How to Set Up Payment Reminders in QuickBooks Online and Desktop?

QuickBooks accounting software allows its users to create payment reminders for the customers. Doing so, one can easily send recurring reminders for the payment so that the customers can be informed about the due payment and the amount can be paid on time.
As you set the payment reminders, QuickBooks helps you to know what invoices or statements need to be sent. Thereafter, you can review, approve, and send reminders. If you are curious to know how to set up payment reminders in QuickBooks Online or Desktop, we have prepared this guide for you. Let’s read ahead!

This guide demonstrates how to set up reminders in QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop. Along with this, we have covered a lot more information about automating statements, schedule payment reminders, and tracking them.

How to Set Up Reminders in QuickBooks Online?

QuickBooks Online users can set automatic reminders for payments or invoices. In addition, you can customize the email messages to match your business. In further detail, we will tell you how you can set the automatic reminders for invoices, personalize the email messages, including PDF copies for invoice reminders, and view who has received the reminders. Besides that, we will also teach you to send the invoice reminder manually. Let’s know how to set up payment reminders in QuickBooks Online.

Set the Automatic Invoice Reminders

To automate the reminders for invoices, you can open the company settings, edit the reminder settings, and set the frequency for reminders. Here are the detailed steps for the same:

• Click on the “Settings” menu.
• Then, select the “Account and Settings” or “Company Settings” option.
• Switch to the “Sales” tab.
• Click on the “Reminders” option.
• Select the “Edit” button.
• Now, click on the “Auto invoice reminder” drop-down menu.
• Click on the “Before” or “After” button using the drop-down menu.
• From the “On due Date” drop-down, you can decide how many days after or before the due date you wish to send the payment reminders.
• Here, you can set the second or third reminder if required.

Personalize the Email Message

To customize the message for sending an invoice via email, you can go to the greeting option and enter the subject and message. You can check out the following steps to understand better:

• Click on the “Reset to email template”.
• Here, you can leave the box blank and make sure you use the default message.
• Now, click on the “Use Greeting” checkbox in order to edit the greeting.
• After this, click on “Greeting” using the drop-down menu.
• At this point, you can edit the subject and message for email. We recommend you add “Reminder” as your email subject.
• If you wish to receive the email confirmation after sending it to the customer then you can click on the “Email me a copy” checkbox.
• As you set these settings, click on the “Save” button.
• Then, click the “Done” button.

Include PDF Copies to Reminders for Invoices

If you want the payment reminders to include the PDF copies of the invoice then you can pursue the following steps:

• Navigate to the “Account and Settings’ option.
• Click on the “Sales” tab.
• Select the “Edit” option from the “Online delivery” option.
• Now, enable this option.

Note: QuickBooks software uses this template for all the payment reminders. As you generate the invoice, the due date on the template form starts the clock. Be sure that you include the email address in the field of Customer Email on your invoice(QuickBooks Emailing Invoices).

View Customer Received Reminders

QuickBooks automatically checks the invoice due dates every midnight and then it sends them reminders to the customer once it meets the criteria. Please note, you cannot exclude specific customers. If you want to see who all has received the reminder, here are the steps to find out:

• Click on the “Sales” menu.
• Then, QuickBooks adds the “(Reminded)” to the invoice in the column of “Status” after it shares the reminder.

Send the Payment Reminder Manually

There can be instances when you prefer to send the payment reminders manually. For this process, you just need to find the invoice, select the type of reminder, personalize the message, and send it to the customer. Let’s know how to set up payment reminders in QuickBooks Online.

• Go to the “Sales” menu.
• Then, click on the “Invoices” option.
• Search for the invoice you would like to send a reminder for.
• Now, click on the “Send reminder” using the “Receive Payment” drop-down menu.
• At this point, you can customize the message if needed.
• Then, hit the “Send” button.

Now you have learned the whole concept of sending invoice reminders for the customers. Besides that, we shared different ideas while sending the payment reminders such as personalizing the email messages, including PDF copies for invoice reminders, sending the invoice reminder manually, and so on.

How to Set Up Reminders in QuickBooks Desktop?

QuickBooks Desktop users can set the reminders for invoices and send them to the customers. All you have to enable the payment reminder feature and set the frequency for the same. In the following discussion, we will talk about setting up the payment reminders, automating statements with payment reminders, scheduling payment reminders for invoices, reviewing or sending reminders, and track payment reminders. Let’s find out how to set up recurring reminders in QuickBooks Desktop(Set Up Recurring Invoices in QuickBooks).

Set Up the Payment Reminders

First of all, you will have to enable the option for payment reminders. This can be done through the Company Preferences tab. Here are the following steps for the same:

• Click on the “Edit” menu.
• Then, go to the “Preferences” option.
• Now, switch to the “Payments” tab.
• Here, you can click on the “Company Preferences” option.
• When you see the “Do you want to send payment reminders?” option, select the “Yes” button.
• After this, you can set the time for sending reminders along with the frequency.
• Once done, click on the “OK” button.
• Press the “Finish” button.

Automate Statement with Payment Reminders

Once you enable the payment reminders, you can continue creating the schedule for emailing the statements to the customers. You can also set up multiple schedules for statements and messages for mailing lists. If you are wondering how to do this, check out the following steps:

• Navigate to the “Customers” menu.
• Then, click on the “Payment Reminders” option.
• Select the “Schedule Payment Reminders” option.
• Click the “New Schedule” option to enter the new statement schedule.
• Also, enter the name for the reminder by clicking on the “”.
• Once done, go to the “Select customer group” drop-down menu and click on the “Add new” button.
• Enter the “Name” as well as “Description” for your customer group.
• After this, click the “Next” button.
• Click on the “Field”, “Value”, and “Operator” to define the criteria to create the customer group. For instance, you can add the location, customer type, open balance amount, etc.
• Once done, click on the “Next” button.
• Thereafter, you can review the customers you would like to enter for the group.
• Now, hit the “Finish” button.
• Click on the “Add reminder” from the new list.
• At this point, you can customize the reminder with the statement period, statement date, invoice details, or if your statement is overdue.
• Then, choose the email design templates and statements.
• At last, you can press the “OK” button.

Schedule Payment Reminders for Invoices

By using the payment reminders, you can simply generate a reminder that will be sending invoices to the customers automatically. For instance, you can set the reminder for sending the email with an invoice every 5th day of a month. To schedule the payment reminders for invoices, you can go through the following steps:

• Select the “Customers” menu.
• After this, click on the “Payment Reminders” option.
• Select the “Schedule Payment Reminders” option.
• Click the “New Schedule” option to enter the new statement schedule.
• Also, enter the name for the reminder by clicking on the “”.
• Once done, go to the “Select customer group” drop-down menu and click on the “Add new” button.
• Enter the “Name” for a mailing list.
• After this, click the “Next” button.
• Start selecting the customers you would like to add to your list.
• Then, click the “Save” button.
• Click on the “Add Reminder” from the new list.
• When you see the “When do you want to send this reminder?” option, you can decide how many days after or before the due date to ting the reminder.
• You can update the message to match the business. If you want to add the field to populate, you can click on the “Insert Field” drop-down.
• Select the “OK” button.

Review or Send Reminders

When you are working on your QuickBooks account, you will get a prompt to review and share the invoices or statements. At this moment, you can select the option depending on the requirement:

• Close: Clicking this option will close the prompt and no invoice or statement will be sent.
• Send Now: This option quickly sends the scheduled reminders to the customers.
• Review and Send: If you choose this option, you can review the details and send reminders to your customers.

However, if you wish to preview and send the payment reminders later then you should know how to locate the reminders in QuickBooks. Have a look at the following steps:

• Click on the “Customers” menu.
• Choose the “Payment Reminders” option.
• Click on the “Review & Send Payment Reminders” option.
• Here, you can click on the payment reminder you are supposed to review and send.
• As you review the invoice, click on the “Send now” button.

Track Payment Reminders

Once you send the invoice reminders, they can be tracked as well. This will let you know the current status of the invoice reminders you have sent. Now, there are two different ways to track the payment reminders:

Option 1: Customer Center

• Click on the “Customers” menu.
• Now, go to the “Customer Center” option.
• Choose the customer.
• Click on the “Sent Email” tab.

Option 2: See History

You can also track the payment reminders by checking the history. All you have to do is click on the See History button and find out the details of payment reminders.

To Conclude

Sending payment reminders to your customer helps them to pay the invoice on time. The advantage of setting recurring reminders is that you don’t have to send reminders manually. All you have to do is set the reminder with a personalized message and let QuickBooks ping the customer on the specified date. In this guide, we have already talked about how to set up payment reminders in QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop. So, set the reminder now!

If you are planning to print customer list or set up accrued expenses in QuickBooks, make sure you have a look at the following guides:

• How to Print Customer List in QuickBooks?
• How to Set Up Accrued Expenses in QuickBooks Online?