Overdue invoice review: see who owes you money and who to chase this week

Your accounting software shows a long list of unpaid invoices, but not who to chase first. The overdue invoice review skill sorts your open-items export by days overdue, checks that the totals add up and gives you a short list of who to call or remind this week.

What it does

• Reads your list of open invoices (open items, Offene Posten, postes ouverts), pasted in or uploaded as an Excel or CSV file. It needs the invoice number, customer, due date and open amount.
• Counts the rows and adds up the amounts, then compares the result with your export’s own total. If they differ, it says so and stops until you confirm which total is right.
• Works out the days overdue for each invoice and sorts them into five groups: not yet due, 1-14 days, 15-30 days, 31-60 days and over 60 days.
• Totals each group and checks the group totals add up to the list total.
• Totals each customer, so a customer with five small late invoices shows up.
• Suggests the next step for each overdue customer: friendly reminder, firm reminder, final reminder, call, or “on hold”. The default rules are a friendly reminder from 5 days, firm from 20, final from 35, and a call for any customer owing more than CHF 5’000 in total.
• Never suggests a reminder for a customer you mark as disputed, on a payment plan or “payment promised”.
• Lists oddities under “Check these”: possible duplicate invoices, items over 180 days old, credit notes not yet set off, missing due dates.
• Shows all its sums in a “Calculation” block.
• Uses Swiss defaults: CHF with an apostrophe (1’250.00), amounts as exported (normally including 8.1% VAT), dates like 09.10.2026. If a date could be read two ways, it asks.

It prepares an overview only. It never contacts customers, changes records, posts bookings or starts debt collection (Betreibung).

When to use it

• Every Monday, to see who owes you what, as in the 20-minute routine from the guide.
• Cash is tight and you want to see which customers owe the most.
• You want your receivables sorted by age (Debitorenliste nach Alter) without building a spreadsheet.
• Before you write this week’s payment reminders.

To write the reminders once you know who gets one, use the payment reminder writer.