This page is for a business where chasing overdue invoices is one job among several, and nobody owns it full time. Usually a finance lead, office manager or director doing collections alongside everything else. If you have a credit controller and you’re choosing tooling for them, the main guide to credit control software covers the fuller platforms.
Summary
- Why most tools feel like overkill: AR platforms are built for collections teams, so they lead with credit risk scoring and behavioural payment insights. Useful only if someone has time to monitor and act on them.
- What features to prioritise: five tools compared on how much of the job each one absorbs, from free reminders that leave you most of the work, up to AI agents that automate your finance inbox.
- There will always be work that’s not automated: disputes, your largest accounts, and anything where the relationship matters more than the invoice.
Most AR platforms differentiate on reporting
If you have an accounts receivable team, whoever they report into needs to know they are doing their job. That’s why most AR platforms offer robust and comprehensive reporting: so the collections team can demonstrate that they are doing the work well. Typical reports include behavioural payment insights, credit risk updates, cohort analysis, DSO tracking by segment.
These are useful features if it’s in someone’s job description to monitor the data and report it to other members of the organisation. But if you have someone chasing down unpaid invoices in their spare time, they will focus on getting the work done instead of reporting on it.
Most of these buyers are looking for a platform that is largely self-running and easy to monitor rather than a weighty analytics layer which many AR platforms try to differentiate on.
Tools you can run without dedicated collections staff
These credit control tools sit on a spectrum. At one end you get the invoice reminders automated and do the rest of the work yourself. At the other, the tool manages your entire finance inbox or takes on more complex workflows like debt collection.
Price tracks that spectrum fairly closely.
| Tool | Starting price | What it automates | What’s left for you |
|---|---|---|---|
| Xero reminders | Free | Sending up to five reminders on a fixed schedule | Replies, escalation, anything customer-specific, debt collection, non-billing queries |
| Satago | £45/month | The reminder sequence, plus Experian credit scoring | Replies, escalation, late fees, debt collection, non-billing queries |
| Trove | £50/month | Workflows from your own email, late fees raised automatically, AI drafting replies and managing chasing admin | Debt collection, non-billing queries |
| Paraglide | On request | The finance inbox: two-way billing conversations, replies to queries, PO capture, promise-to-pay tracking, disputes | Debt collection |
| Chaser | £199/month | The full AR cycle with detailed workflow control, plus a built-in route to debt collection | - |
Prices as published September 2026. For the models behind those numbers, and what they cost as you grow, see how credit control tools charge.
Xero’s built-in reminders
Xero’s built-in reminders are the most basic first step and give you 5 emails you can configure when invoices go overdue. You outgrow them when you hit the five-reminder cap, need different schedules for different customers, find reminders landing in spam or going to the wrong contact, or want to charge late fees. Our guide to credit control software versus a manual process covers how to tell when you’ve reached that point.
Satago
Satago at £45/month automates the sequence and adds Experian-backed credit scoring, so risk surfaces without you checking manually. One flag - on the Basic plan, reminders send from Satago’s own address rather than yours.
Trove
Trove at £50/month runs per-customer sequences from your domain, raises late payment fees automatically, and uses AI to draft replies and keep the chasing admin in order.
Paraglide
Paraglide manages finance inbox conversations, answering billing queries, collecting PO numbers, capturing promise-to-pay dates and handling disputes. It’s explicitly built to replace collections headcount rather than assist it.
Chaser
Finally Chaser starting at £199/month takes on more of the process: fuller workflow control, deeper reporting, and a built-in pathway to debt collection when chasing fails. The trade-off is that it assumes someone will configure and watch it. More capability only helps if there’s a person to direct it.
If the problem is that nobody sends the reminders, the £45 to £50 tier solves it. If the problem is that reminders go out fine but nobody has time to deal with what comes back, that’s a different purchase, and the heavier tools are priced for including this work.
What still needs a human
There are some areas you may never want to outsource to software.
Disputes. A customer who thinks the invoice is wrong won’t respond to a reminder sequence, and sending more won’t help. These need someone to pick up the phone.
Your largest accounts. You may have accounts that you meet regularly in person to discuss work. Here it might be more appropriate to take overdue invoices as an agenda point rather than starting a separate email thread.
Genuine hardship. A customer with a real cash flow problem needs a conversation about terms, not a fourth reminder.
Frequently asked questions
Can you run credit control without a dedicated AR person? Yes, and most UK small businesses do. The requirement is that the chasing runs without daily supervision and that exceptions surface clearly, so the time you spend on it is spent on decisions rather than sending emails.
How long does it take to set up automated invoice chasing? Connecting your accounting system takes minutes. Setting up reminder sequences takes an hour or two if you’re thoughtful about it. The larger job is deciding what your escalation should look like, which is worth doing properly once.
Is Xero’s free reminder function enough? For a small number of reliable customers, often yes. You outgrow it at the five-reminder cap, when you need different schedules per customer, when reminders go to spam or the wrong contact, or when you want to charge late fees.
What’s the cheapest way to automate chasing overdue invoices? Xero’s built-in reminders are free. The cheapest paid tools start at £45 to £50 a month, though check whether the entry plan sends from your own email address, because some don’t.
Will automated reminders damage customer relationships? It depends on what they look like. A reminder from a named person referencing the specific invoice reads as a person following up. A generic notice from a billing address reads as a system, and customers treat it accordingly.
Should I hire someone to do credit control instead? Compare what you’d be buying. A part-time credit controller costs several thousand a month and brings judgement. Tools range from £45 to several hundred, and what separates them is how much of the work they absorb rather than how many features they list. Hiring makes sense when the judgement calls have become the bulk of the job rather than the sending.
Trove handles the collections layer for UK small businesses on Xero: per-customer reminders sent from your own email, view-only access for the rest of your team, and automated UK late payment fees raised straight into your account. It’s £50 a month, runs a free 30-day trial and connects to Xero in about five minutes.
Start a free trial or book a demo if you’d like to see it first.
