Glossary · Collections
Overdue invoice
Also called Past-due invoice, Late invoice
An overdue invoice is one that is still unpaid after its due date. Being one day past due is enough; how late it is decides what happens next.
An invoice becomes overdue the day after its due date passes without full payment. From then on it is measured by days past due, and most collection processes key their steps to that number: a reminder at a few days, a firmer message at 30, escalation at 60 or 90.
Being overdue has legal consequences as well as practical ones. In the EU and UK, statutory late-payment interest and a fixed recovery sum become payable once a B2B invoice is overdue, without any reminder. In the US, interest at the state’s legal rate or the contract rate generally starts running.
Most overdue invoices are not refusals. They are stuck: missing a PO, sent to the wrong address, waiting for an approver, or forgotten. The first job with a newly overdue invoice is finding out which, which is why a short, specific first reminder works better than a stern one.
Example
An invoice due on 15 May is unpaid on 16 May: it is one day overdue. On 15 June it is 31 days past due and moves from the 1–30 days column of the aging report to the 31–60 column.