Send a payment reminder to a customer in SamBooks

How to send a payment reminder to a customer with an overdue invoice, picking a tone and reviewing the email before it goes out.

What it's for

When a customer misses an invoice due date, SamBooks lets you send a payment reminder by email straight from the open item in the Open Items ledger, without writing the message yourself. Choose among three tones — Polite, Formal, Demand — add an optional personal note, check the exact text the customer will receive in a live preview, and confirm the send with one click. If the reminded invoice already has an official number, its PDF is attached automatically.

Reminders only apply to receivables: invoices you issued to a customer that are still, wholly or partly, unpaid. There's no symmetrical "reminder" toward a supplier you owe money to — settling what you owe is a different action (recording a payment), not a reminder you send out.

Before you start

• You need at least one sales invoice with an open item (an outstanding balance) in the Open Items ledger. A draft or not-yet-issued invoice never creates an open item, so there's nothing to remind about until it does.
• You can send a reminder with the Manager or Administrative role. With the Viewer role you can see the Open Items ledger but not send anything; the Logistics role has no write access to the Finance area at all.
• The customer doesn't need an email on file already: if it's missing, you can type it in by hand when you send.

Step by step

1. Open the Open Items ledger

From the Finance menu, open Open items. You'll see two separate aging groups, Receivables and Payables, and the open-items table below. Use the Type filter (All / Receivables / Payables), the Status filter (All / Overdue / Upcoming) and the Counterparty search to find the customer's invoice. There's no date-range filter: to find an item that's months old, search by the customer's name instead.

2. Click the "Send reminder" icon on the row

On every receivable row (a sales invoice) you'll find, among the row actions, the one for sending a reminder, labeled Send reminder. It shows up on every receivable item, not only on the overdue ones: you can gently remind a customer even before the payment is formally late — in that case the form will simply show zero days overdue. Alternatively, click the row itself (outside the icons) to open the item's detail, where you'll find the same button alongside all the other details of the item: source, document, due date, payment method, IBAN and beneficiary if known, amount, paid, outstanding.

On payable rows (purchase invoices) and on F24 rows this icon never appears: reminders only exist for receivables.

3. Fill in the "Payment reminder" form

A two-column window opens: the form on the left, the real email preview on the right.

• Tone: choose between Polite, Formal and Demand. This only changes the register of the generated text, not the email's structure: switch between tones and the preview updates immediately.
• Note for the customer (optional): a free-text field, up to 2,000 characters, that lands in the email body — for example to ask for the expected payment date.
• Recipient: pre-filled automatically with the customer's contact email, if one is on file. If the customer has no known email, the field stays empty and you have to fill it in yourself: until you do, a banner warns you and the send button stays disabled. The reminder address is never the customer's certified mailbox (PEC) even if one is on file — PEC communications remain reserved for tax documents.

Below the recipient field you'll also see the item's days overdue.

4. Check the preview

On the right you see the real subject and body of the email — the same branded shell the customer will receive — inside a box that refreshes on every tone change (immediately) or note change (after a short pause once you stop typing). If the reminded invoice already has a number, a note below the message field reminds you that the invoice PDF will be attached to the send.

5. Click "Send reminder"

The button stays disabled until there's a valid email in the Recipient field. Once you click it, the send happens immediately: the click itself is the confirmation, there's no second pop-up. The email goes out through the same branded sending infrastructure used for every official SamBooks communication, with the PDF attachment if applicable, and the item is marked as reminded.

Which tone to pick

All three tones share the same engine and the same structure — only the wording changes. Polite is meant for a first nudge to a regular customer shortly after the due date. Formal raises the register, fitting for when a first reminder went unanswered. Demand is the sharpest tone, for when the delay drags on and you want a written record of a formal request. You can remind the same receivable with different tones over time: SamBooks doesn't enforce a progression, the choice is always yours.

What happens after you send

• The reminder's date and time are recorded internally against the item, but they never show up anywhere in the interface: there's no "last reminder sent on…" label and no history of past reminders on any SamBooks screen. If you need to know when you last reminded a customer, you have to track it yourself today — for example in the note you write in the form, or outside SamBooks.
• Nothing stops you from sending more than one reminder on the same item: you can repeat the action as many times as you like, switching tone if it helps.
• Sending is irreversible: there's no "undo reminder". If you sent one by mistake, the only thing you can do is, if it makes sense, contact the customer to explain.
• If the customer pays in the meantime, wholly or partly, the item updates normally in the Open Items ledger: recording the payment has nothing to do with the reminder — they're two independent actions.

Ask Sam

You can get the same result by asking Sam in chat, for example: "draft a formal reminder for customer Rossi on the overdue invoice". Sam generates the email draft — same engine, same three tones — without sending anything and without touching the item: it's just a preview, exactly like the one you see in the form. To actually send it, the system always asks for an explicit confirmation on a dedicated button — even if you type "go ahead and send it" in chat, the send won't happen until you confirm on the button. This is a deliberate safeguard, not a limitation of Sam: sending a reminder is an irreversible action visible to the customer, so it can never depend solely on what the model believes it should do.

If something goes wrong

• "The item is already fully paid": someone already recorded the full payment for that invoice, possibly while you were still filling in the reminder. Refresh the Open Items ledger: the item will be gone.
• "The customer has no contact email on record: enter a recipient to send the reminder" (banner in the form): type the address yourself in the Recipient field, or update the customer's record for next time.
• The PDF doesn't show up even though the invoice looks normal: this happens when the invoice linked to the item hasn't been officially numbered yet — for example an invoice that's created but not yet formally issued through the SDI flow. The email still goes out, just without the attachment: the reminder doesn't fail, it simply has no document to attach at that moment.
• You can't find the "Send reminder" icon on a row: check that it's a receivable (sales invoice), not a payable or an F24 item — the icon doesn't exist on those rows by design.

Frequently asked questions

Can I remind a supplier I owe money to? No. Reminders only exist for receivables — customers who owe you money. If you owe a supplier, the function to use is recording a payment, not a reminder.

Does the reminder always include the invoice PDF? It attaches it automatically if the invoice already has a number. If the item's linked document isn't numbered yet, the email still goes out without the attachment.

Can I review the email text before sending it? Yes, the preview on the right of the window is the real text the customer will receive, not a simulation: change the tone or add a note until you're happy with it, then confirm.

What happens if I accidentally send two reminders in a row? Both go out: there's no limit and no "you already reminded this item recently" warning, because SamBooks doesn't show anywhere when the last reminder was sent.

The customer has no email on file, what do I do? Type it directly into the Recipient field of the form: the send stays blocked until the field holds a valid address.

Can I have Sam write the reminder instead of opening the form? Yes, ask Sam to prepare the draft: it generates the same content you'd see in the form. To actually send it you'll still have to confirm explicitly, even in chat.

Does the reminder use the customer's certified mailbox (PEC) if I have one on file? No, never: the reminder address is always an ordinary contact email, not the PEC, which stays reserved for tax communications like electronic invoices and SDI notifications.

Can I remind an item that isn't overdue yet, just as a courtesy? Yes, the icon appears on every open receivable, overdue or not: in that case the form will simply show zero days overdue, but sending still works the same way.

Related guides

• Check the Open Items ledger and aging — to find overdue invoices and see the receivables aging.
• Record a receipt or a payment — to close the item once the customer pays, reminded or not.