Chasing an unpaid invoice without it turning into a fight

Every trade business has them. The job finished 6 weeks ago, the invoice went out the same day, and the money still isn't in. You've sent 2 polite emails, the customer hasn't replied, and you're now deciding between letting it go and becoming the person who rings them at 7am.

This post covers the internal commercial process only: what to set up before the work starts, what a chase sequence looks like, and the point at which it stops being a conversation you should be having yourself. It's the recovery lever in the wider guide to growing a trade business in Adelaide, and it's the one owners avoid hardest, because it feels like conflict rather than admin.

What this post isn't. It doesn't set out your rights, it doesn't explain any statute, it doesn't tell you what remedy is available to you, and it isn't a substitute for a lawyer. Where a matter needs that, the last section says so.

Most unpaid invoices are decided before the job starts

Owners think of debt recovery as something that happens at the end. Nearly all of it is determined at the beginning, by what was agreed, whether it was written down, and whether the customer was ever told when payment was due.

If the arrangement was a handshake and a number, the argument at day 60 is about what was agreed, and you have nothing to point at. If the arrangement was a written quote with payment terms in it, accepted in writing, the conversation at day 60 is about a missed date, which is a much shorter conversation.

That's why the fix for unpaid invoices is mostly a fix to the quoting process, and why it belongs alongside pricing rather than in some separate collections drawer.

The 5 terms worth agreeing every time

None of these are exotic. It is worth having your standard terms prepared once by a lawyer and then used on every job, rather than assembled fresh each time from whatever the last customer accepted.

1. A deposit before work starts, sized to cover materials at minimum. It also tests whether the customer can pay at all, which is worth knowing before you're 3 weeks in.
2. Progress claims on anything longer than a week or 2. Claim at defined points, not at the end. The longer the gap between spending money and asking for it, the more of your own cash is funding somebody else's project.
3. A payment term stated in days. 7, 14 or 30. Whichever you pick, put a number on it, because "on completion" means different things to the 2 of you.
4. A written variation process. Extra work is quoted and approved before it starts. Unapproved extras are the single most common reason an invoice sits unpaid, because the customer isn't refusing to pay, they're disputing a number they didn't agree to.
5. What happens when payment is late. Say it plainly in the terms, in ordinary language, and be prepared to actually do it. A term nobody enforces trains customers to ignore it.

Invoice on the day, every time

The most common cause of slow payment is slow invoicing. A job that finishes on the 3rd and gets invoiced on the 24th because you were flat out isn't 30 days from payment, it's 51.

Make invoicing a fixed slot rather than something you get to. Same day where you can, weekly at the outside. Put the job number, the site address and the accepted quote reference on every invoice, so the person paying it doesn't need to ring you to work out what it is. On commercial work, ask early who processes invoices, what reference they need on it, and what their payment run day is. A fair share of "late" commercial payments turn out to be invoices that never made it into the right system in the first place.

The chase sequence

The point of a sequence is that it removes the decision. You're not choosing each time whether to be the person who chases; the calendar chooses, and it treats every customer the same.

• Day 0. Invoice issued, with the due date stated as a date, not a number of days.
• Day minus 3. A short courtesy message before the due date. "Invoice 1042 is due Friday, let me know if you need anything for it." This is the highest-value message in the whole sequence and almost nobody sends it.
• Day 1 overdue. A brief email. Attach the invoice again. Assume it was missed.
• Day 7. A phone call. Not an email. The purpose is to find out whether there's a problem with the work, a problem with the paperwork or a problem with their cash, because the 3 need completely different responses.
• Day 14. Written confirmation of whatever was agreed on the call, including a date.
• Day 21. A direct message from you, the owner, stating the position plainly and asking for a payment date.
• Day 30. Stop chasing informally, and make a decision about what happens next.

Keep every message on the file. Dates, times, what was said, what was agreed. Not because you're planning anything, but because a clear record makes every later conversation easier, including the ones you hope not to have.

The phone call is the whole thing

Emails are comfortable, which is exactly why they don't work. An email lets both parties avoid the actual issue indefinitely.

3 rules for the day 7 call.

Ask a question rather than making an accusation. "I'm just checking whether there's an issue with invoice 1042" opens a conversation. "You haven't paid me" closes it.

Listen for which of the 3 problems it is. If they're unhappy with the work, that's a quality conversation and the money follows it. If it's paperwork, fix the paperwork today. If it's cash, you'll usually hear it in the hesitation, and a payment plan you both write down beats a promise you both forget.

Leave with a date. Not "soon", not "next payment run". A date, repeated back, then confirmed in writing the same day.

Most invoices resolve here. The ones that don't tend to have been in trouble from the quote onwards.

When it stops being your job

There's a point where continuing to chase costs you more than the invoice: in hours, in sleep, and in the work you're not quoting because you're writing emails. Decide in advance what that point is, in dollars and in days, so you're not making the call while you're angry.

At that point there are 2 places to look, and neither of them is a website.

Small Business Commission SA. A South Australian Government body that facilitates dispute resolution between small businesses, and between small business and state or local government. Unpaid invoices and payment disputes sit inside what it handles, and it can arrange mediation where a direct negotiation has stalled. Advice line 1800 072 722, or sasbc.sa.gov.au. (Small Business Commission SA, listed in the South Australian Government's business services directory at business.sa.gov.au/services/sasbc, accessed 2 September 2026.)

Your own lawyer. Anything to do with your rights, your contract, what a term actually means, whether to stop work on a job that's still running, or what you can do to recover the money, is a question for a qualified practitioner who has read your documents. It isn't a question for a coach, a mate, a forum or this page, and a wrong answer at that stage is expensive.

There's also a commercial option worth knowing about: a debt collection service. Fees vary, the relationship with that customer is generally over once you use one, and it's a decision to make deliberately rather than in frustration.

What the pattern is telling you

Chasing 1 invoice is admin. Chasing several every month is information.

If the same customer is always slow, you have a pricing and terms decision to make about whether their work is worth having, and that decision should be informed by what job costing says about their margin. If everyone is slow, the problem is upstream in your terms, your invoicing speed or your deposits.

And if the business feels the delay sharply, the real issue may not be the debtors at all. A business with adequate working capital notices a late invoice. A business without it has a crisis every time one lands late, which is the mechanism described in why builders run out of cash on a full order book.

Getting paid on time is a system, not a personality trait. It's built out of terms, timing and a sequence you follow whether or not you feel like it, and it's an ordinary thing for a business coach to help an owner put in place and then hold them to.