How to Get Invoices Paid On Time (UK Trades): End the 9pm Money Chase

If you want to know how to get customers to pay invoices on time, the short version is this: invoice the same day the job's done, set short clear terms (7-14 days) agreed up front, take a deposit before you start, give people an easy way to pay, and follow a fixed, polite reminder ladder. Do all five and you turn "I'll sort it later" into "paid" without a single awkward phone call.

I run a one-man operation in Torbay, and for years I did what most of us do: finish the job, drive home, mean to invoice "tomorrow," and end up tapping out an invoice at 9pm on a Sunday three weeks later. Then I'd spend the following month wondering when the money would land. The fix wasn't working harder. It was building a system that does the chasing for me.

The 6-step get-paid system (the whole post in one box)

1. Take a deposit before you start. Money in the bank before the van leaves the drive.
2. Invoice the same day the job's finished. Speed is the single biggest lever on how fast you get paid.
3. Set short, clear terms, agreed up front. 7 or 14 days, in writing, before you start.
4. Make paying stupidly easy. A tappable payment link beats "here are my bank details" every time.
5. Run a fixed, polite reminder ladder. Same wording, same timing, every customer. No emotion.
6. Know your legal backstop. For business customers, the law lets you charge interest and a fixed fee. For domestic customers, it doesn't, so your system has to do the work.

How bad is UK late payment, really?

Bad enough that the government is rewriting the law over it. In July 2025 the government announced plans to tackle late payment, which it says costs the UK economy £11 billion a year and closes down 38 UK businesses every day. That's not a rounding error. That's tens of thousands of firms a year going under partly because they did the work and never saw the money.

The picture on the ground matches. The FSB and GoCardless Late Payments Report 2025, based on a survey of small business owners, found that nearly half said they were getting more late payments than a year before, and a large share expected it to get worse. A striking number treat late payment as just "an inevitable cost of doing business" and quietly write off money rather than chase it.

That last bit is the trap. When chasing feels like more hassle than it's worth, you stop chasing, and you train your customers that your invoices are optional. The whole point of a system is that it does the chasing so you never have to make that call.

Step 1: Take a deposit before you start

The most reliable way to not get stung is to get paid before you've done the work. A deposit does three jobs at once: it covers your materials, it filters out time-wasters, and it gets the customer used to paying you from day one.

For most trades jobs, a deposit to cover parts plus a slice of labour is normal and expected. Nobody blinks at a plumber asking for money up front to order a new boiler. The customers who do kick up a fuss about a reasonable deposit are, more often than not, exactly the ones who'd have been slow to pay at the end.

Get the deposit at the moment of booking, while they're keen and the diary slot feels valuable. The longer the gap between "yes please" and "money," the more wobble creeps in. If you want the full playbook on amounts, wording and handling refunds, I've written it up in how to take a deposit before a job.

Step 2: Invoice the same day, with everything they need

Speed is the single biggest thing you control. An invoice sent the same afternoon, while the customer still remembers you wiping your feet on the way out and the job is fresh and appreciated, gets paid far faster than one that lands three weeks later when the warm glow has worn off.

A same-day invoice also kills the most common excuse you'll ever hear: "I never got it." Send it while you're still parked outside if you can.

Make the invoice impossible to query. It should have:

• Your business name and contact details (and your VAT number if you're registered)
• The customer's name and the job address
• A clear line-by-line breakdown of labour and materials
• The total owed, in bold, with nothing to work out
• The due date as an actual date, not "14 days" (write "due by 18 June")
• The exact ways to pay, including a payment link

Every missing detail is a reason, or an excuse, to park it in the "deal with later" pile. The whole idea of keeping jobs, deposits and invoices in one place is that the invoice goes out the second the job is marked done, so "I'll do it tonight" never happens.

Step 3: Set short, clear terms agreed up front (7, 14 or 30 days?)

Set the shortest terms you can get away with, put them in writing before you start, and don't default to 30 days out of habit. Payment terms are a choice, not a law of nature. If your invoice says 30 days, you've just told the customer it's fine to pay you in 30 days, and plenty will take 45.

A simple rule of thumb:

• Domestic customers (homeowners): 7 days, or even "on completion." There's no reason a homeowner needs a month to pay for a job that's already done. Shorter is normal and they won't blink.
• Business and commercial customers: 14 to 30 days is standard, but agree it before the job, ideally in your quote.

The key word is "agreed." Terms buried on the back of an invoice the customer sees for the first time after the work is done aren't really agreed, and they're weaker if it ever comes to a dispute. Put them in the quote, get the nod, and the invoice is just confirming what they already signed up to.

Step 4: Make it stupidly easy to pay

Every extra step between "I should pay this" and "done" is a place where you lose the money, so remove the steps. "Here are my bank details, the reference is your surname" asks the customer to open their banking app, type in a sort code and account number, copy a reference, and triple-check it's all right. Half of them will think "later" and later never comes.

Compare that to a payment link they tap on their phone, see the amount already filled in, and pay with the card or wallet they've already got set up. The job goes from a five-minute chore to a ten-second one. When booking, deposit and final invoice all carry a tappable payment link that gets you paid faster, the gap between finishing the job and seeing the money in your account shrinks dramatically.

Yes, card payments cost you a small fee. Getting paid in two days instead of forty, and never chasing, is worth a lot more than that fee. Build the cost into your prices and move on.

Step 5: Run a fixed, polite reminder ladder

The reason chasing feels horrible is that you only do it when you're already annoyed. Take the emotion out by deciding the sequence in advance and running it the same way for everyone. A ladder is just a set sequence of nudges at set times. It isn't personal, it isn't aggressive, and it works because it's relentless without you having to feel anything.

Here's a ladder that works for most trades:

• Day 0 (invoice day): Send the invoice with the payment link. A friendly "thanks, lovely to meet you, here's your invoice" sets the tone.
• Due date: A short, warm reminder the day it's due. "Just a quick note, today's the due date for invoice #1023, here's the link to pay."
• 3 days late: A gentle nudge. "Hi, hope you're well, invoice #1023 is now a few days overdue, no problem if it slipped your mind, here's the link."
• 7 days late: Firmer but still polite, and ask a question. "Invoice #1023 is now a week overdue. Is there a problem with the work or the invoice I can help sort? Otherwise I'd appreciate payment this week."
• 14 days late: The serious one. State the balance, give a clear final date, and mention your next step (for business customers, that interest and charges may apply, see below).

The magic isn't clever wording. It's that the reminders go out on time, every time, whether you're up a ladder or asleep. This is the bit that's almost impossible to do by hand and easy to set up once so automatic reminders chase the money for you on a schedule. The customer who'd have ignored a one-off text caves around nudge three or four, and you never lifted a finger.

Step 6: Know your legal backstop (and its big catch)

If a business customer won't pay, UK law is firmly on your side. If a homeowner won't pay, that particular law doesn't apply, which is exactly why your system has to do the heavy lifting.

Under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998, when one business owes another business for goods or services, you can charge:

• Statutory interest on the overdue amount, set at 8% above the Bank of England base rate.
• Fixed compensation per unpaid invoice (a set amount that rises with the size of the debt, from £40 up to £100), plus your reasonable debt-recovery costs on top.

You don't need this written into your contract; it's a statutory right. Even just mentioning it in your 14-day reminder concentrates a slow-paying business's mind nicely.

The catch every trade needs to understand: this Act covers business-to-business debts only. It does not apply to ordinary domestic customers, the homeowner whose tap you fixed. With consumers you can still charge interest if it's clearly written into terms they agreed to before the work, and you can ultimately use the small claims route, but you don't get the automatic statutory interest and fixed fees. Translation: for the homeowner market, your deposit, your same-day invoice and your reminder ladder aren't just nice to have. They're your main protection, because the legal stick is smaller. Set the system up so it rarely comes to that.

FAQ

How soon should I chase a late invoice?
The day it's due, with a friendly reminder, not a week after. Chasing on the due date feels natural and never reads as aggressive, and it makes clear from the start that you keep track. The longer you wait, the more it looks like the date didn't matter.

Can I charge interest on a late invoice?
For business customers, yes, automatically, under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998: 8% above the Bank of England base rate plus a fixed fee per invoice. For domestic customers you can only charge interest if it was written into terms they agreed before the job, so put it in your quote if you want that option.

What payment terms should I set?
The shortest you reasonably can. For homeowners, 7 days or payment on completion. For business customers, 14 to 30 days. Agree it up front in your quote rather than springing it on the invoice, and never default to 30 days just because that's what everyone types.

What do I do if a customer just won't pay?
Work the ladder to the end first, so there's a clear written trail. For a business debt, send a formal demand citing the 1998 Act with interest and charges added. For a consumer, a clear final notice and then the small claims process. Most disputes are really a query or a forgotten invoice, so always ask "is there a problem I can sort?" before assuming the worst.

Should I take card payments even though there's a fee?
Almost always yes. A tappable payment link gets you paid in days instead of weeks and removes nearly every "I forgot" excuse. The small percentage fee is cheap compared to weeks of cash tied up and an evening spent chasing. Build it into your pricing.

Key takeaways

• Late payment is a system problem, not a people problem. Fix the system and you stop relying on customers to behave.
• Get money up front. A deposit at booking covers your costs and filters out the slow payers before you've lifted a tool.
• Invoice the same day. Speed is the biggest lever you control, and it kills the "I never got it" excuse.
• Set short terms, agreed in writing. 7 days for homeowners, 14 to 30 for businesses, in the quote, not a surprise on the invoice.
• Make paying a ten-second job. A tappable link beats bank details every time and is worth the fee.
• Run the same polite reminder ladder for everyone. Automate it so the chasing happens on time without you, and your evenings, having to.
• Know the legal backstop and its limit. The 1998 Act gives you interest and fixed fees against business customers, but not domestic ones, so your system matters most in the homeowner market.

If you'd rather your jobs, deposits and invoices lived in one place that sends the reminders for you, you can set up faster invoicing and deposits here. And if you're weighing up whether your accounting software already does enough of this, it's worth reading Xero vs job management software for UK trades before you decide.