Free download · One A4 page
The Polite Chasing Standard
One A4 page that ends the late-night redrafting of awkward reminder emails. Decide once how you chase: the tone, the timing, and the point where it stops being email. Then let your software do the sending.
Get the file ↓01 / The idea
What is a chasing standard?
A chasing standard is one page of decisions, made once, calmly, instead of every time an invoice goes overdue: how you sound when you ask for your money, when each nudge goes out, and the day it stops being email.
Most late payments are admin, not malice. But chasing feels personal, so it gets put off, and the money lands later than it needed to. With the decisions written down, the nudge goes out on schedule, in your voice, whether you feel brave that morning or not.
What do you do with it? Xero and QuickBooks can already send invoice reminders for you. This page is where you decide what they say and when they go. Write it once, switch the reminders on, and the chasing happens without you. Later, the same page can brief an assistant or an AI agent: it is the Standard First method applied to one job.
Built for freelancers, trades and small businesses that invoice and wait.
02 / The page
What's inside
- 01
Tone rules
Five rules that keep the nudge polite without apologising for asking. Most late payments are admin, not malice.
- 02
The three-nudge schedule
Heads-up, reminder, direct ask. Set the days once so chasing never depends on how brave you feel that morning.
- 03
The escalation point
The day the emails stop and something else starts, decided before you need it.
- 04
The never-do list
Six things that make chasing worse, including the email a judge might one day read.
- 05
Fill in your voice
Write-in lines for your first nudge, your days and your escalation step. Template tone reads as template tone; this stays yours.
One page. Print-ready. Works with the reminders already built into Xero and QuickBooks.
03 / Get the file
Yours by email
One page. Print-ready. Five sections, decided once:
- 01Tone rules
- 02The three-nudge schedule
- 03The escalation point
- 04The never-do list
- 05Fill in your voice