nudge; the debit-failure notice goes by SMS (its bank-reason wording doesn't fit a fixed template). App-push reminders are still a planned addition.
For the overdue-invoice reminder specifically, the SMS additionally checks each contact's May be asked for payment flag (see Contact persons) — on by default (this SMS has always gone out unrestricted), untick it on a contact to stop chasing them for payment specifically. This doesn't apply to quote follow-ups, which aren't a payment request.
The overdue-invoice reminder's button (View my account) opens the customer's account portal (portal.clevercam.co.za) — a no-login, tokenised view of their whole account (jobs, quotes, invoices and statement), with the overdue invoice shown in context. Quote follow-ups link straight to the quote's own page, where the customer can accept or decline it. Both links are secure and expire.
What gets a reminder
Each day the job looks across your VCR for documents that are due for a nudge:
| Document | Reminded when |
|---|---|
| Overdue invoice | Status is Pending, Sent, or Overdue, the due date has passed (plus a short grace period), and there is still an outstanding balance. |
| Outstanding quote | A sales quote that has been Sent and is still awaiting a decision, and either its follow-up date (Next due date) has passed, it is within a few days of its valid-until date, or it has been sitting unanswered for a few days. |
The reminder's To address is the customer's billing email; when none is on file, it falls back to a contact tagged for that document type, then the primary contact, then the first contact with an email. A customer is only skipped when there is genuinely no email anywhere on their record.
A billing email that isn't a valid single address counts as none on file — a field holding two addresses (a@acme.co.za; b@acme.co.za) or something that isn't an address at all is skipped over, and the fallback carries on to the contacts. This matches what happens when you email a document by hand, so a customer is never reminded at an address you couldn't send to yourself.
Debit-order aware — no false "please pay" emails
For customers collected by debit order, an invoice being past its due date does not mean the customer owes you a nudge — their money may already be on its way. Reminders therefore follow the collection lifecycle, not the calendar:
- While a collection is queued or in flight (the invoice sits in a live debit-order run that hasn't produced a bank result yet), the invoice is completely excluded from reminders. No email, no SMS.
- Customers on managed debit-order collection (an active debit-order subscription with a collection day and an active banking mandate) are never chased before their collection date plus the settlement window has passed — so an invoice billed on the 25th and collected on the 30th is silent while the bank settles, even though its due date has come and gone.
- When the bank returns the debit order (insufficient funds, account closed, payment stopped…), the customer gets a failed-collection notice — usually the same morning the result lands. It leads with the bank's reason, and its button is a direct Pay now link to the invoice's secure payment page when the company that issued the invoice has a live online payment gateway connected (otherwise it links to their account portal). If you bill from more than one company, that means the issuing company's own gateway — never the other company's. The notice also asks them to contact you if their banking details changed.
- If the bank never answers (a batch that was generated but never submitted, or a submitted batch with no results past the settlement window), the affected invoices stay suppressed and the operator is flagged on the Billing → Debit orders panel instead — a timeout is an operational fault, never the customer's, so the customer is never auto-emailed on one.
Failed-collection notices are transactional: one goes out per bounce event, bypassing the grace period, the repeat cooldown and the max-reminders cap (a new notice can only be triggered by a new bounce). After the notice, the invoice re-enters the normal overdue cadence — and if it's swept into next month's run (re-presented), it goes silent again while that collection is in flight.
Advance collection notices (opt-in)
You can also warn customers before the money moves: with Advance collection notices on, each queued collection item triggers one "we will collect R … by debit order on …" email within your chosen lead time before the collection date. These are informational — they never count against the reminder quota — and link to the customer's account portal. Text-opted-in contacts get the same notice on their phone (WhatsApp with an account button, SMS fallback), so the deduction never surprises anyone who doesn't live in their inbox.
Each reminder can also carry CCs: the company accounts email (when CC accounts is on for the VCR), plus any customer contacts tagged for that document type — contacts tagged Invoices & receipts are CCed on overdue-invoice reminders, contacts tagged Quotes on quote follow-ups.
Reminders name the paperwork
An invoice reminder attaches nothing, but where the invoice has supporting documents it now lists them by name, in a panel just above the button:
5 supporting documents came with this invoice. Open the link below to download them: • Job report JOB-00027 • PO worksheet 2026.xlsx • Signed job card.pdf • Annexure A - site plan.pdf • Annexure B - SLA 2026.pdf
The link the reminder already sends is where the customer downloads them, so nothing extra is emailed. Every document is listed — a name is never folded away, because the one a customer is missing is the one they need to see. Only past eight does it summarise the tail as "and 3 more". An invoice with no supporting documents produces exactly the email it always did.
This applies to overdue chases, debit-order failure notices, advance collection notices and deposit reminders alike — anywhere a reminder names an invoice.
What stops the reminders
Reminders stop automatically as soon as the document is resolved or has been chased enough:
- Invoices — stop the moment the invoice is Paid (balance reaches zero), Void, or Credited, or once the maximum number of reminders has been reached.
- Quotes — stop as soon as the quote is Accepted (approved internally or by the customer), Declined, Expired, or Withdrawn, or once the maximum number of reminders has been reached. A quote that has been superseded by a newer revision or removed from the workflow is never chased — follow-ups only ever go out on the latest live revision. A quote past its valid-until date is likewise never chased: a daily sweep marks it Expired, and even before that sweep runs the reminder job skips it. Only documents the customer can still act on are ever followed up, and every reminder carries a working link (a fresh secure link is issued automatically if the old one has expired).
Between reminders there is a cooldown so the same customer is never emailed two days in a row about the same document. Every reminder is also capped — the job will never send more than the configured maximum for one invoice or quote.
Cadence & limits
Reminders are per-VCR configurable — you decide how soon they start, how often they repeat, and when they stop. Defaults are deliberately gentle:
| Setting | What it controls | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Enabled | Master switch for the VCR. Reminders are off until you turn this on (opt-in). | Off |
| Invoice reminders enabled | Whether overdue-invoice chases are sent. | On |
| Invoice grace days | Days to wait after the due date before the first reminder. | 1 |
| Invoice repeat days | Minimum gap between reminders for the same invoice (the cooldown). | 7 |
| Invoice max reminders | Stop chasing an invoice after this many reminders. | 4 |
| Quote reminders enabled | Whether quote follow-ups are sent. | On |
| Quote follow-up days | Days after sending to follow up when no explicit follow-up date is set. | 3 |
| Quote expiry lead days | Also remind when a quote is within this many days of its valid-until date. | 3 |
| Quote repeat days | Minimum gap between follow-ups for the same quote (the cooldown). | 5 |
| Quote max reminders | Stop following up on a quote after this many reminders. | 3 |
| Debit-order aware reminders | Hold reminders while a debit order is queued/in flight, and wait for a debit-order customer's collection date + settlement window before any overdue chase. | On |
| Settlement window (days) | Days after a collection date allowed for bank settlement and unpaids — before chasing may resume and before an unreconciled run is flagged for attention. | 6 |
| Failed-collection notices | Email the customer when their debit order is returned, with the bank's reason and a Pay now link when the issuing company's online gateway is connected. | On |
| Advance collection notices | Email "we will collect R … on …" — one notice per customer per run, listing every line: normal invoices at face value plus any payment-arrangement instalment named as such ("instalment 2 of 4", with the arrears remaining after). Sent within the lead time below. | Off |
| Send (days) before | How many days before the collection date the advance notice may go out (0 = only on the day). | 3 |
| CC accounts | Copy your control room's accounts email on every reminder, so you see what went out. | Off |
| Email payment-proof outcomes | Email the customer when you accept or reject a proof of payment they uploaded — a rejection includes your review note as the reason. Independent of the master switch above. | Off |
The defaults send a first overdue-invoice reminder the day after the due date, then weekly up to four times; and follow up on a quote a few days after sending or as it nears expiry, up to three times. Tune them to match how assertively you want to chase.
Turning it on
Reminders are opt-in per VCR — a deliberate, POPIA-friendly default so no control room ever starts emailing its customers automatically without choosing to.
The cadence above is configured under Settings → Reminders → Customer reminders, in the Automated reminders card:
- Open Settings → Reminders, switch to Customer reminders, and find the Automated reminders card (an Off / On pill shows the current state).
- Tick Send automated reminders for this VCR — the master switch. Nothing is emailed while this is off.
- Adjust the Overdue invoice reminders and Outstanding quote follow-ups cadence/limits to taste (or keep the defaults), and optionally CC our accounts email so you see what goes out.
- Click Save reminder settings.
Only users with billing management access can change these; everyone else sees them read-only. Once enabled, the daily job picks up your overdue invoices and outstanding quotes the next morning.
Before enabling reminders for a busy control room, make sure invoice statuses and balances are accurate — that paid invoices are marked paid and recorded payments are reconciled. The job keys off the live balance and status, so a stale "unpaid" invoice would trigger an avoidable reminder.
Unsigned-document reminders
The same Reminders sub-tab carries a third card — Unsigned-document reminders — for the e-sign feature. When on, a signer who hasn't signed a document you sent for signature is nudged automatically with the same secure link, on the cadence you set (days between reminders — also the wait before the first nudge — and a maximum before it stops chasing). It's opt-in per VCR (off by default) and independent of the invoice/quote master switch above. A reminder stops the moment the document is signed, declined, withdrawn, or its link expires.
Overriding a single invoice or quote
Sometimes you want to chase everything except one customer, or keep chasing one document the VCR settings would skip. Every invoice and quote carries an Auto-reminders control with three values:
| Value | Effect |
|---|---|
| Use VCR setting (default) | Follow the Settings → Reminders cadence for this document type. |
| Always remind | Remind this document even if that type is switched off for the VCR — as long as the VCR master switch is on. |
| Never remind | Exclude this document from reminders entirely, regardless of the VCR setting. |
- On a quote, set it in the quote form under Auto-reminders (beside Follow up by).
- On an invoice, set it on the invoice's Details panel — it can be changed at any time, including after the invoice has been sent.
The VCR master switch always wins: if reminders are off for the VCR, Always remind on a single document still sends nothing.
Seeing what was sent
- Every reminder is recorded the same way as a manual send, so it appears in the customer's email delivery tracking — you can see when the reminder was delivered and opened (via the Resend webhook), attributed to the customer and the document.
- A separate reminder log records each send (and any failed attempt) per invoice/quote, which is what the cooldown and the per-document counter are based on.
How it relates to Quote reminders
The Quote reminders feature — surfaced in the Quotes awaiting a reply block of Needs attention → Reminders — is an internal worklist — quotes past their follow-up date that your team should chase. The automated reminders here are the customer-facing half: they email the customer directly. The two work together — a quote can appear on your internal worklist and have an automated follow-up sent to the customer.