How it works
An accounts receivable team that shows up every weekday.
Northdue runs each weekday morning at the time you choose. Here's what happens on a normal day, what happens when customers answer, and where a person always decides.
A day with Northdue
From your books to cash in the bank.
Six agents each do one part of the work, in order, every weekday. You're only asked for the decisions that need a person.
The run starts at 7:45 am in your time zone by default. We can move it to suit you, and start an extra run whenever one's needed.
- 7:45 am
Read your books
Open invoices, customers, payments, credits and invoice PDFs come in fresh from QuickBooks, Xero or your latest aging report. Nothing in your books is changed.
- Then
Match the payments
Payments that reached your books are matched to their invoices first, so nobody who has paid gets chased, and anything queued about those invoices is cancelled.
- Then
Read what came in
Replies are read and understood: promises, disputes, questions, out-of-office notices and bounces. Each one updates the account, and any draft it makes out of date is withdrawn.
- Then
Decide who to contact today
Accounts are ranked by age, size and history. Customers who've paid, promised a date or asked for time are left alone, disputed invoices are left out, and missed promises move up the list.
- Then
Draft the emails
Each email is written for its stage and situation, in your name and tone, with the invoices listed from your ledger and invoice PDFs attached when your books have them.
- Your morning
A person approves You decide
Read each email next to the invoices it's based on, then approve, edit or reject it. Approve several at once when they look right, with keyboard shortcuts for a long queue.
- When you're done
Checked again, then sent from your mailbox
With Send now, your books are read again first: anything a new payment made out of date is cancelled, and the rest goes out from your own Gmail or Microsoft 365 address. Anything approved later goes out with the next run.
- Every week
The report
Cash collected, cash promised, what's at risk, the decisions waiting on you, the calls to make and the holdout result, on one page.
Follow-up that fits the situation
Friendly first. Firm when it has to be.
Emails follow the age of the oldest invoice. The tone changes with it, but the rules don't: no threats, no invented facts, and only the last stages may say "final".
- 1–14 days past dueCourtesy
A friendly heads-up, assuming the invoice slipped through the cracks.
- 15–30 daysReminder
A polite follow-up asking when to expect payment and what's holding it up.
- 31–60 daysFirm
Clear and direct: payment this week or a firm date, with a payment plan on offer.
- 61–90 daysFinal
Serious and respectful, asking for payment or a committed date by a set day.
- Over 90 daysFinal request
An invitation to call and settle it directly, and a place on your call list.
When customers answer
Every reply goes somewhere useful.
Replies are understood from the customer's own words, not the history they quote. Here's what happens with each kind.
| The customer says | What Northdue does |
|---|---|
We'll pay both invoices on the 14th. | Records the promise and pauses reminders until then. If the date passes without payment, the account moves back up the list. |
We'll get this paid shortly. | Pauses for five days and asks your team to get a date. |
We sent that payment last week. | Pauses for seven days while your team checks for the payment. |
Invoice 10517 was billed at the wrong rate. | Opens a dispute for you to decide and takes that invoice out of the reminders. |
Could we spread this over three months? | Pauses everything and sends you the payment plan request. Reminders wait until you decide. |
Can you send me a copy of the invoice? | Drafts a reply with the invoice details and payment link for approval, and asks your team to send the PDF. |
Please contact Jane in accounts payable. | Asks your team to confirm the new contact by phone before any email goes to the new address, because changing where payment emails go is a common fraud route. |
| An out-of-office reply | Pauses reminders until the date they're back. |
| A bounce | Stops emailing that address until the contact changes. |
Please stop contacting us, or a mention of lawyers | Pauses all emails to that customer and hands the account to you. |
| A question, or anything unclear | Pauses for three days and sends it to you to answer. |
For promises, disputes, payment plans and "already paid", a short acknowledgement is also drafted for your approval. Mail that isn't from a customer and isn't about invoices or payments is skipped and left alone.
Calls
When email isn't enough, pick up the phone.
Customers who haven't answered a final request, or who missed a promise, go on a call list. Each comes with a brief: the balance, the history, what to ask for, what to say and what not to say. Your team makes the call and logs the result, which updates the account like a reply would.
For the rare account nothing resolves, you can place it with a collection agency in one click. All contact stops, and you get a complete package to send them: open invoices, contacts, the full history and invoice PDFs.
Optional AI calls, with strict rules
A person starts every AI call from its brief. The caller asks for a payment date and records what the customer says.
- Only business customers whose prior consent to automated calls you've recorded, with where it came from
- Weekdays only, within your calling hours in your time zone, up to a daily limit
- Always says who it's calling for, that it's an automated call, that it may be recorded, and how to opt out
- Anyone who asks not to be called is never called again
Built around the FCC's February 2024 ruling that AI-generated voices are "artificial" under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.
Proof of lift
Measure the difference. Don't assume it.
Turn on the holdout test and a random share of the accounts over your fee threshold, typically 20%, is held back for a set time, 60 days by default. Held-back accounts get no emails or calls, and payments from them during the test carry no fee.
The split is balanced by account size. Your Overview and weekly report compare the share of balance each group paid and show the extra cash that came from contacting. With only a few accounts in each group, the report says to treat the result as an early signal.
Share of overdue balance paid within 60 days
How the holdout result is shown
Getting started
From first sign-in to first report.
Setup takes about ten minutes. The rest of the first week is reading.
Day 1
Connect
Connect your accounting software and the mailbox you send invoices from, and choose who approves emails: your people, our team, or either.
Week 1
Review week
The agents run on your real data every weekday, but nothing is sent. Read every draft and tell us what to change.
When you're ready
Go live
When you're happy with the drafts, we switch it live. From then on, approved emails go out from your mailbox and replies are handled.
Every week after
Report
See what came in, what's promised and what needs you, with the holdout result once there's enough to see.
See it on your own receivables.
Bring an aging report to a 30-minute call and we'll go through your Cash Leak Scan together, or we'll show you the product on our demo company.