If someone on your team spends hours every week sending “just checking in on invoice #4071” emails, that’s a problem artificial intelligence (AI) can actually solve — today, with tools you might already be paying for.
Let’s talk about what’s available, what it costs, and whether it’s worth it for your business.
You Might Already Have the Tool
**QuickBooks Online** and **Xero** both include built-in automatic payment reminders. You set the schedule — say, 3 days before due, day of, 7 days overdue, 14 days overdue — and the system sends them without you lifting a finger.
This isn’t AI in the predictive sense. It’s simple automation. But it handles the most painful part: remembering to follow up at all.
If you’re already paying for either platform and haven’t turned on automatic reminders, stop reading and go do that right now. It’s free with your existing subscription.
When You Need Something Smarter
If you’ve got the reminders running but still find yourself manually managing dozens of overdue accounts, **Chaser** is worth a look. It integrates with both QuickBooks and Xero, and it adds an AI layer that optimizes when reminders get sent and what they say based on each customer’s payment history.
Pricing starts at roughly £50/month (~$63 USD) for the basic plan, though you should verify on their site since software as a service (SaaS) pricing shifts. Chaser reports that their customers see an average 54% reduction in late payments — that’s a vendor-sourced number, not independently verified, but it points in the right direction.
Here’s what that looks like in practice: a 5-person service business using Xero plus Chaser can automate the entire reminder sequence — friendly pre-due-date nudge, overdue notice, escalation email — without a single manual send. The owner reviews a dashboard instead of managing a spreadsheet.
The “AI or Nah” Question
Dedicated accounts receivable (AR) automation platforms like **Gaviti** and **Tesorio** go further. They use machine learning (ML) to predict which invoices are likely to go delinquent, so you focus your human attention on the accounts that actually need a phone call.
Instead of sending identical reminders to all 50 overdue accounts, the AI flags the 8 that are high-risk based on past behavior. You call those 8. The system handles the other 42.
That’s powerful — but it’s solving a scaling problem. If you’re under $500K in revenue or dealing with fewer than 50 invoices a month, these platforms are probably overkill. Gaviti doesn’t publicly list pricing (quote-based), and HighRadius skews enterprise. For most small businesses, QuickBooks or Xero plus Chaser gets you 80% of the value at a fraction of the cost.
**The honest answer:** Start with the free automation built into your existing accounting software. If that’s not enough, add Chaser for ~$63/month. Only look at dedicated AR platforms when your invoice volume makes the simpler tools feel like a bottleneck.
Your One Takeaway
Go into your QuickBooks or Xero settings today and turn on automatic payment reminders if you haven’t already. Set them for 3 days before due, the due date, and 7 days after. That single change — zero cost, maybe 15 minutes of setup — eliminates the most tedious part of getting paid on time. If you outgrow it, you’ll know, and smarter tools will be waiting.