Accounts Receivable Automation UK: Credit Control That Chases on Time and Matches Every Remittance

It is software doing the repeat steps between an invoice going out and the cash landing against it. Reminders go before and after the due date, each payment is matched to the invoices it pays, and overdue accounts reach the right person with their history attached. In the UK it should also know the Late Payment Act: when a debt becomes late, the statutory interest it carries and the fixed sum you can add.

Accounts receivable is money customers owe you for invoices you have sent. Accounts payable is money you owe suppliers for invoices you have received. The same law sits under both: GOV.UK sets a 30-day default before a business payment is late. On this page we cover the receivable side. Our UK accounts payable automation page covers supplier invoices.

They are a checklist credit teams use before giving a customer terms: character (their record of paying), capacity (cash to pay you), capital (what the business is worth), collateral (security you could fall back on) and conditions (the trade and the economy around them). For large UK customers there is a public check on character: GOV.UK publishes how long each large business takes to pay its suppliers. An agent can pull that figure when the account is opened.

No. Credit control is your own team managing customers on terms: setting limits, invoicing correctly, reminding before and after the due date and putting accounts on hold. Debt collection starts when that has failed, usually through an agency or solicitor. An agent we build works inside credit control. It drafts, matches and flags, and your people decide when an account goes to collection.

Six stages, each with an owner: agree terms and a credit limit, send a correct invoice the day goods leave, remind before the due date, chase in rising steps after it, apply holds or statutory interest when the rules say so, and pass a dead account to collection or write it off. Sage 200 builds the middle stages in as debtor letters of increasing severity tied to due date periods.

Between businesses, GOV.UK says statutory interest is 8% plus the Bank of England base rate. The reference rate is the Bank Rate on 30 June or 31 December before the half-year the debt fell late in. Bank Rate was 3.75% on 30 June 2026, which makes 11.75% a year. GOV.UK’s own method divides the yearly figure by 365 for a daily amount, then multiplies by the days late. A contract can set its own late payment terms, so ask your solicitor which rate applies to your debt.

Use GOV.UK’s method, the same one a late payment interest calculator runs. Multiply the debt by the statutory rate (8% plus the Bank Rate on the reference date) for a year’s interest. Divide by 365 for a daily figure, then multiply by the days late. A £12,000 invoice 45 days late at 11.75% gives £1,410 a year, £3.86 a day and £173.70 in all, before the £100 fixed sum.

It is the 1998 Act that lets you, as the supplier, add charges to an invoice another business pays late, even if your contract says nothing about it. You can add statutory interest for each day late. You can add one fixed sum per payment: £40 under £1,000, £70 from £1,000 to £9,999.99, and £100 from £10,000. Reasonable recovery costs can go on top. An agent can work the figures out. Deciding to claim stays with you.

Set the term on the invoice and in your contract before you supply. Between businesses you can agree up to 60 days, and longer only if it is fair to both sides. Leave the date out and the customer has 30 days from receiving the invoice or the goods, whichever is later, before you can add interest. Public authorities should pay you within 30 days. Your agent reads each customer’s terms from the ledger rather than assuming one rule.

Check the invoice first: right customer, right purchase order number, goods delivered. Then send a dated reminder, a second one that mentions statutory interest, and a final notice with the interest and fixed sum added. Put the account on hold if your terms allow it. If nothing moves, a solicitor or collection agency takes over. Keep every message, because that history is what a court or agency will ask for.

Often, through bad debt relief. HMRC’s VAT Notice 700/18 says you must have paid the VAT to HMRC, written the debt off into a separate bad debt account, and waited at least 6 months from the later of the due date and the supply date. Claims must be made within 4 years and 6 months. On the Cash Accounting Scheme the relief is unnecessary. An agent can list invoices crossing the 6-month line for your accountant.

Yes, for large companies. GOV.UK runs a public search of payment practices reports, showing the average time a large business takes to pay suppliers and the share of payments it makes late. Large means at least two of £54 million turnover, £27 million balance sheet or 250 employees, and reports come at least every six months. We can have the agent pull that figure when a new trade account is opened.

Yes. Xero’s UK page says you can set automatic reminders before or after the due date, and that Xero checks your bank feeds so it chases only unpaid invoices. It also adds a pay now button through Stripe for cards or GoCardless for Direct Debit. Its page does not describe reading customer replies, spotting disputes or working out statutory interest. That is where a built agent sits beside it.

Yes. QuickBooks’ UK help article covers turning on automatic invoice reminders under the Sales settings, with a first reminder and further ones as needed. It says you can schedule them up to 90 days before or after the due date. QuickBooks Online Advanced users can build reminders as workflows instead. Replies, part payments and remittances that cover several invoices still need someone, or an agent, to deal with them.

Sage 200 does, in its own way. Sage’s help pages describe debtor letters of increasing severity attached to due date periods, chosen from the oldest overdue item, plus sanctions such as cutting a credit limit or putting an account on hold so no more invoices can be raised. For Sage 50, Satago lists a Sage 50 Accounts connection for automated chasing. An agent can read and write either ledger by API.

Yes. Microsoft’s Business Central documentation describes reminder terms with any number of levels, each with rules for when it is issued, what fees to charge and whether to calculate interest. A finance charge memo calculates interest without sending a reminder. Its Payment Reconciliation Journal applies bank payments to open invoices by matching payment text, with rules you set. An agent handles the payments those rules cannot place.

Yes. Odoo 18’s documentation describes follow-up levels set by days from the due date, with negative days for a reminder before it. Each level can send an email, a letter or an SMS, attach the overdue invoices and run automatically. Odoo’s own advice is to reconcile all bank transactions before starting follow-ups, so nobody is chased for an invoice already paid. That reconciliation step is where remittance matching earns its place.

As listed on 29 October 2026, Chaser’s UK plans run from £199 a month (Compact, up to £4 million annual revenue) to £899 (Complete, up to £100 million), with Care plans adding an AR specialist from £899 to £2,099 a month. The page does not say whether VAT is included. A built agent is quoted differently: FactoryJet gives a fixed price in writing after a short scoping call.

It depends on your ledger and your mess. As their own sites read on 31 October 2026: Chaser chases by email, SMS and phone and connects to Xero, Sage, QuickBooks and more. Satago adds credit scores and invoice finance on Sage, Xero and QuickBooks. Kolleno adds AI cash application and dispute tracking on NetSuite, Dynamics, Xero and Sage. A built agent fits rules none of them cover.

Outsourced credit control means an outside team chases your customers, usually in your name, by phone and email. It suits a business with nobody in-house to chase. Automation suits a team that has a credit controller but loses the week to reminders and remittances. Chaser’s Care plans mix the two, adding an AR specialist to the software. Your people still own disputes either way.

It reads, which reminder tools do not. It reads the customer’s reply and tags it: promise to pay, dispute, wrong PO number, or a request for a copy invoice with proof of delivery. It reads remittance advice and splits one bank receipt across the invoices it pays. It drafts the next message in your tone and works out statutory interest. Your credit controller approves anything that leaves the building.

A customer pays £18,460 in one transfer and emails a remittance listing six invoices, one short-paid for a damaged pallet. The agent reads the remittance, finds the six open invoices in the ledger, applies the payment, leaves the short line open and raises a query for the damaged pallet. Where the reference is missing, it proposes a match from amounts and dates for a person to confirm.

Not unless you write that rule, and we advise against it. The agent sends the messages your team has approved, at the steps they agreed, from your own mailbox. Holds, interest claims, payment plans, write-offs and anything that mentions court stay with named people. Each one arrives as a short note with the account history, so the decision takes minutes and is logged.

Yes. Before a contract, we show working software on your own data. For credit control that means a copy of your aged debtors, a month of bank receipts and a handful of real remittances run through the agent in a test ledger, so you can read every reminder it drafts and every match it proposes before anything touches a live customer.

You own the code and the repository from day one. AI and hosting can run in your own accounts, at cost with no markup. Defects are fixed inside the build price for a cover period agreed before work starts. Support is optional: each change is quoted and approved, with no monthly minimum. FactoryJet quotes the build, and any support you choose, as fixed prices in writing.