Get Paid Without the Awkward
How to Automate Invoice Follow-Up While Keeping the Human in Control
You don't need another reminder template. You need a system that remembers what needs to happen, prepares the next action, and knows when to stop.
If you run a small business and regularly find yourself checking aging invoices, rewriting the same follow-up emails, and wondering who needs attention today, this book shows you how to replace that recurring work with a practical invoice follow-up system.
The machine handles the remembering. The human handles the judgment.
Inside, you'll learn how to build a system that:
- Monitors open invoices and determines when follow-up is due
- Tracks each invoice through a clear six-state process
- Prepares follow-up messages without sending them automatically
- Lets you approve, skip, or hold individual reminders
- Pauses the sequence when a customer gives you a reason to wait
- Stops the follow-up process when payment is received
- Escalates invoices that reach the end of the sequence instead of endlessly sending reminders
- Records what happened so you can see the state of every invoice
- Measures changes in follow-up time, DSO, and aging distribution
This is not a book about sending automated emails and hoping for the best.
It walks you through the actual workflow: capture the invoice, determine its state, decide what should happen next, prepare the action, put the human in control, record the result, and check again.
You'll build the system step by step using QuickBooks Online, n8n, Gmail, Google Sheets, and optional Slack. The book also explains how to translate the underlying workflow to other accounting platforms.
You'll see the awkward parts too: duplicate drafts, partial payments, invoices that should be put on hold, timezone problems, reconciliation errors, and the situations where an automation that looks correct can still behave incorrectly.
The goal isn't to remove the human from accounts receivable.
It's to remove the repetitive work that keeps the human busy.
Get the system remembering what needs to happen. Keep the judgment where it belongs.