Invoice Reminders

Overview

Invoice Reminders automatically email clients about unpaid invoices on a schedule your firm defines, helping you follow up consistently and spend less time chasing payments. Once enabled, Bill4Time sends reminders for eligible invoices with an outstanding balance, starting from the invoice’s Sent Date. Your firm controls which invoices receive reminders, who receives client replies, and the number, timing, and content of reminder emails.

Invoice Reminders are configured through five key components:

Firm-wide settings - to enable the feature and define its scope
Reply-to settings - determine who receives client responses
Reminder schedule - defines each email and its timing
Invoice sent date - used to calculate when reminders are sent
Client and matter defaults - optional defaults to control reminders for individual clients and matters

Enabling Invoice Reminders

From the account menu select Settings.
Select the Invoice Reminders tab.
Toggle Automated Reminders to Enabled.

This toggle is the master switch for your firm. While it is disabled, no invoice reminders are emailed, regardless of how the reply-to routing, the reminder schedule, or any individual reminder is configured. You can turn it off at any time to pause this feature without losing your setup.

Setting the Reminder Start Date

Start Reminders For Invoices Sent On or After sets the earliest invoice Sent Date that is eligible for reminders. Any unpaid invoice with a sent date before this date is excluded.

This gives you control over exactly when Invoice Reminders start, instead of applying them to every unpaid invoice when you enable the feature.

Choosing Your "Reply To" Email

Reminder emails are sent from a Bill4Time email address, but you can choose who receives any client replies. This reply-to setting applies across the entire firm and offers two options:

Based On Invoice (default): routes each reply to whichever contact is closest to that specific invoice. Toggle on the fields you want considered, and Bill4Time evaluates the list in priority order:
- Matter assigned to user: off by default. When enabled, replies route to the user assigned to the invoice's matter.
- Client account manager: off by default. When enabled, replies route to the client's account manager.
- Firm contact email: always on and cannot be disabled.

Bill4Time evaluates the enabled options in priority order for each invoice. If the highest-priority option does not contain an email address for the applicable client or matter, Bill4Time uses the next enabled option, with the firm contact email serving as the final fallback. For example, if Matter Assigned To User is disabled and Client Account Manager is enabled, but the client has no account manager, replies are sent to the firm contact email.

Specific User: This option skips the routing logic entirely and sends every reply to one firm contact.

Managing Reminders

The Reminders list is where you build out the actual schedule of emails. Bill4Time provides one default reminder, sent 30 days after an invoice's Sent Date. You can customize the default reminder timing and content, and add more reminders to create a follow-up schedule that works for your firm.

Reminder rows display the reminder name, its day offset, and an On/Off toggle. Each reminder is sent once per unpaid invoice.

Add: click + Reminder to create a new reminder. See Adding and Editing a Reminder.
Turn on/off: use the toggle on a reminder to pause the reminder without deleting it.
Duplicate: use the copy icon to clone an existing reminder as a starting point for a new one, useful for reusing wording across a few different day offsets.
Edit: click the pencil icon to open a reminder. See Adding and Editing a Reminder.
Delete: click the trash icon to remove a reminder permanently. This does not impact any reminders already sent.

Adding and Editing a Reminder

Click + Reminder to create a new reminder or click the pencil icon on an existing reminder to edit it:

Reminder Name: an internal label for the reminder. Not shown to the client.
How many days after the invoice sent date?: the timing offset that determines when this reminder fires, calculated from the invoice Sent Date.
Subject: the email subject line which supports merge fields.
Email Body: a rich text editor that also supports merge fields.

The Merge Fields panel lets you click to insert any of the following at your cursor position in the Subject or Email Body. The fields auto-populate per recipient when the reminder sends:

Merge Field	Inserts
{{Client Name}}	The client's name.
{{Firm Name}}	Your firm's name.
{{Invoice Balance}}	The invoice remaining balance due.
{{Invoice Date}}	The invoice date.
{{Invoice Number}}	The invoice number.
{{Invoice Total}}	The invoice total amount.
{{Matter Name}}	The matter the invoice is for.
{{Primary Contact First Name}}	The client's primary contact's first name.
{{Primary Contact Last Name}}	The client's primary contact's last name.
{{Insert View Invoice Button}}	A clickable button linking the client to their invoice for viewing and payment.

Changes you save to a reminder only apply going forward. They are not applied retroactively to copies of reminders that have already been emailed. Click Save when you're done.

Setting Reminders at the Client or Matter Level

The Send Reminders option can also be set for a specific client or matter, from the applicable Invoice Presets tab. You can set it to Yes or No to control whether new invoices created for that client or matter start out with reminders on or off, overriding the firm-wide default.

Use these settings to accommodate an exception that applies to a specific client or matter, rather than one invoice at a time. For example, a client you always want excluded from reminders regardless of what's typical for the rest of your firm.

Note: When you enable your firm for Invoice Reminders the client and matter Send Reminders options are set to Yes for all clients and matters of the firm.

Setting Reminders on a Single Invoice

Every invoice also has a Send Reminders option, found on the Invoice Details tab next to its Sent Date. This is the most specific level of control, and is what determines whether an invoice can receive reminders.

When you create a new invoice, the Send Reminders checkbox is automatically set based on the applicable client or matter Invoice Presets. If no reminder setting has been configured for the client or matter, the firm-wide default is used. Invoices sent before the firm’s Start Reminders date are excluded and default to unchecked.

You can override the setting on an individual invoice at any time.

Managing the Sent Date for Invoice Reminders

Every invoice has a Sent Date, which is separate from its Invoice Date or Created Date. If you email the invoice from Bill4Time, the Sent Date is set automatically. If you deliver it another way, you'll need to set it yourself.

The Sent date is visible on either the Invoices new experience grid or the Invoice Batch new experience grid:

Go to the Invoicing tab.
Make sure New Experience is toggled on.
Set the Type filter to Invoices Only.
Click Columns and enable Sent Date.

Or from an Invoice Batch:

Go to the Invoicing tab.
Make sure New Experience is toggled on.
Set the Type filter to All, Grouped View or Batches Only.
Click into a specific Batch
Make sure New Experience is toggled on.
Enable Sent Date in Columns on the Invoices tab.

Once it's visible, you can edit an invoice Sent Date directly from the grid using the pencil icon next to the date.

Important: You can adjust an invoice's reminder schedule by changing its Sent Date, but only before the first reminder is sent. Once a reminder has been sent, changing the Sent Date will not reset or reschedule the remaining reminders. Subsequent reminders are scheduled based on when the previous reminder was sent.

Reminder History

Reminder history helps your firm track invoice follow-ups and maintain a record of sent reminders for audit purposes.

The invoice grid’s Last Reminder Date column shows when the most recent reminder was sent for each invoice. To display it, open Columns and enable Last Reminder Date. Hover over the date to view a full history of reminder emails sent for that invoice.

Invoice Reminder Rules

Reminders are only sent for eligible invoices - invoices that have been sent (i.e. have a sent date) or marked as sent, and that are still unpaid.
Reminders stop automatically once an invoice no longer has an outstanding balance.
Unpaid invoices sent before your firm's Start Reminders date are excluded, even if remain due, and their Send Reminders checkbox defaults to unchecked.
The invoice Send Reminders checkbox must be selected for reminders to be sent. For new invoices, this setting follows the applicable client or matter’s Invoice Presets. You can change this setting on an individual invoice as needed.
Client- or matter-level Send Reminders settings only affect new invoices going forward. Changing the setting on a client or matter doesn't retroactively change the checkbox on invoices that already exist.
Every enabled reminder evaluates independently, allowing a single invoice to trigger several reminders over its lifetime, one at each day setting you've configured.

Tips & Common Use Cases

Use the Reply To routing to ensure client replies land with whomever actually manages the relationship.
Set the Start Reminders date to today if you don't want a backlog of old unpaid invoices to suddenly trigger a wave of reminders the moment you turn this on.
Duplicate the default 30-day reminder as a starting point when adding additional touchpoints, such as a 60-day follow-up or a firmer final notice around 120 days.

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