Invoicing

Late Payment Fees

Author: FreshBooks
Support: For support email .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

(26 Ratings)

Late Payment Fees makes it easy for you to automatically add extra fees to your outstanding invoices when your clients just won’t pay you on time. You save the time it takes to track and edit your invoices, and get paid for what you deserve.

How it Works
Late Payment Fees automatically update your invoices based on the terms you set. You decide when to add the fees based on the issue date of the invoice and for how much. You can also toggle Late Payment Fees on or off for specific clients.

Getting Started
You can install Late Payment Fees from the Add-on Store. To access the Add-on Store, login to your FreshBooks account and click on the Add-on Store link at the top right menu of your account. From there you can purchase Late Payment Fees.

Setup
To set or modify Late Fees click on the Set Default Terms link in the edit mode of any invoice. From there you can set the details of your Late Fees. These fees are applied across all existing invoices. You can turn off late payment fees for specific clients by going to the Clients tab, clicking the ‘edit’ link for the client and then clicking on the yellow Late Fees tag. From there you will have the option to turn off Late Fees for the client.

Do fees get applied to invoices created before Late Payment Fees are turned on?
Can late fees be applied on a client level?

Do fees get applied to invoices created before Late Payment Fees are turned on?

When you first activate Late Fees and set your terms, the fees will be applied to any invoices that pass your set Deadline starting from the day Late Fees are turned on. This will not work retroactively. Late Fees will not be applied to any invoice that has been created and passed the deadline before Late Fees were activated.

Can late fees be applied on a client level?

When you first turn on Late Fees this will apply across all of your clients. However, you can turn Late Fees off for specific clients by going into the client edit more or invoice edit more and clicking on the yellow ‘Late Fees’ tag. This will pop-up a settings box to let you toggle them on or off.

Reviews of Late Payment Fees

Average Rating Based on 26 Reviews

Razvan
February 16, 2012

Nice ideea. I was looking for something like this.
For me tho, it is not working at all

Debra Edom
September 29, 2011

I think this is a great idea. I'm in the UK Tom and have always considered charging for late payment. Most of my clients pay on time but it just takes a few that you have to keep chasing that wastes my time where I could otherwise be working. I think it only right that clients should pay for that time. This add-on makes it easier but I do agree that the updated invoice should automatically go out. I must admit, I thought that was a given.

Freshbooks, can you make these invoices go out automatically please, please!!!!

Jay
September 18, 2011

Each recurring charge should be able to have its own late fee rate. In other words, instead of an invoice having a late fee, each line item may have a different late fee rate.

Steve Baldwin
August 27, 2011

Great feature! However, it is frustrating to our clients that they do not get an updated invoice with the new late fees added. Even though all clients have the ability to log in and view the invoice anytime, most do not and are very surprised to see a different total than expected when they pay late. We would be able to collect better if notices of the applied late payments are sent automatically when they are added to the invoices.

monica
August 26, 2011

Love this feature was doing it manually also suggested tweaks...once an invoice has been updated by you that it automatically updates and we don't have to keep resending the new updated invoice, like most clients won't open new one they just think it's the same one.

Also I charge for every 7 days late so it would be nice to be able to set it for more than just once late but to set for each 7 days it's late, if 21 days late I need my late fee to charge 3 times.

thanks this would rock

Ben Lancaster
August 6, 2011

Great little application I must say... Although I would love the option to change how many days between each compound. I want the deadline to be 14 days, but I want the fee charged every 7 days.

If you add this feature, then it would be perfect!

Chad
May 9, 2011

Hey folks,

this has been great to use, a couple one suggestion though:

I find that often, when an invoice is updated, a client won't download the new one (some clients download a PDF then discard the email with link), and just end up paying the original amount. So, the invoice is left in a partial paid state. It would be nice to have the charges automatically added to their next invoice (or have this as an option - either add to next invoice or add to current invoice). THe other place this really causes issues for me is when freshbooks syncs with Xero - the invoice change doesn't update in xero, and it's a few steps to make the corrections in xero.

Thanks again - great feature - could use a bit of work still.

Matt Lovett
February 24, 2011

Works well. Well done Fresh Books

Stephanie
February 15, 2011

I love this feature, but if I can ask for one thing - I'd love to be able to set the date the fee is applied separately from the date the fee is compounded

Dave Heavrin-Brown
February 12, 2011

Thank you so much for this add-on!!! I've been doing this manually if someone's 30 days past due and now I don't need to worry about it! What a relief! You know... you guys at FreshBooks absolutely rock! Thank you again!

Jami Gibbs
February 10, 2011

So very much needed and I'm so grateful it's a free addon!! You've just made my day!

Kameron Barnett
February 9, 2011

Thank you very much for this feature it will be really helpful. There is one issue for me however, and it has been addressed by other customers as well. My payment terms are within 14 days of invoice and the 1.5% per month there after. With this feature however, I have to chose either the 14 days for payment or the monthly compounding. If I make the invoice due in 14 days then it only allows me to compound every 14 days. Other than that it is a great feature though.

John Westbrook
February 9, 2011

THANK YOU for this add on, I've been doing this manually. You guys rock.

John

Jared Ali
February 9, 2011

Great feature, and thank you so much for making this a free add-on.

However, I do have a couple suggestions...

1. I don't want to have to start charging overdue interest until it's well outside of what I might consider to be reasonable... for example, even though my terms are typically NET30, I want to give my clients the benefit of the doubt, and not charge until 60.

At that point, however, I would like to compound every 30 days thereafter (currently set at whatever I set the original threshold to.

2. As noted above by James Buzzard, it seems as though it would be common courtesy to send a late fees reminder, with the updated balance, every time the fee is added...

Thanks again!

Tom
February 9, 2011

A great idea and one I've been thinking about for a while - but how many people will really use it? I've been tempted to add interest to overdue invoices for ages, and while our invoices currently threaten this will happen for late payers, we've never actually imposed it... I'd love to though as some people are hopeless at paying on time. We're based in the UK by the way - does anyone else out there actually charge interest on overdue invoices?

Marianne
February 9, 2011

Great news...
However, I don't think I'll be using it as it doesn't work with my (and many UK) T&Cs; so it will still be easier to manage separately. It would be good to combine both a fixed and % fee, but I can see even before I start explaining that what we are entitled to charge in the UK is almost another development entirely!
Late payment legislation says we can charge a set fee (for admin, costs etc, determined according to size of outstanding amount) plus ongoing interest on the overdue balance, which can change every 6 months according to what Bank of England base rates are doing.
http://payontime.co.uk/late-payment-legislation-interest-calculators

Jared
February 8, 2011

thank you, thank you, thank you

Deva Nadesan
February 8, 2011

Thanks for making this much requested feature freely available!

Ben Blakley
February 8, 2011

Looking forward to giving this a go.

For accounting reasons we have always done our late fees / interest fees as separate invoices. But I think this may just work out great...

Garrett
February 8, 2011

This is a very important feature. Compounding is essential. Word of warning to everyone who reads this: be careful that your interest rate is not usurious. An effective annual rate of 60% or more is a Criminal Code offence in Canada. The rate proposed by James Buzzard is illegal in Canada. Also, if you don't also express your rate in annualised terms, the Canada Interest Act may limit you to 5% annually.

Joseph Schwendt
February 8, 2011

Thank You Thank You!!! I've been asking for this feature for a very long time and I'm very excited to see it built. I would have really liked the ability to have existing invoices pick up the feature (thus 4 stars instead of 5) but I understand that I'll at the very least be able to take advantage of this feature moving forward. Thanks FreshBooks!

Nicholas Jakobsen
February 8, 2011

This is definitely something I've been wanting for a while.

However, it should specify whether the late fee is compounded with existing late fees, and perhaps provide an option to choose. It should also take into account partial payments.

Also, would 'beginning of the next month' would be useful to anyone as a recurrence option?

Doug
February 8, 2011

Bravo! This is a much needed feature.

Thanks again Freshbooks for listening to your customers and offering this add on for free.

SteHan Botha
February 8, 2011

Well done on listening to the FB community and making this a FREE add-on! Easy to implement too! Thanks a lot.

James Buzzard
February 8, 2011

Great idea, but it would be fantastic to be able to charge an inital overdue fee, then charge a different fee every x days thereafter.
For example, payment net terms of 14 days. at 21 days, charge 3.75%, then another 1.25% every 7 days thereafter.

But thanks for this, I've been wanting this feature for a while.

Another question though - can we get the late fees reminder to automatically resend each time the fee is added?

Victor Castillejos
February 7, 2011

great idea !!! thanks

Late Payment Fees

Do fees get applied to invoices created before Late Payment Fees are turned on?

Can late fees be applied on a client level?

Reviews of Late Payment Fees

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