How to Set Up Automatic Payment Reminders in FreshBooks (2026)

FreshBooks can chase your unpaid invoices for you, automatically — and, unlike a lot of tools, it can tack on a late fee too. The feature is included in your plan and takes a couple of minutes to switch on. The catch is the usual one: it's off by default, so unless you've deliberately set it up, FreshBooks isn't sending a single reminder.

This guide walks through exactly how to turn on automatic payment reminders in FreshBooks, what you can and can't customize, and where the built-in feature stops short — so you can decide whether it's enough on its own. (The steps below follow FreshBooks' official payment reminders help article.)

How to set up automatic payment reminders in FreshBooks

FreshBooks configures reminders at the client level (you can also apply defaults to everyone through Email Customization, or override a single invoice). To switch them on for a client:

1. Open the client's profile — or a specific invoice — and under Client Settings, select Send Reminders.
2. Check the box next to Automatically send payment reminders for this client's invoices.
3. For Reminder #1, enter the number of days and choose before or after the due date.
4. To customize the wording, select the slider icon, choose Enter a Personal Message, write your note, and select Done.
5. Select + Add Another Reminder to add a second and third reminder (three is the maximum), repeating the timing and message steps.
6. Select Done to save. Reminders now go out automatically for that client's existing and future invoices.

Want late fees too? Under the same Client Settings, choose Charge Late Fees, tick Automatically add late fees…, pick a percentage of the invoice, a percentage of the outstanding balance, or a flat fee, and set how many days after the due date it applies.

What you can and can't customize

• Timing: each of the three reminders can fire a set number of days before or after the due date.
• Message: you can personalize the email copy for each reminder.
• Late fees: optional, automatic, and flexible (percentage or flat) — a genuinely useful extra that many tools don't have.
• Count: you get three reminders per invoice — no more.

Where FreshBooks reminders stop short

The built-in feature is genuinely good, and if you use FreshBooks you should absolutely turn it on. But it's worth being honest about its edges:

• It caps at three reminders. For an invoice that drags to 30, 45, or 60 days overdue, three touches often isn't enough — and there's no built-in escalation past the third.
• The tone is on you. FreshBooks gives you message fields to fill in. There's no done-for-you sequence that opens as a gentle heads-up and firms up only if an invoice really drags — you write and tune every line yourself.
• It's off by default, and set per client. Reminders are enabled client by client (or via account-wide defaults you have to go configure), which is easy to leave half-done.
• Your collections live inside your books. FreshBooks is an accounting and invoicing suite; some owners would rather not run customer follow-up through the same tool as their taxes and expenses.

When a dedicated reminder tool makes more sense

If three reminders inside FreshBooks cover you, you're done — no new tool needed. A dedicated reminder tool earns its place when you want the follow-up handled for you rather than configured by you. That's the bet invoice reminder software makes, and it's what FieldNudge does:

• A longer, done-for-you cadence. Six polite touches, not three — a nudge before the due date, on the due date, then 3, 7, 14, and 30 days overdue — with the tone written for you and escalating from friendly to firm, never debt-collector.
• It never touches your customer's money. Your customers keep paying exactly how they already do — check, Venmo, Cash App, ACH, or your own card link. There's no processor to switch to and no fees skimmed off the payment.
• It works without FreshBooks. If you don't use FreshBooks — or don't want your invoicing and chasing tangled up with your accounting — FieldNudge is a standalone layer that just gets the invoice paid.

Here's the full cadence FieldNudge runs, versus FreshBooks' three:

None of this makes FreshBooks' reminders bad — they're a solid, included feature, and turning them on (plus late fees) is the single highest-value thing in this guide. It's just worth knowing where three self-written reminders end and a done-for-you follow-up system begins. If you'd like the exact wording to start from either way, we've published copy-paste payment reminder email templates you can drop straight in.