Facts checked September 2026.
Summary
- At an agency, the same person wears all the hats. The person chasing down overdue invoices usually owns the client relationship. The credit control software therefore has to be low effort to maintain and easy to monitor.
- Late fees are an underused tool. UK law gives you 8% above base rate plus a fixed recovery fee on every overdue B2B invoice. They are effective and underused at agencies.
- Four credit control tools worth looking at, from £8 to £199 a month. Jump to the tools
Why chasing down unpaid invoices is harder at an agency
There are two structural reasons that chasing down unpaid invoices is more difficult for agencies than other small businesses.
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The client relationship sits with the person who does the chasing. If you are a small agency, the director or MD will generally be chasing down the invoices. They will also be selling the next project. This can make chasing awkward and high stakes to get right.
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There’s less recurring revenue.** Some agencies bill the majority of their work via retainers but in others, one-off projects bring in most of the revenue. Recurring revenue often goes through a regular direct debit whereas one-off projects are almost always done via bank transfer. This means the job of chasing gets bigger.
These two factors mean any credit control software needs to be easy to maintain and easy to monitor. The director needs to know the right emails are going out at the right time, but also be able to intervene if they have additional context on a client from a recent conversation.
Late fees: an underused way to collect unpaid invoices
If you invoice other UK businesses, you have a statutory right to charge interest and a fixed fee on every overdue invoice. They are a faff to raise and apply manually so many agencies never use them.
What you’re entitled to. Under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 you can charge interest at 8% above the Bank of England base rate, running from the day the invoice became overdue. On top of that there’s a fixed recovery fee per invoice:
| Debt | Fixed fee |
|---|---|
| Under £1,000 | £40 |
| £1,000 to £9,999.99 | £70 |
| £10,000 or more | £100 |
You don’t need it in your contract. It’s a statutory right, and you can apply it retrospectively to invoices already overdue.
Why agencies don’t. The same reason the chasing doesn’t happen. Raising a late fee on a client you’re pitching to next month feels like a bigger act than it is, so the entitlement sits unused while the invoice ages.
What changes when software does it. A fee that’s applied automatically, on a schedule the client can see, stops being a personal decision. You can also then play the good cop and waive the fee once they’ve paid.
Worth reading alongside this: what you can legally charge on a late invoice, a calculator for working out interest and fees, and when to waive a fee rather than charge it, because with a client relationship in play, sometimes waiving it deliberately is the stronger move.
Which tools suit an agency
| Tool | Best for | Late fees | From |
|---|---|---|---|
| Satago | Agencies wanting credit checks on new clients | Calculated, not raised automatically | £45/month |
| Trove | Agencies on Xero where a director does the chasing | Calculated and raised automatically | £50/month |
| Chaser | Larger agencies with a finance function | Calculated and applied automatically | £199/month |
| Statey | Agencies that only need statements sending | - | £8/month |
Prices checked June 2026 against published pricing pages.
Satago
Chasing plus Experian-backed credit scoring, which is useful if you take on new clients you don’t know. Agencies onboarding a client on 30-day terms are extending credit, whether or not it feels like it. Satago calculates what you’re owed in interest and fees and can drop the figure into your reminders, but raising the fee onto an invoice is still a manual step.
Watch: the entry plan sends reminders from Satago’s address rather than yours. Sending from your own domain means the £80 tier.
Trove
Trove reads your Xero ledger and runs a reminder sequence per client, sent from your own email address. Replies come back and get read, so when a client says they’ll pay on the 28th the expected date updates against the invoice. It calculates UK late payment fees and raises them as separate invoices without anyone having to decide to.
Best for: an agency where invoicing and payments already work and the gap is that nobody chases consistently.
Where it doesn’t fit: you need invoicing. Trove doesn’t offer this and instead imports invoices from Stripe, Xero or Quickbooks.
Chaser
A full receivables platform with detailed workflow control, and a built-in route into debt collection. Its late fee rules apply and update automatically once set up, including daily-accruing interest. More than most agencies need, and priced accordingly, but the right answer for a larger agency with someone whose actual job this is.
Statey
Automated Xero statements with age analysis, and nothing else. If your clients pay once reminded what’s outstanding, £8 a month solves it. If invoices still go unpaid after the statement lands, this won’t get you there.
If you’re a recruitment agency
Recruitment has a different shape of problem: perm fee disputes, rebate clauses, contract desk cash flow gaps, and end clients who are a step removed from the party that owes you. Worth reading credit control software for recruitment agencies instead, which covers those directly.
Frequently asked questions
Can I charge a late fee to a client I want to keep working with?
Yes, and it’s less damaging than most agencies assume, because an automatic fee reads as a term of business rather than a complaint. If the relationship genuinely can’t take it, waiving the fee deliberately is a decision you can make and tell the client about, which is worth more than never raising it at all.
Do I need late fees in my contract?
No. Interest at 8% above base rate and the fixed recovery fee are statutory rights under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998. They apply whether or not your terms mention them, and you can apply them to invoices already overdue.
Isn’t this what Xero’s reminders are for?
Up to a point. Xero sends a fixed number of reminders on a single schedule and won’t calculate late fees. That’s often enough for an agency with a handful of reliable clients. It stops being enough when different clients need different treatment, or when the invoices that need chasing are the ones you’re most reluctant to chase.
What about an invoice that’s late because of a scope disagreement?
Chasing won’t resolve it and will make it worse. The value of a consistent process is that it surfaces the disagreement at 14 days instead of 60, while there’s still goodwill to work with.
How much does credit control software cost for an agency?
From £8 a month for statements only, to around £50 for proper chasing with late fee automation, to £199 and up for a full platform. Most agencies belong in the middle.
Trove chases your overdue invoices from your own email address, reads the replies, and raises UK late payment fees automatically, so the awkward part stops being a decision anyone has to make. It connects to Xero in about 15 minutes and costs £50 a month. Book a demo to see it against your own ledger.
