BillGrid

Help Center · Payments

Late fees

Set late fee terms, choose whether fees wait for you or are added for you, and waive one.

Open the account menu, click Settings, then choose Invoice Defaults and turn on Charge late fees on overdue invoices.

Set your terms

Pick ready-made terms or choose Custom:

  • 1.5% a month — 1.5% of what's unpaid every 30 days from 5 days overdue, up to 10% of the invoice.
  • Flat $25 — one fee, 5 days overdue.
  • $25, then 1.5% a month — the flat fee first, then the monthly percentage from 35 days overdue.
  • UK statutory, for accounts in pounds — the law's fixed sum (£40, £70 or £100 by the invoice's size) 1 day overdue, then interest at 8% a year over the Bank of England base rate every 30 days. Each invoice keeps the rate in force when it's sent.

Custom terms have up to two parts. For each, choose what it charges (a percentage of what's unpaid, a yearly interest rate, or a flat amount), how often (once, or every 7 to 90 days) and from how many days overdue (0 to 90). + Add another part adds the second. Fees that repeat stop at your cap, a share of the invoice total, or a year overdue if you turn the cap off. To try any terms on a sample invoice first, use the late fee calculator.

Beside your terms, a worked example shows each fee on a sample invoice, and the sentence that will appear on your invoices. Click Save changes when it reads right.

What your client sees

  • Your terms are printed on every invoice you send from now on, and on estimates: a client who approves an estimate accepts them.
  • An invoice keeps the terms it was sent with, even if you change yours later.
  • With Warn clients before the fee date on, reminders and the payment page say when a fee is due and how much it will be.

When a fee is due

Under When a fee is due, choose:

  • Ask me first — the fee shows as ready on the invoice and on the Outstanding tab, where you can add it, or review every ready fee and add them together.
  • Add it automatically — BillGrid adds each fee on its day. Your client sees it in their next reminder.

With Email me a morning summary on, you get one short email on days with new fees. To take a fee back, open the invoice and click Waive; you can send your client a short note with it.

When no fee is added

  • A percentage counts only what's unpaid of the work, never earlier fees.
  • No fee on a paid, archived or payment-plan invoice, or one paid automatically.
  • None while an invoice's reminders are paused, and none more than a year overdue.
  • A flat fee applies to invoices in your account's currency.

Clients and invoices already sent

On a client's page, under Late fees, give that client your terms, terms of their own, or none. Invoices that went out before you turned late fees on carry no terms; Settings offers to bring open ones under your terms. Each client gets the terms first, with the next reminder or a short email, and a fee can follow only after.

Fees appear on the invoice as their own lines and in your reports, kept apart from the work in Profit and Loss.

Still stuck?