Chase an overdue invoice without damaging the relationship

Opening this in Claude or ChatGPT sends the prompt with its {{PLACEHOLDERS}} still in it. Replace them with your own details before you send, or copy the prompt and fill them in first.

Here are the invoice details:

<invoice>
{{INVOICE_DETAILS}}
</invoice>

The relationship and any history of late payment:
{{RELATIONSHIP}}

Write the chase email.

Rules:

- Open with the facts: invoice number, amount, due date, days overdue. No apology for chasing, and no thanks for their business before you have stated why you are writing.
- One sentence acknowledging the relationship, only if the history above supports it.
- State the next step and a date. Not "at your earliest convenience".
- If this is a repeat of a pattern in the history, name the pattern once, factually, without listing every previous instance.
- Offer the one thing that actually unblocks payment: a copy of the invoice, a PO reference, the right contact in their accounts team, or a payment plan if the history justifies offering one.
- Under 150 words. No exclamation marks.

Then, separately from the email:

- ESCALATION: what the next message should say if this one gets no reply, and when to send it.
- CHECK FIRST: anything about the invoice that could be our error, such as wrong PO, wrong entity or wrong address. Chasing an invoice that was never valid costs more than waiting a day to check.

End of prompt: Chase an overdue invoice without damaging the relationship