Overdue invoice report
Which invoices need attention, how long each has been open, and the amount at stake.
All workflow examples
Workflow example: Trades and service businesses
Business profile
A business and workflow you can recognize.
Riverside Heating is an illustrative residential heating contractor with 14 employees, an owner, and an office coordinator. The business uses QuickBooks Online, Gmail, a job calendar, and paper work orders.
The challenge
Where the work starts to slip.
In this illustrative scenario, 12 to 14 invoices are overdue, totalling C$18,000 to C$30,000. Four to six invoices are more than 60 days past due. Three customers promise to pay and do not. Two disputes remain unresolved for more than three weeks. The owner spends two to four hours each week reviewing, following up, documenting promises, and reconciling replies after hours.
The pattern is clear: the owner is the fallback queue. Every follow-up depends on the owner’s memory, and the next action waits when the phone rings.
Canadian context: Ontario trades businesses average 48 to 60 days to collect according to 2024 ISED and Statistics Canada data. Atradius reports that 44% of Canadian B2B credit-invoice value is overdue in its 2025 payment-practices survey.
The review
Measure the real workflow before changing it.
We review 180 days of QuickBooks history and email records. We map how invoices are issued, followed up, promised, disputed, and paid. The evidence shows whether the problem is follow-up, missing information, unclear ownership, or a combination.
Recent follow-up emails
What customers promise, how they respond, and where follow-up stops.
Short team walkthrough
Who handles each step and which situations return to the owner.
Existing collections rules
What can be prepared routinely, what needs approval, and when a person takes over.
How the work moves
Routine steps move forward. Decisions stay with your team.
Overdue invoice check
Watches QuickBooks for invoices crossing the aging threshold.
Account context
Assembles the invoice, payment history, email thread, and prior promises.
Follow-up draft
Prepares the follow-up in the business’s tone and the customer’s language.
Reply handling
Sorts the reply as paid, promised, disputed, or no response.
Outcome check
Checks whether a promise is kept, a payment lands, or a dispute resolves.
You approve every consequential action. Follow-ups are prepared for you, the queue stays visible, and exceptions return to a person.
Interactive prototype
See how one workflow reaches a verified outcome.
Choose a customer response, review the prepared action, and see how the workflow adapts while your team retains the consequential decision.
- System support
- Assemble records, prepare communication, and maintain the next action.
- Your team decides
- Approve external action and handle commitments, disputes, and exceptions.
Invoice 1048$4,860 overdue
- Customer
- Northbridge Mechanical
- Days overdue
- 38
- Current state
- Awaiting approval
- ✓Invoice detected
- ✓History assembled
- ✓Follow-up prepared
- 4Approval
- 5Communication
- 6Response classified
- 7Outcome verified
- 8Record updated
Prepared follow-up
A factual reminder is ready for review.
The system used the invoice, payment history, previous messages, and agreed collections rules. It did not change terms or make a commitment.
Activity record
Invoice detected, records assembled, follow-up prepared, and approval requested.
The rollout
Start controlled. Earn capability from evidence.
Week 1: Connect and reconcile
Import 180 days of history, match invoices to customers, and establish baseline aging.
Week 2: Observe and draft
Watch the queue and prepare follow-ups. The owner approves every one.
Weeks 3 to 4: Operate
Send approved follow-ups, classify replies, track promises, and escalate disputes.
Weeks 5 to 8: Earn responsibility
Send routine follow-ups within agreed limits. Exceptions go to the owner.
The results
Make the scenario and the measures explicit.
This illustrative 60-day scenario is not a benchmark or guarantee.
- Starting overdue balance: C$24,800 across 13 invoices.
- Overdue invoices: 13 → 4. Invoices more than 60 days past due: 4 → 0.
- Broken promises: 3 → 0 tracked and caught. Unresolved disputes: 2 → 0 escalated and resolved.
- Owner time on collections: 2 to 4 hours/week becomes 30 minutes/week in the scenario.
- C$12,400 of the starting balance collected = a 50% illustrative scenario rate.
- Sensitivity: 30% collection = C$7,440. A 70% collection rate = C$17,360.
- Illustrative pilot targets: draft approval 80% in week 1 → 95% by week 4. Reply classification 85% → 93%.
Collection outcomes vary with terms, invoice mix, disputes, and follow-up policy. Payment promises and dispute resolutions are reported separately from cash received.
The value
Show the math. Stress-test it with your numbers.
If the workflow returns four hours each week and those hours can be resold at a trades charge-out rate, that represents about C$25,000 a year in potential gross billable capacity. It is not guaranteed revenue or profit.
The math: 4 hours/week multiplied by C$130/hour and 48 weeks equals C$24,960. A conservative illustrative range is C$12,480 to C$26,792 based on 2 to 4 recovered hours and local Ottawa charge-out rates of C$130 to C$139.54/hour. Sources are ECA Ottawa 2024 and a local contractor rate.
These are illustrative numbers based on the sample scenario. Stress-test them with your own numbers.
Source note: illustrative scenario informed by Xero Canadian payment data (2026), Atradius Canadian B2B payment practices (2025), and Intuit Canadian small-business surveys (2021). Actual results vary by terms, invoice mix, disputes, customer profile, and follow-up policy.
What stays with your team
The owner keeps control of sensitive decisions.
- No discount, payment-plan change, or service commitment without approval.
- Disputes, hardship, and relationship-sensitive accounts go to a person.
- Every draft cites the records used. Missing facts are surfaced, not guessed.
- The first live phase observes without acting, then prepares drafts for approval.
What comes next
Expand only when the evidence supports it.
Once the receivables workflow is running, the same operating model can handle scheduling, document collection, and client updates. Those expansion effects are not included in the value estimate above.