Xero Invoice Reminder Automation
Automatically send friendly invoice payment reminders before they become overdue.
Nora monitors your Xero invoices daily and sends payment reminders to customers 3 days before due date. Integrates with Gmail to send personalized reminder emails. Reduces late payments and improves cash flow without manual follow-up.
Every day at 9 AM, Nora queries Xero for unpaid invoices that are exactly three days away from their due date. It filters this list based on the minimum amount you specified, cross-referencing the contact record to locate the customer's email address. For each matching invoice, Nora drafts and sends a personalized payment reminder through your connected Gmail account, detailing the invoice number, amount, and due date. Overdue invoices are compiled into a separate escalation list.
The finance manager no longer has to run daily aged receivables reports or construct follow-up emails for upcoming due dates. They review the daily escalation list Nora provides to decide which overdue accounts require a phone call, a formal collections letter, or a temporary payment plan.
Runs daily at 9 am using Xero and Gmail, run by your Finance Manager.
How it works
- Query unpaid Xero invoices — At 9 AM daily, Nora connects to the Xero API to pull a list of all invoices with an unpaid status. It filters this list to isolate invoices where the due date is exactly three days from the current date.
- Apply minimum amount threshold — Nora checks the total amount of each upcoming invoice against the minimum threshold you set during your conversational setup. Invoices falling below this amount are ignored, keeping reminders focused on significant balances.
- Retrieve customer contact details — For the filtered invoices, Nora reads the associated contact record in Xero. It extracts the primary email address and the contact name required to personalize the reminder email before drafting the message.
- Handle missing email addresses — If a Xero contact lacks an email address, Nora cannot send the reminder. It logs the invoice number and contact name, compiling them into a short exception report sent to you so you can update the customer record.
- Send reminders via Gmail — Nora uses the mcp__gmail__send_email scope to compose and send individual emails from your Gmail account. Each message includes the customer name, invoice number, amount due, and a polite reminder of the upcoming due date.
- Compile overdue escalation list — During the same daily run, Nora identifies invoices that have crossed their due date without payment. It groups these into a single summary message and sends it to your preferred channel for manual review and escalation.
What this replaces
Finance teams traditionally start their day by logging into Xero and generating an aged receivables report. They sort the report by due date, identify which invoices are due later that week, and manually cross-reference customer email addresses. They then copy and paste a template into Gmail and send the reminders.
- Generate and export aged receivables reports in Xero.
- Filter the list to find invoices due in exactly three days.
- Look up contact email addresses for each matching invoice.
- Draft and send individual reminder emails in Gmail.
Rough estimate rather than a measured figure: about 30 minutes a day, on the basis of 15 to 20 upcoming invoices taking 60 to 90 seconds each to verify and email.
What it needs to run
Accounts and plans
- A Xero account with standard or advisor access.
- A Google Workspace Gmail account.
Access it asks for
- Xero standard OAuth scopes to read invoices and customer details.
- mcp__gmail__send_email to send the outgoing reminder emails to customers.
What Nora reads
- Xero invoice records including status, due date, total amount, and invoice number.
- Xero contact records including primary email address and contact name.
What Nora writes
- Outgoing emails in your Gmail sent folder.
When it goes wrong
- Xero API rate limit is exceeded during a high-volume daily run. Nora pauses execution, waits for the 60-calls-per-minute limit window to reset, and resumes processing. If the daily limit is hit, it alerts you and stops until the next day.
- The customer contact record in Xero has no primary email address. Nora skips sending the email for that specific invoice. It adds the contact and invoice number to a daily exception report sent to your channel, prompting you to update Xero.
- Xero access token expires and the scheduled refresh attempt fails. Nora halts the automation immediately and sends a message to your chat channel notifying you that the Xero connection requires re-authentication. It will not attempt to send any emails.
- No unpaid invoices match the three-day due date criterion for the day. Nora completes the Xero query, identifies that there are zero matches for the day, and quietly finishes the run. It does not send any emails or generate an empty report.
- An invoice is marked unpaid but has an unallocated credit note. Nora reads the raw unpaid status and total amount due. It will send a reminder for the outstanding balance. You must allocate credit notes in Xero before the 9 AM run.
Who this is for
Worth it if
- Finance managers at 10-50 person agencies issuing dozens of invoices weekly.
- B2B service businesses where polite, proactive follow-ups materially reduce late payments.
- Operations teams spending more than 20 minutes a day manually checking Xero due dates.
Not worth it if
- Businesses with very low invoice volume where manual follow-up takes negligible time.
- Companies that use highly customized payment schedules requiring human judgement for every reminder.
- Teams using a dedicated accounts receivable platform that already handles this logic.
A worked example
A 14-person commercial cleaning company issues about 80 invoices a month. They told Nora via web chat to remind customers three days before the due date, but only for invoices over $200.
Subject: Upcoming due date for Invoice INV-4029 Hi Sarah, This is a quick note to remind you that Invoice INV-4029 for $450.00 is due on October 15. You can review the invoice and payment options through the link provided in the original invoice email. If you have already scheduled this payment, please disregard this message. Thank you, Accounts Team
Frequently asked questions
How do I change the number of days before the reminder is sent?
You tell Nora in your chat channel what you want changed. If you prefer reminders to go out five days before the due date instead of three, you just type that request. Nora updates its instructions and applies the new timing to the very next daily schedule run.
Will Nora accidentally send reminders to clients I want to exclude?
Nora only processes invoices based on the instructions it has. If you have specific clients or projects that should never receive automated reminders, you tell Nora to exclude them. Nora will check the contact name on the invoice and skip sending an email if it matches your exclusion list.
What happens if a customer replies to the reminder email?
The reminder email is sent directly from your connected Gmail account, so any replies go straight into your regular inbox. Nora does not intercept or automatically reply to these incoming messages unless you have specifically configured a separate email-handling automation to read and categorize incoming mail.
How do I know which reminders were actually sent each day?
Since Nora sends the emails directly through your Gmail account, you can always check your Sent folder to see exactly what went out. Additionally, you can ask Nora to send a brief summary message to your WhatsApp or web chat channel after the 9 AM run, listing the invoice numbers it processed.
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